First SEALs

by Patrick K. O'Donnell

  Fifteen minutes later, the explosives detonated. The subs sank into their cradles in the pen; the gates were completely destroyed. Mission accomplished. Now Soltau and the others had only to make their way to their safe house, where they could meet up with friendly forces on D-Day.

  But this was just a dress rehearsal. Soltau and the three others from L-Unit, who sailed to England after training exclusively on Treasure Island, were practicing in the chilly waters of the Thames near Oxford, preparing for the actual invasion. The local eyes they were trying to avoid were British villagers and students. “Right before D-Day, we got word that Operation Betty was scrubbed,” recalled Soltau. Getting ready for a mission only to have it canceled would soon be a familiar experience for the group of seventeen MU agents assigned to England.

  While Taylor and Kelly conducted operations in the Adriatic, Operational Swimmer Groups I and II conducted operations in other parts of the world. Soltau and sixteen other men of L-Unit went to London. One OSS report notes, “The most conspicuous role played by the Maritime Unit in the European Theater was the work of its individual officers in planning and conducting ferrying operations across the English Channel to France.” Frequently they worked closely with the British to conduct reconnaissance and plan for missions to insert OSS agents along the French coast: “MU officers acted as official observers in charge of transferring landing parties from ship to shore.” In addition to delivering agents to enemy territory, the ferry service also exfiltrated local resistance fighters from German-occupied areas to London: “Their purpose was to bring back natives of these countries who had thus far escaped Nazi suspicion, give them a brief period of training in London, and then ship them back to their respective home areas to perform definite missions.”

  Heading up the L-Unit was Lieutenant Fred Wadley, the national champion swimmer whom Taylor first met in Santa Monica testing “Browne’s lung” and with whom he later trained at Area D. Former Navy diver John P. Spence joined Wadley along with Lieutenant F. Michael Carroll, and Captain James J. Kamp, an Australian who established and ran a training camp at Helford in southwest England. Although they intended to establish a swimmer unit in the area, the cold temperatures made it impractical, as the L-Unit History records:

  It was obvious before long that swimming operations were impractical in this Theater. The temperature of the water at Helford stayed in the vicinity of fifty degrees. The weather was so cold that on many days it was impossible to do any swimming at all, or at best a very limited amount. Even when attired in rubber suits, the longest time they could stay in the water under favorable conditions without getting chilled was about 45 minutes. Furthermore, the practical range at which they could proceed entirely underwater and locate targets was found to average between 150 and 200 yards. Frequently, it was much less than this.

  But the water temperature wasn’t the only obstacle facing the MU in England. Much of their equipment proved unusable. The motors on the surfboards hadn’t been waterproofed and would break down after less than four miles of travel. In addition, their waterproof suits sprung leaks. The LARU also developed problems from being exposed to cold water, only some of which they were able to correct. On one tragic occasion, one of their swimmers, James E. Clark of the U.S. Navy Reserve, accidentally drowned “when he became panicky due to failure of his Lambertsen unit.” The swimmers’ health also suffered from the climate: “Dampness and cool air common to the British Isles caused head ailments such as colds and frequently rendered the swimmer liable to ear difficulties in rapid variations of depth.”

  Nevertheless, Wadley and his crew planned several daring missions, including a one-way suicide mission using an old freighter to block traffic in Denmark’s Kiel Canal. Several of the men went as observers into France to deliver supplies and men to the resistance, but the frigid temperature of the water iced all combat swimming operations. Faced with this reality, the OSS reluctantly accepted that there likely would be no underwater combat missions launched from England. The British had already shut down their swimming operations, and the Americans followed suit.

  In July 1944, L headed back to the States, likely bringing with them a special piece of equipment that the MU and the SEALS that followed them would adapt. Similar to the “pigs” Decima MAS used, the “Sleeping Beauty,” or Motorized Submersible Canoe, was a craft the UK’s SOE developed for underwater use. The twelve-foot-long submersible weighed six hundred pounds and carried a twenty-four-volt electric motor that could propel it at speeds up to 3.5 knots. Today’s SEALs use a modernized version of the same device, which they call a SEAL Delivery Vehicle, or SDV.

