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Graham had been an apprentice engineer at Stoke Gifford before he joined up with the Royal Navy on March 26th, 1941. He was posted to the Home Fleet, and served with them for two years, before being transferred to Combined Operations, based in Devon. Here they did intensive training — cross-country running, assault courses, and knife fighting. Graham says that it was the only time that he had felt 100 percent fit. He then moved to Scotland, to serve on the flotilla of 12 landing craft tanks, (LCTs) with the 44th LCT Flotilla. His job was to maintain the engines and generators. The flotilla was assigned to the American Fourth Army in Devon, where they trained for the D-Day landings with practice landings at Horton Sands in South Wales, and around Lyme Bay to Slapton Sands on the South Devon Coast. This was called Exercise Tiger.

The LCTs were very austere, with no heating, and primitive cooking and washing facilities. The boats were designed to land straight onto the beach, but were unsteady in rough weather. Men manning these boats got extra pay.

It was during this training period that the tragedy off Slapton Sands happened. Early on 29th April 1944 the convoy was attacked by German E-boats which had avoided the British patrols. Luckily Graham’s landing craft was shallow, and it had stayed closer to shore, but the American landing ships had to stay further out to sea. ‘So much was happening at the time that I only heard about the tragedy some time later; 749 soldiers and sailors lost their lives in this attack’, he tells us. This proved to be the biggest accident of the conflict, but nothing was known of it until after the war. It led to the victims being called ‘The Forgotten Dead’.

This story was originally told by Graham Hiscox to the Bristol Evening Post on May 14th, 2004, and we acknowledge with thanks their permission to use it.

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