October 2016 – TumbleStone

Slapton Sands, Part Five: Beach Stones in the Rough

In his 1954 book, “The Pebbles on the Beach”, Clarence Ellis has a chapter on “The Coastline of England and Wales”. There he writes (page 125):

In the middle of Start Bay is a bed of shingle that must not be missed. This is the extensive bar at Torcross that encloses the lagoon called Slapton Ley. There is one very unusual feature about it. Its pebbles do not come from the rocks of the Bay. Many of them are flints, yet there is no chalk or other flint-bearing rock near to Torcross. The other pebbles are quartz, including very small ones that are pear-shaped, and granite from Dartmoor.

The website of the Slapton Ley National Nature Reserve has some good information on the bar, its beach and its stones. This Reserve is managed by the Field Studies Council in partnership with the owners, Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust, along with Natural England and South Hams District Council. Their website highlights the significance of “longshore drift” which is when waves hit the shore at an angle and will move stones and sediment in a certain direction along a stretch of coastline. The website continues: [Note: August 2019 – The website has recently been changed and no longer contains this information]

Slate is the bedrock of Start Bay and so is found in the cliffs bordering the beach. It is a metamorphic rock, changed from clays by heat and pressure, but is relatively soft and so erodes easily. You may find large pieces of slate near the cliffs that have recently been eroded but because it breaks down quickly it is hard to spot much slate on the centre of the ridge. Schist is a very resistant metamorphic rock, and forms Start Point headland jutting out to sea at the south end of Start Bay. It was formed in the Devonian around 395 million years ago. The schist and some of the slate has seams of quartz running through it. Quartz is the most abundant mineral in the Earth’s crust and you will be able to find plenty of it on the ridge. It is a milky white. You can find some igneous rock on the beach, most transported by rivers that have their source on Dartmoor. Quartzite is pinkish and forms a very smooth pebble. It can be found just offshore and was transported up onto the beach by rising sea levels. Most of the shingle making up the ridge is flint; it makes up about 80% of the material on the beach. Flint is only found about 30-40km offshore from the present day coastline which suggests that Slapton Sands originates from this area.

During the visit to Slapton Sands in mid-2016, a few handfuls of stones were collected (59 individual stones in all). Some jasper and quartz are apparent. The photos below are of dry stones followed by some photos of them wet, hinting at how they might look when polished.

Limestone Landscapes of the Vanished World Trail – Part Two: The Elephants

After visiting Earthquakes near Duntroon, we drove about six kilometres further south to an area in the Maerewhenua Valley known as The Elephants. A short walk from a parking bay led to an amazing set of large grey boulders. These limestone rock formations vary from one to ten metres across and lie scattered across a grass paddock on a gently-sloping hillside over an area of about 200 metres. The rocks are rounded from weathering but, despite their names, do not specifically resemble elephant shapes. A set of limestone outcrops borders the area on two of its sides.

As noted on the Information Sign, these large rocks are the weathered remnants of the Otekaike Limestone formation which lies above the Oligocene Kokoamu Greensand (we encountered reference to this sequence at the Information Panel at Earthquakes). Thus the rocks originated at the bottom of the sea some 25 million years ago. When these strata lifted and surfaced, the forces of wind and water did their part in shaping the limestone boulders. The boulders are much larger than a person and walking amongst them makes you feel but a small actor in a large landscape. The following photos convey some sense of this:

The Elephants is a popular site for limestone bouldering (climbing). One climbing website refers to Elephants having “over 300 problems with 80% of them being V3 or below [not too difficult], hence it is a paradise for social climbers looking to improve their skills”.

There is a recent great drone-shot video clip of the Elephants on YouTube:

In 2005, The Elephants were used as the site for the filming of part of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. The scenes of Aslan’s camp were filmed here. When we visited, a deserted film set could be seen up a nearby valley:

Limestone Landscapes of the Vanished World Trail – Part One: Earthquakes

Stone polishers become interested in geology and geological formations as therein lie the origins of the stones that have caught our imagination. I have also long felt drawn to limestone landscapes, their outcrops and their caves. Limestone often holds fossils which turn out to be vital to geological dating of strata.