  AUGUST 11, 1944, THE WATERS OFF THE SOUTHEAST TIP OF PELELIU, SOUTHWEST PACIFIC

  A handful of men inflated their rubber boats on the surfaced deck of the U.S. submarine Burrfish. Their faces blackened with paint, the detached OSS swimmers of Navy Underwater Demolition Team 10 (UDT 10) quietly paddled their craft under the cover of darkness toward the shore. Time after time they changed course to evade the numerous Japanese patrols before eventually making their way to the beach. Exiting the boats, the OSS swimmers crept along the shoreline, taking measurements and observing the conditions. It was one of the more pioneering recon operations of the Pacific War.

  Now finished with their work, one of the men chanced a little noise. He tapped a prearranged signal with his KA-BAR knife onto one of the large chunks of coral in the bay. No one heard the soft sounds except the sonar operator of the USS Burrfish, and the team of swimmers slipped back into the water to rendezvous with their submarine. This endeavor, the first mission that involved American combat swimmers launched from a submarine was a success: the men determined that the beach on Peleliu was suitable for landing craft. Weeks later, based on the information obtained by the combat swimmers, the Allies successfully conducted a massive invasion of the island.

  THE MU ALSO DEPLOYED combat swimmers in the Pacific Theater. Initially, neither Admiral Chester Nimitz nor General Douglas MacArthur was interested in utilizing agents from a rival branch of government. However, at the urging of General Donovan, a number of OSS combat swimmers did see action after they became part of UDT 10.

  The Navy was compelled to strengthen the UDT program in the aftermath of the bloody battle at Tarawa, a small chain of islands in the central Pacific. The Americans sent in landing craft to storm the beaches, but unbeknownst to them, reefs blocked the way, preventing the boats from reaching their intended destination. The men inside the crafts became sitting ducks for the entrenched Japanese forces on the shore, resulting in hundreds of Marine and Navy casualties.

  Determined to learn from the catastrophe at Tarawa, the Navy bolstered its training schools. The curriculum trained recruits in the art of underwater demolition, hydrographic surveys, and reconnaissance. In the summer of 1944, Major General Donovan and Admiral Nimitz of the U.S. Navy met, and Donovan offered Nimitz the use of the MU. In order to strengthen the UDT, the Navy brought in twenty-seven OSS operatives from Operational Swimmer Group I. OSS Lieutenant Commander Arthur Choate, a multimillionaire and Wall Street investor, was placed in charge of the team, and four other OSS officers provided additional leadership. The OSS Swimmer Group I arrived in Hawaii in June before heading out on a convoy destined for the Solomon Islands.

  The MU training program was far superior in many ways to that of the Underwater Demolition Teams. MU combat swimmers were highly trained and superbly skilled in raiding techniques, infiltration and exfiltration, intelligence gathering, underwater operations, and land and sea sabotage. They used rebreathers, while the UDT used only face masks and snorkels. Furthermore, the MU’s familiarity with weapons was superior. Some had been to parachute school, and all were trained in hand-to-hand combat. As one historian observed, “the [OSS swimmers] were much more like the Navy SEALs would be than the UDT men were by then.” Another area in which the OSS swimmers were more advanced than their Navy counterparts was in the use of swim fins. Although the Navy had fins, most of the UDT teams were
swimming either barefoot or in athletic shoes. After the OSS taught the Navy UDT swimmers how to use fins effectively for both swimming and moving across the coral reefs, the commander of the Hawaii training school placed a massive order for more fins for all of the UDT team members. However, before their first mission, the Navy stripped Choate’s men of most of their high-tech equipment and forced them to conduct swimmer missions with just face masks and fins.* The LARUs were put into storage in Honolulu, and the loss helped to set the UDTs’ use of rebreathers back by many years.

