First SEALs

by Patrick K. O'Donnell

  ON A SHELF IN A DUSTY NAVY warehouse in Honolulu, workmen carefully stowed heavy wooden crates containing the last of the LARUs. The Sleeping Beauties and other gear went to similar storage facilities. The war was over, and the Navy saw no further need to employ the pioneering underwater equipment. With the OSS disbanded, the U.S. underwater combat training program came to a standstill and, along with MU men like Taylor and Lambertsen, was effectively put into mothballs.

  But in 1947, Lieutenant Commander Douglas “Red Dog” Fane (so known for his titian hair), who had command of an Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) unit, sought out LARU inventor Dr. Christian Lambertsen, by then a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Recognizing the value of Lambertsen’s breakthrough technology, Fane pulled the rebreathers out of retirement and located two Sleeping Beauty submersibles in a California warehouse. He wanted to test out new ways to deploy the underwater craft from submerged submarines. Improvements in radar meant that swimmer teams could no longer be launched from surfaced subs. As one naval commander explained, “For the safety of your men, if for no other reason, you will have to go underwater. Operations from the submarines are the only possible way of conducting secret UDT missions.”

  Fane began extensive testing of the submersibles with swimmers using the LARUs. Because of Lambertsen’s experience with both devices, he asked him to pilot the Sleeping Beauty in a test that attempted to launch and recover the submersible from the deck of a moving submarine. Fane, Lambertsen, and another frogman observed and photographed the mission. Wearing LARUs, the men exited the submerged sub and stood on the deck while the sub was moving. Fane’s cohort recalled, “It had been proven that a speed of two knots would not tear off our face masks if we kept facing the current, but no one knew whether they would tear off or flood if we turned.” Fortunately the LARUs functioned well. “There was a sensation of tremendous speed,” he noted. “I gingerly experimented with turning my head a little to one side. The downstream edge of the mask began to vibrate, but no water leaked in, so I was able to see Fane. His red hair was streamed back, his ears were flapping in the submarine breeze, his trunks and lung were bellied out behind and whipping about. I could think of no better simile than Ben Hur driving his chariot in his race around the Roman Coliseum.”

  The tests were successful, leading to the conclusion that, “The day when diver fights diver undersea, and raiding parties march out of the sea to attack beaches, and divers in submersible craft will reconnoiter coasts and harbors, is not far off.” The UDTs successfully performed exercises the OSS had spent most of World War II perfecting.

  Based on this compelling evidence and firsthand experience, Fane oversaw the creation of a “Submersible Operations” platoon, the first unit of its kind in the U.S. Navy. The UDTs undertook numerous combat missions in the Korean War. During these operations, many of the men were trained by former MU combat swimmer John Booth, now working with the Central Intelligence Agency. Throughout the Korean War, the UDTs would maintain a close working relationship with the agency. In the early 1960s, the American military once again became very interested in the use of special operations units. The earlier experiences of the OSS MU and the UDTs led some to contemplate the creation of a special operations unit comprised of underwater swimming specialists. The Green Berets or U.S. Army Special Forces, founded on the principles of the OSS Operational Groups and Jedburghs and led by OSS veteran Colonel Aaron Bank, also followed suit and created a combat swimmer program.

  On March 10, 1961, in a memo submitted to Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, a naval group examining special operations and amphibious landings advocated the creation of a new unit that would provide “additional unconventional warfare capabilities within, or as an extension of our amphibious forces.” The memo added, “An appropriate name for such units could be ‘SEAL’ units, SEAL being a contraction of SEA, AIR, LAND, and thereby, indicating an all-around, universal capability.” Burke approved the proposal, and soon two new units would be activated.

  A few months later, in his speech before a special joint session of Congress in which he outlined the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending Americans safely to the moon, President John F. Kennedy also supported the expansion of special operations units, saying, “I am directing the Secretary of Defense to expand rapidly and substantially, in cooperation with our Allies, the orientation of existing forces for the conduct of non-nuclear war, paramilitary operations and sub-limited or unconventional wars. In addition, our special forces and unconventional warfare units will be increased and reoriented.”

  In January 1962, SEAL Teams One and Two officially became operational.

  DR. JACK HENDRICK TAYLOR, Hollywood dentist, global adventurer, world-class sailor, and First SEAL, would not live long enough to witness the modern SEAL Teams. He and other members of the Maritime Unit risked their lives—with some of them making the ultimate sacrifice. Their pioneering efforts helped forge the U.S. Navy SEALs—their legacy would culminate in operations such as the daring raid that resulted in the death of Osama Bin Laden. Tragically, in May 1959 at the age of fifty, Taylor was killed in a fiery crash while piloting a plane near his home in El Centro, California. Jack took his story to the grave, as did most of the men of the Maritime Unit. Dutiful to the end, the men of the Maritime Unit maintained their vows of silence, but their spirits and accomplishments live on today.