In February 2016, when Petra and I spent a few weeks in the South Island of New Zealand, we visited the Duntroon area in the Waitaki Valley to see the limestone landscapes there. The local community had formed the Vanished World Society in the early 2000s to help raise public awareness about the very interesting geology of the Waitaki district. The Society is active in promoting the science, conservation and appropriate use of local geological resources. The fossils, limestone landscapes and volcanic sequences of the area have been important in the conceptual origins and ongoing development of geological understanding at a national level. Geologists from the University of Otago have developed a positive and ongoing relationship with the landowners in the Waitaki district, primarily as part of a research programme on local fossils.

The Vanished World Trail is a set of more than 20 sign-posted freely-accessible locations spanning coastal localities from Moeraki to Oamaru and extending inland through the Waitaki Valley. After visiting the Vanished World Centre in the village of Duntroon, Petra and I drove 6.5 kilometres down a gravel road to a place known as “Earthquakes”.

As explained in the roadside information panel (see below), the name “Earthquakes” reflected an early-held belief that the limestone cliffs here were a fault escarpment, but it is now thought that a massive landslide created them.

On one side of the road, a locality sign

On the other side of the road, two signs providing information about Earthquakes

We walked up hte lefthand side of this fence

In a 2010 newspaper article, a local historian, Elizabeth McCone, said that visitors needed to take care when wandering through the various crevasse and fault scarps of Earthquakes. “It’s a typical limestone formation and it’s got sinkholes.” Ms McCone reported that there was a commonly held belief among geologists that there was an underground river or waterway originally in the area and the “roof” collapsed, resulting in the unique land formations. “Limestone areas have huge caves and underground rivers. Duntroon has huge caverns underneath it. You can walk under Duntroon for quite a length – almost from the bridge up to the Presbyterian church.”

Petra and I walked up to the Earthquakes cliffs from the roadside and came upon another information panel sited opposite the fossil of an ancient baleen whale.

On the threshold of Earthquakes

On a boulder, looking back downhill, over the roof of the fossil whale towards the Information Panel

The caged fossil whale, embedded in the limestone

We then pressed on, cameras in hand, along the great cliffs, keeping to the narrow pathway worn by previous visitors as it snaked around boulders and crevices. To the right of us ran the long clean line of the towering cliffs. After perhaps just less than a kilometre, they ran out and we turned to look back down the valley before making our return.

The first part of the cliff-face

One of the darker deeper crevices

Looking back down the valley

A smaller set of cliffs on the other side of the valley

Pigeons atop the cliff

“The Wild Places” – Where I feel blessed

Looking eastwards out to sea

I reached the cliffs at the end of the beach but did not linger long under them.

“Aurora Nova” and “The Wild Places” by Dan Fogelberg

I was walking alone through the lofty San Juans
With a heart full of light and a head full of songs
I was thinking of time and how much it will cost
To recapture the souls that we surely have lost

In the cities and towns there are millions who dream
But the traffic’s so loud that you can’t hear them scream
There’s a heaven on earth that so few ever find
Though the map’s in your soul and the road’s in your mind

So many mountains before us, so many rivers to cross
Where is the wisdom to bring back the vision we’ve lost?

Can we gaze with the wonder of children
Into the deafening night?
Has it gotten so dark that you cannot remember the light?

When you sleep on the ground with the stars in your face
You can feel the full length of the beauty and grace
In the wild places man is an unwelcome guest
But it’s here that I’m found and it’s here I feel blessed

The Stone Garden

We have been polishing stones for about eight months now and the issue has naturally arisen of what we do with them once they are polished. We are in no rush to “do” anything with the stones apart from appreciating them – there is plenty of enjoyment in the process of gathering and polishing stones to keep us more than happy. However, one thought that arose was the idea of a stone garden – a small garden consisting entirely of stones, including polished ones, with the occasional small plant or artifact. So a small dry garden at the front of the house, planted with roses, was chosen.

