First SEALs

by Patrick K. O'Donnell

  Many of the trainees’ covert exercises carried a real element of danger. For example, in one session, “Under the direction of the leader, the operatives go on to throttle the sentry and demolish the central station, about a half mile inland.” The mock exercise even included “killing the enemy sentry with a hand grenade, which noise immediately raised the alarm.” Two Maritime trainees actually died in one of the exercises after their boat capsized; they drowned in the churning, dirty waters of the Potomac.

  As chief instructor, Taylor did everything to make the night training as realistic as possible. It was wartime 1942, and in order to succeed the students needed to avoid detection by roving bands of armed shore patrols. In the frenzy of the burgeoning war efforts and after the attack on Pearl Harbor, national security was on high alert, and the military set up a series of security detachments along the Potomac to guard against enemy infiltration via U-boat. Instructors informed the students that the shore patrol was there to apprehend them and that they were amply supplied with “live ammunition.” The Maritime Authority documents noted, “The students got small comfort from the rumor that [the shore patrol] were poor shots.” Little did they know at the time, the “live” ammunition was actually blank rounds.

  The backbone of the course was a covert night-landing operation at the end of the first week. Teams of students would attempt to make a clandestine insertion under the cover of darkness. Typically a four-man crew of trainees would set out in a small rubber or folding boat. Working in pairs, they attempted to land with the utmost of stealth at a very specific prescribed point. The trainees completed scores of exercises. A typical assignment read, “1) You are to land within . . . a strip of beach in front of the camp about 2,600 yards in length. 2) Hide your boat effectively.” Throughout the exercises “the instructors encouraged students to take risks.” Unsurprisingly, most of the candidates were “of a daring type.”

  After—hopefully—avoiding the shore patrols, the candidates were to “rendezvous at an abandoned house bearing 152°.” On other occasions they were sometimes directed to a small graveyard, which lent an eerie aura to the proceedings. One set of instructions read, “POSITION OF CONCEALED RUBBER BOAT: In brush 10 yards directly east of tombstone marked ‘William Mitchell,’ which is in center of clump of trees approximately 150 yards north of camp and 50 yards east of beach.”

  In these high-stakes, clandestine scavenger hunts, candidates had to gather a specific piece of intelligence. In the early training exercises the OSS began blending special operations insertion with intelligence gathering, which was groundbreaking by World War II standards. After collecting the information, the trainees had to once again avoid the dreaded shore patrol, quietly launch their craft, and vigorously row to meet their “submarine,” a role played by the aging and venerable Marsyl, which sat anchored in the river, awaiting their return.

  3

  THE RACE TO DESIGN A REBREATHER

  INSPIRED—AND ALARMED—by the feats of the Italian frogmen, the Americans raced to catch up. Woolley, Taylor, Ellen, and the first men of the Maritime Authority anxiously pored over their enemy counterparts’ accomplishments. “Almost weekly reports come to OSS recounting exploits of maritime sabotage that constitute one of the most intriguing chapters of this war. They have served as a constant guide and incentive to the Maritime Unit.” The Italian frogmen had the expertise and technology to achieve spectacular success, and the major powers all formed underwater swimmer programs. What Woolley needed was a device for breathing underwater.

  Woolley went to the Washington Navy Yard during the summer of 1942 to investigate the possibility of underwater swimming for the United States—through the OSS. Woolley, ever the visionary, saw the powerful potential of underwater combat:

  With the possibilities of carrying out operations using the underwater swimming apparatus, what might be called a new field is opened up. Using the apparatus, it would be possible to carry or tow a much larger limpet [a magnetic mine] as would be preferable from a destructive point of view. A number of limpets would be placed against the hull of a ship to go off simultaneously. For this type of operations, men specifically trained in the use of the equipment and good swimmers in practice would be desirable. I believe that using a submarine or a fast boat under cover of darkness, an approach could be made within a few miles of certain Axis-held harbors. From this point, a few miles out, operatives and explosives would be transferred to a new type of eight-man kayak. It would be carried in the vessel for that purpose. The eight-man kayak could then proceed using an on-board silent motor and paddling when necessary to avoid the question of noise to the harbor.

