The twenty-one foot tide of North Devon withdrew toward the Irish Sea, leaving the confluence of the Taw-and-Torridge a Y-shaped trickle in the flat sands. This was significant, for these tidal and beach conditions approximated those in Normandy where the allied invasion force would land in action. LCTs (Landing Craft Tank) and coasters, which would play a part in the invasion, were left high and "dried out" by the ebb.

Beyond the lighthouse in the distance lay the dunes and surf-swept beaches of the U.S. Army Assault Training Center at Woolacombe. Here a series of small boat crews from the Advance Amphibious Training Base at Appledore-Instow practiced assaults with successive divisions of infantry troops amidst realistic gunfire and bombardment. The principal objective was the long flat beach of Woolacombe, and the "hedgehogs" of its hinterland, a reasonable facsimile of a "certain" piece of the coast of Europe. Time would tell where and when the actual invasion landscape would be encountered.