From - BBC World NEWS By - India Bourke - Edited by -Amal Udawatta Share Getty images Messerschmidt 109 and scuba diver at Ile de Planier, Marseille, France (Credit: Getty images) Among the 80-year-old sunken D-Day wrecks that line the coasts of Britain and France, wildlife is thriving on the wreckage of war. Stretching for miles along England's Devonshire coast, between the sea and a patchwork of hills, lies the shingly expanse of Slapton Sands. Humpback whales can occasionally be spotted offshore. A thatched pub at the far end sells fish and chips in an oak-beamed bar. And each year, at dawn on 27 April, hundreds of dead soldiers rise up out of the waves and march across the fields. Or so goes a local ghost-story. The tale has its roots in tragedy. In the spring of 1944, the coastline had become a training area for American troops. Their mission was to complete a secret, full-scale practice of the upcoming D-Day invasion of Utah Beach in Nazi-occupied France – part of