Operation Lexington

Operation Lexington was an American invasion of south-west England during the First Euro-American War. On 3 July 1943 three American divisions crossed from Brittany and landed at Falmouth, in St Austell Bay and at Slapton Sands. They took Plymouth on 26 July and were held in August and September on the line of the Exe, short of Exeter. Cornwall and western Devon remained under American occupation until the autumn of 1944, when the American force, its supply across the Channel cut, was driven back and evacuated from Falmouth on 2 November 1944. It was the only invasion of Britain during the war.

The American government presented the invasion as "the Second Revolutionary War". The name is used in the United States; in Britain the campaign is called the West Country campaign.

Background

By the end of 1942 the United States held the coast of France from the Spanish border to the Low Countries, and Britain's imports had fallen to a third of their pre-war tonnage. An American air offensive against southern England from September 1942 to April 1943 failed against radar-directed fighters. Britain joined the European Federation on 3 March 1943, in the Hunger Winter, as American shipping and landing craft were being gathered in the Breton ports.

American planning aimed at taking Plymouth and the Devonport dockyard as a base for the Atlantic Fleet in the Channel, and at forcing Britain out of the war. In speeches before the landings President Wesley Pruitt described the invasion as a return to finish the War of Independence against the British Crown, and the American press called it "the Second Revolutionary War".

Landings

The landings began before dawn on 3 July 1943, the eve of the American Independence Day. The 2nd Marine Division landed at Falmouth and in the Carrick Roads, the 9th Infantry Division in St Austell Bay, and the 41st Infantry Division at Slapton Sands in south Devon, under the cover of four carriers and the battleships of the Atlantic Fleet. Falmouth was taken on 4 July and Truro on 7 July. The landing at Slapton Sands met the British 3rd Division and took four days to break out of its beachhead.

Siege of Plymouth

American forces reached Plymouth on 9 July from the west and the east. The city and the dockyard were defended by a garrison of about 30,000 men, with the guns of the Royal Navy ships that could not leave the Sound. Plymouth was shelled and bombed for seventeen days, and about 6,000 of its civilians were killed. The garrison surrendered on 26 July after the American capture of the Devonport dockyard. Most of the British warships in the harbour were scuttled by their crews.

The Exe line

From Plymouth the Americans advanced east across Dartmoor and along the south Devon coast. They were held from 14 August on the river Exe, from its estuary north to Tiverton, by the British Southern Command under General Sir Edmund Lyle. Exeter, on the eastern bank, remained in British hands. Attacks on the line in August and September failed. The front remained there for a year, and Exeter was shelled throughout.

Occupation

The American Military Government in Europe governed Cornwall and western Devon from Plymouth, as it governed occupied France and the Low Countries. About 600,000 people lived in the occupied area. The military government imposed a curfew, requisitioned food and fuel for its troops, conscripted labour for the Plymouth dockyard and airfields, and shot hostages after attacks on American soldiers. About 8,000 civilians died under the occupation, from executions, hunger and the bombing of the occupied ports by Federation aircraft.

Withdrawal

The American force was supplied by sea from the Breton ports. From the spring of 1944 Federation submarines and aircraft sank most of the shipping crossing the western Channel, and by the summer the force was short of fuel and ammunition. The British offensive from the Exe line began on 18 September 1944. Plymouth was retaken on 14 October, and the American rearguard was evacuated from Falmouth by sea between 28 October and 2 November. About 12,000 Americans were taken prisoner.

Aftermath

Plymouth's centre and dockyard were rebuilt between 1946 and 1962. In Britain the anniversary of the evacuation, 2 November, is marked in Cornwall and Devon, and Exeter received the Federation Cross for its defence. In the United States the operation is remembered as the furthest American advance into Britain, and the "Second Revolutionary War" remained a term of the Columbia League's propaganda until the 1970s.

See also

• First Euro-American War
• Battle of the Azores
• Battle of the Beroun line