WILLIAM J. FOLLMER
William Joseph Follmer was born 16-Dec 1921 in Shannon City, Iowa. The family soon lived in Mason KY. His parents were Robert Osker Fulmer (1899-1968) and Dora Cleo Collins (1900-1991). He had two brothers: Robert and Virgil and six sisters: Mary, Dorothy, Virginia, Betty, Roberta and Edna. According to the 1930 Federal Census, the family lived in Rural Mason, KY. William was 8 years old at the time. By 1940, they were still living in the same area and William was now 18. He reported he was a “Laborer” an “Unpaid family worker,” a “General Farmer,” and had worked 52 weeks in 1939. He graduated from Orangeburg High School in Kentucky.
William enlisted on 3-Sep 1942 in Cincinnati OH. His Service Number was 35472974. He was listed as 65” tall and weighed 109 pounds.
Editor’s note: there is conflicting information about which LST (Landing Ship Tank) William J. Follmer was aboard on 28-Apr 1944. Most historical documents indicate his unit, the 557th Quartermaster Railhead Company, was aboard the USS LST-507 during Operation Tiger. The museum believes William was aboard LST-507.
Exercise Tiger
Exercise Tiger (also known as Operation Tiger) was a large-scale, live-fire training rehearsal for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. The goal was to practice the amphibious assault (landing from ships onto a beach) needed to retake Europe from Nazi Germany. The location was Slapton Sands on the coast of Devon, England, chosen because its landscape looked like Utah Beach in France. There were roughly 30,000 American soldiers and sailors using Landing Ship Tanks. LSTs were large, slow ships designed to carry heavy vehicles. An LST had a top speed of about 12 knots (13.8 MPH). The danger in this exercise was organizers used live ammunition overhead to make the training realistic. The military rehearsal happened in Lyme Bay, which is a large bay located in the English Channel off the southern coast of England. There was frequently German E-Boats in the section of the English Channel. The narrow waters of the English Channel saw such heavy combat between these German craft and the Royal Navy that the area became known as “E-Boat Alley”. The exercise ended in a tragic friendly fire and enemy ambush disaster in April 1944.
E-Boats
A German E-boat served the same general fast-attack purpose as an American PT boat, but it was a significantly larger, more heavily armed, and diesel-powered vessel. German E-boats (officially called Schnellboote or S-boats) were about 35 meters (114 feet) long with wood-planked hulls on metal frames. E-boats carried heavy anti-aircraft guns (like 37mm and 20mm cannons) alongside their torpedo tubes, functioning almost like mini-gunboats as well as torpedo craft.
LST-507
The 557th Quartermaster Railhead Company boarded and loaded onto LST-507 on 26-Apr 1944.
27-Apr 1944
Convoy T-4 of Operation Tiger was planned to have a specific minimum escort of two Royal Navy warships. However, due to a combination of miscommunication and operational damage to one ship, the convoy would soon face German E-boats with only one active escort instead of the scheduled pair. The ships were on their way to meet and form one convoy in Lyme Bay. The distance from Lyme Bay to Slapton Sands was the approximate time it would take to make the crossing to Utah Beach on D-Day.
At about 7:30 P.M. the British staff officer began reading the signal log and realized that something was missing. On the evening of April 27, when the HMS Scimitar (H21) was brought in for examination of damage to her hull, the duty officer at Plymouth was under the mistaken impression that the Scimitar had been sent into port and that a replacement escort had been assigned to the convoy. The dockyard announced that it could not take the destroyer until the following morning, so the Scimitar sat at her mooring as the convoy moved on toward Slapton Sands.
He called in the captain of the Scimitar. Finding the captain and bringing him to headquarters took several hours, so it was not until nearly midnight that the Plymouth headquarters was aware of what was really happening at sea.
For more of his story, click on the pdf below.