  AUGUST 18, 1944, NEAR THE ISLAND OF YAP, SOUTHWEST PACIFIC

  In the dead of night, the submarine Burrfish surfaced near the small, verdant island now transformed into a highly fortified Japanese stronghold. A handful of men, their faces blackened with grease, exited the vessel and inflated their rubber boat. In pitch darkness they paddled their craft toward the shore as quietly as possible, amidst strong gusts of wind. Time after time they were forced to change course to evade numerous enemy patrols. Armed only with grenades and razor-sharp KA-BAR knives, five swimmer commandos—John Ball, Robert Black, Emmet Carpenter, Howard Roeder, and John MacMahon—set out to survey the beach and determine whether it was suitable for a landing. Earlier, the men, detached from UDT 10 and comprised mostly of OSS swimmer commandos, had launched the first successful swimmer-born recon mission from the Burrfish, but this night off Yap would prove fateful.

  About a quarter mile from shore the men encountered a reef, where they stopped paddling and dropped anchor. Ball stayed with the boat while the other four slid silently beneath the high, white-capped breakers, equipped only with face masks and flippers. Making their way as discreetly as possible through the rough ocean water and powerful undertow, they struggled to swim toward the enemy-infested beach, taking measurements and observing the conditions along the way. Carpenter soon returned to the boat “in distress and too tired to swim further.” He and Ball waited patiently in the craft for their comrades to return.

  The time designated for returning to the sub came and went. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Fifteen. Twenty. At thirty minutes past the deadline Ball and Carpenter risked detection and paddled the boat to within one hundred yards of the beach. For fifteen more minutes they frantically searched in vain for their missing comrades. Eventually “they abandoned all caution and flashed their flashlight all around in hope of picking up the other three men. They had no success.”

  Ball and Carpenter reluctantly returned to the sub without the other swimmers. It wasn’t until later that they discovered what had happened to Roeder, MacMahon, and Black. After surveying the beach, the commandos attempted to swim back out to the reef and rendezvous with the boat. But the wind and breakers made the swimming difficult, and the men failed to locate Ball and Carpenter. They had no choice but to return to the island. Dripping wet and wearing only their swim trunks and camouflage paint, they avoided detection for an entire day and returned to the water that night, hoping for a boat to pick them up.

  On the Burrfish the surviving swimmers pleaded with the captain for another chance to pick up their comrades. They rightly believed that if the three were still alive they would return to the reef again that night. However, the surf conditions had grown even worse, and the captain didn’t want to lose any more of the commando swimmers. He gave the men up for lost and headed for the sub’s next mission.

  Roeder, MacMahon, and Black again returned to hide on the island, but they were found and captured on the evening of August 20. Their captors brutally tortured and interrogated them and transmitted their findings in a report that the Americans intercepted. The swimmers were never heard from again.

  THE CLOUD OF THEIR DISAPPEARANCE hung over UDT 10 as the rest of the team on board the destroyer Rathburne prepared to support the invasion of Peleliu and Angaur. The OSS operatives traded in their LARUs and other high-tech underwater spy gear for KA-BAR knives, swim trunks, and plastic pads with wax pencils. Although trained as special operators, their key duties were underwater demolitions and hydrographic survey. The assignment didn’t sit well with some of the swimmers, who had been trained for more complex work, but they carried out their mission as ordered.

  On September 14, 1944, the swimmers left the Rathburne on a mission to survey a landing on enemy-occupied Blue Beach on Angaur, part of the Palau Island group. Angaur and the nearby island of Peleliu were assaulted at heavy cost to secure the flank of U.S. forces for the upcoming attack on the Japanese-held Philippines. UDT 10 team member Robert Kenworthy recalled, “I jumped up like on a diving board, curled my body, and dove into the water. This was in broad daylight; we were at least 300 yards from the beach, all the while avoiding getting shot.” But the water offered little safety. “As we were approaching the beach, we were expecting them to open fire, but they were waiting for us to get closer,” said Kenworthy.