  In order to make Woolley’s vision a reality, the United States would need as-yet-undeveloped equipment that would allow swimmers to breathe underwater without releasing telltale bubbles. The race was on to create a closed-circuit device related to SCUBA (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus)* that would allow swimmers to “rebreathe” their exhaled air underwater.

  An innovative two-hose breathing device (the Italian device had a single hose that only worked for short distances) that enabled the swimmers to remain underwater for long periods of time was critical for a successful underwater swimmer program. The apparatus needed to be lightweight and maneuverable so the swimmers could adroitly move through the water, set charges, and accomplish other tasks. Most importantly it needed to help the swimmers avoid detection by eliminating the usual bubbles that accompany underwater swimming. And because lives would be on the line, the device had to be totally dependable.

  Woolley first began his efforts to develop a new underwater breathing apparatus by inspecting the equipment the Navy already had on hand. He recalled, “Soon after I was put in charge of maritime training, I came across [a] diving mask. I found this could be used as a self-contained unit and arranged with the Navy department so that I could carry out tests with it at the diving school and at the [Washington, D.C.] Navy Yard. This unit did not last very long and showed [a] considerable amount of bubbles. The diving school put me in contact with Mr. Browne of Diving Equipment and Salvage Company (DESCO). I explained to him the requirement and he produced a mock-up unit.”

  Jack Browne, a young, pioneering underwater diver, had an extraordinary gift for innovation. He fabricated his first diving helmet from tin cans. Browne later designed a diving suit to be used for salvaging the Lusitania, a passenger ship sunk in the Irish Channel by a German U-boat in 1915 during World War I, killing nearly all aboard. In 1937 he had formed DESCO, based in Milwaukee; however, he had to put off formally incorporating the company until 1938, when he would reach twenty-one years of age.

  The OSS conducted the first official test of Browne’s “lung” at the Washington Navy Yard’s diving tank on October 20, 1942. Commander Woolley and Lieutenant Jack Taylor stood around the tank as Browne remained underwater “for thirty minutes, swimming leisurely in the confined area of the tank at an average depth of eight to ten feet.” However, the mask leaked, causing more bubbles than would be expected.

  Browne tested the equipment again at the Annapolis Natatorium on October 21, 1942. “The apparatus was demonstrated by Mr. Browne and one of the divers [from the Navy diving school]. Very few bubbles appeared [in the swimming pool], and the dive was entirely successful, except for some water getting into the canisters, making it slightly more difficult to breathe,” recalled Taylor. While the canisters used as CO2 scrubbers were being dried, Jack Taylor donned the standard Navy diving mask with a hose connected to a cylinder at the edge of the pool and swam underwater with ease for several minutes. Taylor suggested that the mask “might possibly be incorporated into the apparatus.” Once the canisters were ready to go, Browne then strapped the lung back on and transported two limpet mines underwater, demonstrating an important technique of covert underwater sabotage. Woolley succinctly summed up the trial, saying Browne’s lung “appeared to have good possibilities of being satisfactory for underwater swimming.”

  Woolley the
n approached the OSS chief of the Research and Development (R&D) branch, Dr. Stanley Lovell. A natural inventor renowned for his sometimes wacky yet ingenious ideas, Lovell and his team developed everything from a “truth drug” made from marijuana to a special project using bats as miniature drones to carry tiny incendiary bombs to ignite Japanese wooden houses. After Lovell scrutinized and ultimately blessed the breathing device, the OSS issued a contract to Jack Browne, paying him $400 for delivery of a refined lung. Browne returned to Milwaukee and continued to make modifications to his device based on the trials, including adding a luminous compass that the swimmer could see underwater. Though commonly found on diving equipment today, this useful feature was a very novel idea at that time.

  Despite the promise of Browne’s lung, the OSS wisely did not put all its eggs in one basket. As Browne continued development of his lung, another breathing device caught the attention of the OSS. On November 17, Christian Lambertsen, a young medical student from the University of Pennsylvania, arrived at the OSS office in the Q Building, located in downtown Washington, DC, and presented a rebreather of his own design to Woolley and Taylor. The next day, the three men tested Lambertsen’s rebreather at the Shoreham Hotel and made history.