This corner garden has not suited the roses well and gets very dry, requiring regular watering over the summer. So the first step in the make-over involved up-rooting and shifting the roses a handful of metres away, where they have since re-established and flourished. After laying down weed-mat on the vacated area, a bed of white stone chips (“Spanish white stone”) from the local garden store was spread out, providing the canvas for the eventual arrival of polished stones. Some items of visual interest have been added, including driftwood, two blue ceramic koru ferns, schist rocks collected from Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier in February when we were in Westland (in the South Island of New Zealand), and a small circle of semi-polished black and white stones collected from footpaths in Southland (these stones did not polish well due to the relative softness of the white parts, but they look great in this garden).

Just after laying the white stone chips

The initial placing of rocks

A sn=mall circle of semi-polished black and white stones collected from footpaths at Slope Point and Hendersons Bay in Southland

The schist stones have come from the valleys of the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers in the South Island of New Zealand

This stone garden will develop and change in the future, with the addition of more polished stones and unpolished rocks in various configurations.

“Love By Satellite”

Remembering an old friend and chess partner and backyard cricketer, David Parker, still a great musician, and taking the opportunity to look down from satellite with fondness on some great New Zealand places, such as Riverton, Birdlings Flat, and home (near Karapiro)…

“Love by Satellite” by David Parker

Look out of sight on a moonlit night,
You can feel it breathing,
The night is breathing
Sending messages across the sky,
Written(??) on the air, the one receiving
I wonder if it’s cold tonight,
I want to be the one who’s holding you tight
I send my love by satellite
I send my love by satellite

Operator, would you clear the line?
I want to tell my baby that I miss her
Want to tell her things are going fine
But I really need to hug and kiss her
Won’t you tell her that it’s cold tonight
I want to be the one that’s holding you tight
I send my love by satellite
I send my love by satellite

Can you hear me on the air?

And all the stars, Venus and Mars,
I may as well be the man on the moon
You’re so far away
You’re so far away
You’re so far

Send my love by satellite

I send my love by satellite
I send my love by satellite…

Can you hear me on the air?
Can you hear me on the air…

I send my love by satellite
I send my love by satellite

Slapton Sands, Part Four: The Tragedy of “Exercise Tiger”

The second memorial on Slapton Sands is a World War Two US Sherman tank salvaged from a sunken landing ship. Its existence is owed primarily to the efforts of one man, Ken Small, as is the knowledge of the tragedy that led to that tank lying beneath nine metres (60 feet) of water off the coast at Slapton Sands.

slapton-torcross-sherman-tank06

Ken Small first came to Torcross on holiday and fell in love with the place. When the opportunity came to move there with his family, he sold a successful hair dressing business in Grimsby. Ken bought Cove House in Torcross and ran it as a guest house. He then started to suffer from depression. As part of the process of dealing with this, he started to take long walks along Slapton Sands and took up the pastime of beachcombing. After a storm in 1969, Ken started to find old bullet cases, military tunic buttons, shrapnel and other military pieces amongst the usual antique coins and broken pieces of jewelry. He asked local residents about where the military pieces may have come from and he found out about live fire exercises that had taken place on Slapton Sands in 1944, during World War Two.

One of Ken’s friends was a fisherman who mentioned that there was something sitting on the seabed about a kilometre off shore of Slapton Sands. Ken persuaded his friend to dive down and investigate – and an American Sherman Tank was discovered. Ken decided he wanted to salvage the tank and after years of frustration and persistence, he finally was able to contact the appropriate office in the US government from whom he could purchase the tank (for US$50). Finally, in 1984, Ken managed to raise the tank and place it where it stands today at the south end of Slapton Ley, just outside of the village of Torcross, as a memorial to those US soldiers and sailors who died during the live exercise in April 1944 known as “Exercise Tiger”(also sometimes referred to as “Operation Tiger”).