  After all their months of training, the swimmers felt “perfectly at home in the water,” but that didn’t mean the swim to Blue Beach was comfortable. Kenworthy noted, “The water was mighty cold but crystal clear. But we were used to it. Fifty-four-degree water after several hours becomes very untenable. Your testicles climb up inside. It’s later when they come down that it is not very nice.”

  As they closed in on the beach, the swimmers suddenly encountered the intense fire they had been dreading. “Just remembering it makes the hair stand up on my arms,” recounted Kenworthy. “We were about 75 to 125 yards away from it when all hell broke loose. I turned my head and from the right end of the beach I saw three Jap soldiers push palm fronds aside and open fire. We were caught right between the two machine guns. Then came several [unreadable] Wildcats (our own planes) firing, accidentally strafing us. Bullets were hitting the water all around us.”

  Breaking radio silence, the UDT commanding officer yelled at the admiral, “Get your goddamn cowboys out of there!”

  The planes broke off the attack before the friendly fire caused any casualties. Despite the barrage of bullets, the swimmers managed to complete their measurements of the beach and safely return to the destroyer. After determining that demolition would be required for the landing craft to approach, the combat swimmers returned to the water, this time towing explosives. Without their LARUs, the men had to resort to other techniques to set the charges. “I held my breath over two minutes so we could go down and stay down and set the charge,” recalled Kenworthy.

  “Boom!”

  The explosives detonated, shooting shards of coral high into the air. “It was sickening because thousands of fish were also killed by the explosion. I still remember their white little bellies,” added Kenworthy.

  The reef was clear, providing passage into the beach, but the job wasn’t done yet. Hovering five or six feet below the surface, the swimmers carefully guided the landing craft through the holes in the coral blown by Kenworthy and his men, allowing the young men who would take part in the assault access to the enemy-infested beach. Kenworthy remembered, “This was a powerful thing as you looked at the clenched faces of these 18- and 20-year-olds and in another fifteen or twenty minutes they were dead. It’s a visual thing you carry with you all your life.” Despite the UDT casualties, the Allies successfully assaulted and seized Angaur.

  UDT 10’S NEXT MISSION was to lead the invasion of the Philippines. On October 19, 1944, six American battleships began their bombardment of the island of Leyte, the first stop in the liberation of the Philippines. About an hour after the big guns started firing, the swimmers of UDT 10 scrambled down cargo nets into the waiting boats that would take them closer to shore. Their job was to level the beach to enable landing craft to bring American troops to shore. The order called for them to conduct their mission in broad daylight, armed only with combat knives and the explosives they needed to blast a path through the rocks and reef.

  The boats carrying the swimmers stopped about four hundred yards off shore—well within the range of the Japanese guns and mortars on the beach. The swimmers methodically dropped over the sides
and got to work. OSS operative and former Marine Les Bodine recalled, “As we swam forward the water around us was being peppered with machine-gun, rifle, and mortar fire. Water was splashing up around me from the rounds. I noticed that the Japanese had fish traps in the water in front of the beach. They turned out to be markers that allowed them to direct their mortar and cannon fire.”

  One of those mortar rounds landed nearly on top of Bodine, and he lost consciousness almost immediately. (Years later he learned that the concussion blast had pushed his body down to the ocean floor—about ten feet underwater.) “When you get hit by an explosion like that,” he said, “water goes into every orifice: The ears, nose, rectum, and tears things up a little bit. I was spitting up blood and blacked out.” One of Bodine’s team members inflated the life preserver connected to his swim trunks and towed him back to the boats, where the doctor dosed him with whiskey. “It burned,” remembered Bodine. “My eardrums and stomach have scar tissue, but the next day we went back in.”

  OPERATIONAL SWIMMER GROUP II, ARAKAN COAST, BURMA, EARLY 1945

  As his small craft bobbed on the ocean waves, John Booth squinted ahead, searching the horizon in vain for any sign of the chaung, or tidal river, that was the mission target. His hands, like those of his companions, were rough and raw from nine hours of paddling his two-man kayak. The night was dark, limiting visibility and making it all but impossible to see the tiny waterway. “We had a compass bearing to a line of blackness,” recalled Booth.