  Lambertsen had grown up in New Jersey during the Great Depression, and he spent many summers at the Jersey Shore with his uncle. In 1939 he entered the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, where one of his first classes covered respiratory physiology. “To learn about oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2), the students breathed hypoxic gas to unconsciousness, hyperventilated to become hypocapnic, and conducted breath-holding contests to feel the effects of hypoxia and hypercapnia.” Given his experience at the shore, “Chris was impressed by ten-minute breath-hold times after hyperventilation with O2, and found O2 and CO2 particularly interesting for their control of ventilation.”

  Soon thereafter he began experimenting with rebreathing devices at the Jersey Shore. His first model relied on a couple of cousins to operate a bicycle pump, but he soon discovered the benefits of compressed oxygen. That still left the problem of expelled carbon dioxide, which made breathing underwater uncomfortable, but Lambertsen soon found a solution in the form of a scrubber made from a material used in anesthesia.

  Impressed by Lambertsen’s inventions, his mentor, University of Pennsylvania physiology professor Henry Bazett, brought the young student to the attention of the Ohio Chemical and Manufacturing Company. They offered him a job for $30 a week, which he gladly accepted. Lambertsen and the company set out to produce an underwater breathing apparatus for use in lifesaving situations. Ironically, in one of the device’s first tests Lambertsen nearly needed lifesaving himself when he began to notice strange twitches in his eyes and legs as well as catches in his breath. He attempted to tug on the emergency rope to receive assistance but found he had forgotten to attach it to the boat. Amazingly, he managed to surface safely.

  That wasn’t Lambertsen’s last brush with death. He and the company thought the unit might also be useful to rescue miners from potentially deadly situations. To test their theory, Lambertsen, wearing the rebreather, along with a dog and a canary, entered an air-tight chamber, which was then filled with cyclopropane, a highly flammable anesthetic gas. “The demonstration was filmed, with the local press and fire department in attendance. The canary fell off its perch; the dog fell off its shelf. When [Lambertsen] leaned over to check the dog, he, too, fell over. Something was wrong, and fire axes quickly dismantled the chamber where [the young medical student] was found unconscious. No one had realized that cyclopropane would penetrate the latex breathing bags and be inhaled. Mr. Sholes [the president of the Ohio Chemical and Manufacturing Company] issued a stern reprimand, ‘Chris, you shouldn’t have done that.’”

  Soon after that disastrous encounter, England entered World War II. Lambertsen’s mentor, Professor Bazett, immediately saw the military implications of his student’s invention and wrote about it to the British Admiralty and the U.S. military. Soon Lambertsen was involved in talks with the U.S. military, and he adapted his device into the model that would become the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit (LARU). He continued his dangerous practice of testing the device himself, diving ever deeper underwater in an attempt to ascertain the pressure limits of the rebreather. After one such test he reported, “My pressure tests went very well. CO2 absorption was fine but O2 poisoning came on at 80 feet. I was almost a goner.”

  In 1940 Lambertsen patented the device and continued his studies at medical school. He also worked steadily on the rebreather, making it his top priority. He noted in one letter, “As one of my professors put it, I do not intend to let my medical course interfere with my education.” He continued to perfect the LARU, making minor modifications that improved its operation.

  By the time the OSS became interested in the LARU, Lambertsen’s rebreather was more refined than Browne’s, which Woolley noted. The day after the youthful medical student arrived in Washington, “tests were carried out . . . at the Shoreham Hotel. Mr. Lambertsen remained underwater for forty-eight minutes, during most of which time he was swimming across the deep end of the pool. The apparatus appeared to be satisfactory. Lieutenant Taylor, who had never used this apparatus before, then put it on and appeared to have no difficulty swimming underwater with it.”