Ken Small and the salvaged tank on the way in to shore

The newly-salvaged tank arrived on the beach

Plaque on the Tank Memorial

We know about Exercise Tiger primarily because of Ken Small. Ken’s son, Dean Small, explained (from a Western Morning News article in 26 April 2014): “As Ken learned more about Exercise Tiger and the terrible death toll, he decided to recover the tank and dedicate it as a memorial to those who lost their lives. After some years of negotiating with the American government, contacting US veterans around the world and even speaking to members of the E-Boat crews who torpedoed the convoy, Ken finally achieved his objective in May 1984. As soon as the tank was out of the water the story went international and he received countless letters from veterans and their families and was officially thanked by US President Ronald Reagan.”

Ken was encouraged to write a book about the whole story of Exercise Tiger and the men who died. His book, “The Forgotten Dead”, was published by Bloomsbury in 1988. The following is a brief outline of the history he uncovered:

On the evening of 27 April 1944, Exercise Tiger involved a number of LSTs travelling out to sea and then making a landing at Slapton Sands. An LST is a “Landing Ship, Tank” – a flat bottomed four and a half thousand tons assault ship capable of carrying several hundred men, lorries and tanks, somewhat like a large vehicle ferry. German torpedo boats were known to patrol the English Channel at night but the British vessels tasked to protect the LSTs failed to communicate their sighting of a number of such boats in the vicinity. Eight LSTs were attacked, two were sunk and another was badly damaged. In all, 749 American soldiers and sailors died that night, with another 200 lost at other times during Exercise Tiger due to other mistakes, such as soldiers landing during mistimed naval bombardment of the beach (see here for the full story).

Painting by Ted Archer of the attack on US LSTs during Exercise Tiger, 27/28 April 1944

LST289 was severely damaged in the stern from a torpedo and limped back to port

Exercise landings at Blackpool Sands, a beach just to the east of Slapton Sands. Source: http://www.prisonersofeternity.co.uk/the-slapton-sands-tragedy/

“COAST” SEGMENT ON EXERCISE TIGER: Below is an extract from a BBC Coast programme on Exercise Tiger – the first 3 minute 50 seconds is about the Evacuation (including an interview with an evacuee), then the training exercises on Slapton Sands are dealt with, the topic of Exercise Tiger starting at 4 minutes 15 seconds (including an interview with a survivor whose tale is horrifying at times):

More details of the story of Ken Small, his discovery of the secret history of Exercise Tiger, and his purchase and salvage of the Sherman tank for a memorial to those who died.

A video of a tribute to Ken Small by a British historian in 2013.

MORE INTERNET MATERIAL: Significant internet material on Exercise Tiger can be found as follows: Exercise Tiger Trust, including a historical document archive, list of YouTube videos on Exercise Tiger, and the full Roll of Honour of those who were killed; Exercise Tiger Remembered, a small voluntary group mainly from Devon; Exercise Tiger Memorial, a website of a non-profit organisation dedicated to the remembrance of the American soldiers and sailors who perished on April 28, 1944, and in support of The Sherman Tank Memorial Site; “The D-Day rehearsal that cost 800 lives” by Claire Jones, 30 May 2014, a BBC News Online story providing an overview of Exercise Tiger; “The Slapton Sands Tragedy”, an article by Kim Seabrook; “US Troop Exercises at Slapton Sands”, an article in By The Dart website, 2010; “The Tragedy at Slapton Sands”, a May 2016 post on A Wee Walk, a blog by David Brown; “Slapton Sands Tank” page on “Submerged”, a website on ship-wrecks in Plymouth and Devon started by Peter Mitchell. On the 75th anniversary of Operation Tiger in 2019, an interesting and informative article has been published in the Daily Mail Australia.

