Month: January 2024

Thursday, 23 May (7.30pm)

Join us as Dr Harry Bennett discusses the operation Exercise Tiger tragedy of 28 April 1944.

As has become well known since the 1980s, on the night of 28 April German motor torpedo-boats attacked a convoy of American tank landing ships in Lyme Bay during a practice invasion exercise (Exercise Tiger) for the landings on Utah Beach.

Two vessels of convoy T4 were sunk and a third badly damaged. The official death toll was put at 749 US Navy soldiers and US Army sailors.

It took four decades for the tragedy of Exercise Tiger to emerge, but what happened in the aftermath of the attack, as a second convoy found itself in the path of the same German motor torpedo-boats that had attacked the T4 convoy, has remained hidden from history until the 21st Century.

Dr Harry Bennett, Associate Professor in History in the School of Society and Culture at the University of Plymouth, is the author of The War for England’s Shore: S-Boats and the Fight Against Britain’s Coastal Convoys.

You can register by emailing us at info@plymouthathenaeum.co.uk

If you require wheelchair access, please email us at info@plymouthathenaeum.co.uk

Thursday, 8 February 2024 (7.30pm)

Please join Plymouth Laureate of Words Dr Rosemarie Corlett, accompanied by special guests, for a talk and reading about creative writing and the climate emergency.

The evening will delve into creative writing, nature and animals, with a mixture of nature writing readings and reflections on the climate crisis.

We’ll explore how we write through emergency; if and how creative writing can help deepen our understanding and open our hearts to the climate crisis; whether creative writing can expand knowledge, generate emotional investment and connect with the impact of species decline, with a view to engendering interest and acts of biodiversity conservation and renewal.

Rosemarie will read from her collection, Flightless Bird, as well as sharing some new poems, and will reflect upon species extinction, how we negotiate loss, and how we write about and through animals.

If you require wheelchair access, please email us at info@plymouthathenaeum.co.uk

You can register on Eventbrite HERE.