New Bedford Remembers Servicemen Lost During ‘Exercise Tiger’

The city paid homage Sunday to the 749 servicemen killed during Exercise Tiger. The exercise was a D-Day rehearsal held off the coast of Devon, England. The training exercise was found and attacked by German submarines, which sank two U.S. landing craft and severely damaged a third. Veteran Normand Chartier, 91, was a surgical technician at the time ...

The disaster was kept secret for years, and Chartier recalled being told to keep quiet about the incident ...

Chartier and other World War II veterans laid a wreath at Fort Taber-Fort Rodman's Exercise Tiger memorial Sunday, to mark the incident's 70th anniversary. New Bedford is the only U.S. city to have a tank that took part in the exercise. It is on display outside the museum and faces an identical tank in England.

Maj. Gen. L. Scott Rice, adjutant general of the Massachusetts National Guard, spoke at the memorial ceremony and thanked World War II veterans for their sacrifices.