YOUTUBE: “World War II Americas Secret D Day Disaster” – an excellent 46 minute US-made documentary aired on the Smithsonian Channel; Original footage of landing exercises at Slapton Sands; More original footage of the 1944 exercises; A third segment of footage on the 1944 exercises; Drone-shot footage of Slapton Ley and Slapton Sands as the context to the Tank Memorial; “Exercise Tiger Video Trailer 2014”, a 13 minute clip with many different aspects of the Exercise, its commemorations, the people who were involved; “History File 06 – Exercise Tiger and the Battle of Lyme Bay” – a 6 minute home-made account of Exercise Tiger, supported by great photos and historical research;

BOOKS: Among the important books on Exercise Tiger are: “The Forgotten Dead” by Ken Small and Mark Rogerson (1988); “Exercise Tiger: The Dramatic True Story of a Hidden Tragedy of World War II” by Nigel Lewis (1990); and “Exercise Tiger:The Forgotten Sacrifice of the Silent Few” by Wendy Lawrence (2015).

Slapton Sands, Part Three: The Historical Significance of a Shingle Beach – The 1943-44 Evacuation

There are two memorials at Slapton Sands. The first is a large granite obelisk that stands at the north end of Slapton Ley, mid-way between Strete and Torcross. Presented by the United States in 1954, it refers to the time when the area was evacuated in 1943 and 1944 to enable military exercises as practices for the landings in Normandy.

Source: http://www.walkingthebattlefields.com/2011/05/sherman-at-slapton-sands-devon.html

Source: http://www.thebeachguide.co.uk/south-west-england/devon/slapton-sands-monument-photos.htm

Source: http://miliblog.co.uk/?cat=395

The Memorial reads: “This memorial was presented by the United States army authorities to the people of the South Hams who generously left their homes and their lands to provide a battle practice area for the successful assault in Normandy in June 1944. Their action resulted in the saving of many hundreds of lives and contributed in no small measure to the success of the operation. The area included the villages of Blackawton, Chillington, East Allington, Slapton, Stokenham, Strete and Torcross together with many outlying farms & houses.” [As Muriel and David Murch and Len Fairweather note on page 37 of their book, “The American Forces at Salcombe and Slapton during World War Two” (1984), the village of Sherford was inadvertently omitted from the Memorial.]

As early as 1938, then-Brigadier Bernard Law Montgomery was pressing for a combined forces (Army, Navy and Air Force) amphibious landing exercise to be held in the summer of that year, in the light of the rise of Hitler. This was to be the first exercise of its kind since Gallipoli in 1915. The plans for the exercise, to be held at Slapton Sands, were meticulous and included a 15-foot model of the Slapton shoreline. The men were brought ashore in cutters and whalers and in lifeboats. Guns, tanks and lorries were landed from flat-bottomed craft. Tracks of heavy canvass with a heavy wire mesh were laid on the shingle to the water’s edge and these proved sufficient to get machinery across the beach. (Source for this paragraph – clicking on this brings up a pdf of an Information Display from Slapton Village.) In her book “The Land Changed its Face: The Evacuation of the South Hams 1943-44” (1973), Grace Bradbeer reports that these exercises (which did not include live firing) were so successful that what had been planned to take place over five days were all completed in one (page 38).

In the long-term planning for the D-Day landings, amphibious landing training was needed, especially for fresh inexperienced US forces. The subsequent choice of Slapton Sands as the location for D-Day training in 1943-1944 was credited as largely the doing of Montgomery who spotted the similarities in the topography of the area to Normandy’s “Utah” beach. In order to preserve secrecy and security, the villages of Blackawton, Chillington, East Allington, Sherford, Slapton, Stokeham, Strete and Torcross were evacuated of all residents and their possessions – an area of 30,000 acres and a total of 3,000 residents. Only six weeks notice was given. The evacuation area was as follows:

slapton-evac-area

As pointed out by one source, this rural, agricultural area had been largely unaffected by the war up until then. Few households had telephones or motor cars and many people had never travelled further away than 15 to 20 kilometres in their entire lives. In addition to the residents it was necessary to consider the movement of farm machinery, crops, livestock, and family pets. There are many personal stories of upheaval and tragedy surrounding this mass evacuation but the common response of the inhabitants was to follow the instructions of authorities “without explanation or argument”. It was accepted that it was for the greater good, to assist the vital war effort.

