Where Is The Tank They Pulled From The Sea In England

In the spring of 1944, an American M4A1 Sherman "swimming tank" of the 70th Tank Battalion sank off Slapton Sands in Devon, England, during rehearsals for the D-Day landings on Utah Beach. The five-man crew got out. The tank settled in about sixty feet of water, three quarters of a mile offshore, and stayed there for forty years. Weeks later, on the night of 27–28 April 1944, German E-boats attacked a convoy of American tank landing ships in Lyme Bay during Exercise Tiger. Two ships were sunk and a third badly damaged. The most cited death toll is 749, more than three times the American losses on Utah Beach itself on D-Day. Survivors were quarantined and the story was largely forgotten. In this video, we trace the full story of the Torcross tank, from the evacuation of 3,000 people from the South Hams in late 1943 and the design of the Duplex Drive tank, through the escort failures, the typing error and the life-belt mistake that made Exercise Tiger so deadly, to the guesthouse owner Ken Small, who bought the wreck from the US government for fifty dollars in 1974 and spent ten years fighting to raise it. We follow the recovery in May 1984, the US plaque unveiled by Congress in 1987, the evidence that the tank may not have sunk in the disaster it commemorates, and the 2026 storms that destroyed the road beside it and closed its car park for a £19.8 million sea-defence scheme. 🔔 Subscribe so you don't miss the next one 🔔 Chapters: 0:00 A Tank By The Sea 0:53 Slapton Sands 2:32 The Swimming Tank 3:22 Ken Small 4:48 Exercise Tiger 8:30 The Cover-Up That Wasn't 9:03 Raising The Tank 10:00 The Twist 11:12 Where Is It Now 12:22 Closing The tank stands in the Torcross Tank car park at the southern end of Slapton Sands, between the A379 and Slapton Ley. It is recorded on the Imperial War Museums War Memorials Register. Ken Small died on 15 March 2004 and is buried at Stokenham church, a short distance from the tank. His son Dean maintains it. Since 7 September 2026 the car park has been closed as the works compound for the Torcross sea-defence scheme, expected to run until June 2027. Sources: US Naval History and Heritage Command (Exercise Tiger account, casualty figures, Charles B. MacDonald article "Slapton Sands: The Cover-Up That Never Was") Exercise Tiger Memorial Ltd, exercisetigermemorial.co.uk (Ken Small biography, memorial history, anniversary services) Imperial War Museums War Memorials Register (Torcross tank plaque transcriptions) The History Press (Exercise Tiger, D-Day training at Slapton Sands, 1974 purchase and 1984 dedication) Warfare History Network (Night of the Bloody Tiger, crew and recovery details) Devon County Council (February 2026 A379 storm damage statement) Dartmouth Chronicle and Kingsbridge Today (2026 Torcross Tank car park closure, sea-defence scheme) Historic England (Valentine Tank Assemblage, Poole Bay listing) Stars and Stripes (survivor accounts)