  THE LARU WAS A CLOSED-CIRCUIT rebreathing carbon dioxide–absorbing system, similar to Browne’s lung. It consisted of a face mask, breathing tubes, soda-lime canisters, breathing bag, and several valves of special function. A canvas vest held the main parts of the “apparatus in a proper position relative to the diver’s body; an oxygen supply; and the respiratory system. The oxygen supply system comprises a small oxygen cylinder, which when full, contains pure oxygen at a pressure of two thousand pounds per square inch. Oxygen is breathed and the carbon dioxide formed is absorbed in the soda-lime canister, permitting rebreathing of expired gases. Oxygen is added to the breathing system from the oxygen cylinder as needed as to replace that used by the diver.” The use of pure oxygen is quite different from today’s modern SCUBA gear, which contains air from the natural atmosphere. In addition, an internal Maritime Unit memo noted, “The Diving Unit is so designed that the wearer retains his natural balance and buoyancy equilibrium underwater. This permits him to work or swim in any conceivable position without interfering with respiration.”

  The main difference between Lambertsen’s and Browne’s devices was that the LARU outperformed Browne’s lung in the trials. Accordingly, OSS requested that the young medical student produce additional devices and issued a contract to Lambertsen and the Ohio Chemical and Manufacturing Company to develop several more of his rebreathers.

  News of the LARU spread. The British—particularly a high-ranking officer in the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Colonel John Frank, who knew Woolley—also expressed their interest in the device. The SOE was OSS’s experienced British equivalent that conducted espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in Europe. “[When Frank] had heard about this apparatus . . . [he] asked about it and the Browne apparatus and was anxious that he could obtain two of the apparatus as quickly as possible.” He then stated “that cash would be paid for them.” The orders were placed.

  For months, Lambertsen and Browne would be competitors. Both worked on improving their equipment with additional trials. Ultimately the OSS recognized the genius of both men. Keenly aware that collaborative efforts could exponentially increase the potential for innovation, Woolley encouraged the inventors to partner together.

  *Christian Lambertsen may have been the first to coin the term SCUBA. In 1943 underwater pioneer and explorer Jacques Cousteau improved an aqua-lung design, developing an open-circuit demand regulator that refreshed air when the diver breathed. But the open-circuit design left a stream of bubbles. The Italians developed a rebreather, manufactured by Pirelli, for the Gamma men to use.

  4

  COMBAT SWIMMERS

  DECEMBER 1942, SANTA MONICA,
CALIFORNIA

  With some anxiety, lifeguard George Peterson put on Browne’s lung and held on to the side of the boat. Slowly he submerged into the Pacific under the watchful eyes of Lieutenant Jack Taylor, inventor Jack Browne, and Fred Wadley, who was a former national champion swimmer, a member of the Santa Monica Sheriff’s Department, and Browne’s close friend. Peterson swam around the boat under the surface of the water for about twenty minutes, relying solely on the lung to breathe. He could have remained underwater, except the frigid 53-degree water “made it impossible to stay in longer.”

  Taylor, visiting his hometown of Santa Monica on personal leave, wanted to test Browne’s lung in the open water of the Pacific Ocean. He had been a lifeguard stationed on these beautiful beaches throughout his high school years, during which time he broke numerous swimming records. Teeming with hard-core “beach rats,” Santa Monica was home to some of the most experienced ocean swimmers in the world. Many of them were ahead of their time, already donning swim fins and face masks as they swam in the often turbulent ocean. Eventually the OSS would return to recruit from this extraordinary pool of aquatic talent. Santa Monica was also the perfect place for Jack to simulate a real underwater combat mission, which he knew would likely take place against Axis forces operating in the Pacific, the Atlantic, and/or the Mediterranean. The ocean testing was necessary to ascertain the durability of the device because the rebreather had not yet been used in saltwater, which could have corrosive effects on the equipment.

  Continuing to act as a sort of guinea pig, Peterson next attempted to swim from a mile and a half out in open water back to the Santa Monica beach. But just as he was donning the breathing apparatus, “the regulator in the oxygen line stuck, allowing the full charge of the cylinder (1,800 pounds) to go into the rubber connecting tube, causing it to burst.” The equipment malfunction spelled the end of the trial.