Just recently, some archive movie footage of the evacuation from the US National Archives Video Collection has been posted on YouTube. This 11 minute segment shows US Army vehicles in Slapton and its surrounding area, and then shows the loading of evacuees’ household belongings onto trucks:

A documentary film, “Evacuation”, was made just a few years ago. The story of the evacuation is told largely in the words of seven local residents who were children at the time, mixing in photographs and previously unseen archive footage. The production was put together by local film-maker Ian Phillips and funded by the Slapton Line Partnership, South Devon Areas of Outstanding National Beauty and The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. The following is an 11 minute extract from the 70 minute film:

A number of practice landings by US soldiers took place at Slapton Sands during early 1944, usually with live ammunition being fired across the beach as the landing craft came in. It has been said that more casualties happened on this practice beach than on the actual Utah Beach landings on D-Day.

“The Evacuation of the South Hams” is an October 2010 article to be found on the “By The Dart” website which is published by South Devon Magazines.

“The Land We Left Behind: A Pictorial History and Memories of the War Years in the South Hams – Produced To Commemorate the 60th Anniversary of D-Day” by Robin Rose-Price & Jean Parnell is a 96 page local history booklet published in 2004. It provides the evacuees’ viewpoint.

The second memorial to be found on Slapton Sands is the subject of the next Post on this beach.

“It Dawned on Me” – I’ll light a beacon

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“It Dawned on Me” by Dave Dobbyn

There’s a black blue front stole the west horizon
Under ocean song hear the tolling bell
On the seventh wave rides my aspirations
They will break, for sure, all my dreams to tell
It dawned on me
It dawned on me
It just dawned on me
This must be what your heart reveals

Blood red bloom pohutukawa
The black dunes hiss with the grasses’ breath
I’ll gather my driftwood and light a beacon
It’s for you I cry, it’s for you I burn
It dawned on me
It dawned on me
It just dawned on me
This must be what your heart reveals

And hey! It just dawned on me for the first time
This must be what your heart reveals

It dawned on me
It dawned on me
It dawned on me
This must be what your heart reveals.

Slapton Sands, Part Two: The Protective Significance of the Shingle Beach

The shingle bar that makes up Slapton Sands, across which the A379 runs, and which protects the freshwater body of Slapton Ley, was deposited about 5,000 years ago. Further deposition has not happened since – any part of the coast washed away is not replaced by natural processes. Recent visitors will see significant signs of erosion along this part of the coast. For example, the beach car park, not far from Slapton village, is clearly being eaten away by the waves when the sea is rougher. Here is a view of the carpark in 2014 from Google Maps streetview, where erosion is not apparent. The following YouTube clips show the effects of a great storm early in 2014, including erosion along the beach:

A year later, 27,000 tonnes of shingle, deposited as a coastal defence measure, were washed away in one day, only three weeks after being put in place:

Just two or three kilometres to the south of Slapton Sands, at Hallsands, most of the shingle beach was removed in the late 1890s as building material for Devonport dockyards, leaving the village exposed to storms. It was struck by a storm in 1917 and most of the village was washed away. A local historian tells the tale of Hallsands in the following way:

In 1917 a huge bank of shingle was removed from about two miles off Hallsands, just south of Torcross, to help in the construction of a new breakwater at Plymouth harbour. W hen the next gale came, this vacuum filled with a gigantic wave which swept wildly inshore , up the beach, and completely engulfed the little fishing village of about twenty cottages. Even those cottages which were built higher up in the cliffs were affected, but happily no lives were lost. The vilage was never inhabited again, save by one occupant, the daughter of a fisherman. She had been born in the cottage, up on the cliff, which had always been her home, and soon after the disaster she returned to live alone, the only occupant of this ghost village. There she stayed until her death in 1970. (Grace Bradbeer, 1973, “The Land Changed its Face; The Evacuation of the South Hams 1943-44”, page 30.)

The view of Hallsands on Google Maps today shows houses atop cliffs – the original village was at the foot of these cliffs. Will Torcross be spared the same fate? The following YouTube clip from a “Britain is Great” TV programme tells the story of the importance of the shingle beaches of South Devon: