I met Ken Small in the 1970s. He was running a B&B at Torcross , the village at one end of Slapton Sands. He had recently bought from the US Department of Defense a Sherman tank which was at that time still lying on the seabed out in Start Bay. It was not a war grave which is why he was allowed to purchase it. (But it WAS reputedly the home of a large conger eel!) Eventually Ken arranged the lifting and recovery of this armoured vehicle and ever since then it has stood as a Memorial in the village.
The story he wrote is about the taking over of that whole area by the US Army in late 1943 as sheldontony says. The villagers were summoned to a meeting and given just six weeks to move out, household possessions, farm animals, the lot. The Americans then moved in and used the area to practice landings in anticipation of the D-Day landings on Utah Beach. The exercises involved the use of live ammunition and casualties were frequent but the big disaster occurred during a major night landing exercise (Exercise Tiger, as Radiorails says) when German torpedo boats got amongst the landing craft. Casualties of US servicemen ran into the many hundreds (and perhaps more) and far exceeded those of D-Day itself at Utah.
That area of the Devonshire South Hams was always a favourite holiday destination for Brummies and no doubt still is. For this reason I myself have memories of Torcross both before and not long after the tragic events which Ken Small commemorated.
Chris