In 1944, in a night-time rehearsal for D-Day off the Devon coast - code named "Exercise Tiger" - U.S. forces were attacked and suffered more casualties than on Utah Beach.

This poem is in memory of those lives, the loss of which was kept secret for four decades. 

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Sunset slowly trims its lamp

Beyond the Start Bay Light

And dayglow fades before the shades

Of fast approaching night.

 

The sky of blue's a darker hue

And soft now sings the lark,

When through the clouds like billowing shrouds,

The moonglow makes its mark.

 

Across the bay, the Start Point Ray

Flashes  - clear and bright -

And brings to mind a different kind...

A dangerous kind of light.

 

Of flares and ships caught unawares,

Shells roaring in the ears;

Of noise-filled night soon searing white

Above a sea of tears.

 

The Channel tide where brave men died

Still weeps upon the shore,

And in the gloom, above their tomb,

The Dead rise up once more.

 

The ghostly Host embrace the coast

And share that shadowed strand;

Beyond life's lease, in love and peace,

The Dead stand hand in hand.

 

As moonlight spills on Devon hills,

And silent sinks the lark,

The eternal star of the day makes way

For the eternal stars of the dark.