  THE FIRST SEALS AFTER THE WAR

  JACK TAYLOR—For his actions during the war Taylor received the Navy Cross. His citation reads as follows:

  For extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy of the United States; as chief of the Maritime Unit, Office of Strategic Services Detachment, United States Armed Forces, in the Middle East, from September 1943 to March 1944, Lieutenant Jack Taylor, USNR, personally commanded fourteen separate sorties to the Greek and Balkan enemy-occupied coasts. This activity was carried out despite intense enemy efforts to prevent any kind of coastal traffic whatsoever. Lieutenant Taylor, through clandestine operations, deserving of the highest commendation and careful planning and skillful navigation effected numerous evacuations of intelligence agents, doctors, nurses, and downed airmen. Tons of arms, ammunition, explosives, and other military supplies were delivered to Marshal Tito and other resistance forces through the efforts of Lieutenant Taylor. For three months, at all times surrounded by enemy forces, and on three occasions forced to flee from enemy searching parties, Lieutenant Taylor and his intelligence team operated in Central Albania and transmitted by clandestine radio important information regarding enemy troop movements, supply dumps, coastal fortifications, anti-aircraft installations and other military intelligence of great value to the Allied forces. Parachuting into enemy territory on the night of 13 October 1944, with a team of three Austrian deserter-volunteers, he had personally trained and briefed, he began a secret intelligence mission to Austria. Handicapped from the very start by failure of their plane to drop radio equipment, living in constant danger of capture, and the physical and mental strain on his men, the courage and energy of Lieutenant Taylor prevailed and throughout the remainder of October and November, the mission collected target intelligence of the highest value to the Allies. On 30 November, the eve of their departure for Italy, the party was captured by the Gestapo. Through four months of imprisonment in Vienna and one month in Mauthausen prison camp, he was subjected to the customary interrogation methods of the Gestapo. During his capture, Lieutenant Taylor injured his left arm seriously. With this handicap and also being forced to exist on starvation rations and work at hard labor, he resisted all attempts to force him to divulge security . . . the brilliant results of his operations have been an essential aid to the victory of Allied Arms.

  Following his testimony at the war trials, Taylor returned to civilian life. He started a company that sold maritime specialty items, but when that venture failed, he returned to his dental practice full time.

  Reports indicate that Taylor, like man
y who have served in wartime, found it difficult to return home and exhibited some symptoms of PTSD. Fourteen years after his return home, he died in a plane crash in California. He left behind a wife and a daughter.

  STERLING HAYDEN—The tall, handsome leading man returned to his movie career although he always maintained that he disliked acting and only did it because it paid for his boats and voyages. He appeared in dozens of movies, including many westerns released in the 1950s. In Dr. Strangelove he was General Jack Ripper, renowned for the infamous lines, “I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify [sic] all of our precious bodily fluids.” He also appeared in The Godfather, The Long Goodbye, 1900, Nine to Five, and many other films. He wrote two books: an autobiography titled Wanderer and Voyage: A Novel of 1896.

  His marriage to Madeleine Carroll, his wife at the time he joined the OSS, barely survived the war. They divorced in 1946, and the next year Hayden married Betty Ann de Noon. Over the course of an eleven-year marriage they had four children together, and Hayden was awarded custody when their marriage ended in 1958. He married for the last time in 1960. He and his third wife, Catherine Devine McConnell, had two children together, and they remained married until Hayden’s death from prostate cancer in 1986. Throughout his life he remained a wanderer, skipping around from city to city and spending as much time as possible at sea.

  ALPHONSE THIELE—Thiele returned to New Jersey and the gas station business he had left behind. He married Walkiria Terradura, the beautiful partisan he had met in Italy, and they started a family. Later they moved back to Italy.

  RICHARD KELLY—Kelly returned to his prewar career on Madison Avenue. He started a family and also wrote adventure stories in the 1940s and ’50s for a popular magazine known as The Blue Book.

  TED MORDE—Morde never did return to Honduras or provide verifiable details about the Lost City of the Monkey God. After the war he continued working for the U.S. government for a time as a special adviser to the Egyptian premier and ambassador. Never one to settle for the boring life of a bureaucrat, Morde later got involved in the television and film news industry, serving as the president of Spot News Productions and founding his own production company called Ted Morde, Inc. Morde married a model named Gloria E. Gustafson, and the couple had a son and a daughter.

  He was found hanging in his parents’ shower on June 26, 1954. Although the medical examiner said he had committed suicide, others theorized that he may have been murdered.

  CHRISTIAN LAMBERTSEN—After the war, Dr. Lambertsen continued his work with the U.S. Navy, resuming his pioneering development of the LARU. He established the crucial link between the Maritime Unit and the Navy’s UDT program and became known as the father of combat swimming and diving. For the rest of his life he would continue advising the U.S. government on various scientific matters. He held positions on a wide variety of boards and committees, including several run by the National Research Council’s Committee, the National Academy of Sciences’ Space Science Board, the Office of the Secretary of the Navy’s Oceanographic Advisory Committee, the Smithsonian Advisory Board, NOAA’s National Undersea Research Center Advisory Board, and NASA’s Environmental Sciences Review Committee, Lunar Base Planning Group, Radiation and Environmental Health Working Group, and several others. At the same time, he pursued a career as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and also founded the Environmental Biomedical Stress Data Center at the same institution. The university continues to hold an annual Christian J. Lambertsen Honorary Lecture each year.

  Lambertsen’s list of awards is nearly as long as his résumé and includes military recognition, such as the U.S. Army Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Civilian Service Award and Military Oceanography Award from the Secretary of the Navy, the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Award, the U.S. Coast Guard Distinguished Public Service Award, the U.S Special Forces Green Beret Award, the U.S. Special Operations Command Medal, and the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Citation. The U.S. Army Special Forces Diving Center in Key West, Florida, is named after Dr. Lambertsen.

  In his civilian life, he received the Pennsylvania Alumni Award of Merit, the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the UDT-SEAL Association Lifetime Achievement Award, and various awards from NASA, the Aerospace Medical Association, the Undersea Medical Society, the Marine Technology Society, the Underwater Society of America, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Navy Historical Society.

  After a long and full life committed to science, medicine, and public service, he died in 2011 at the age of ninety-three.

  H. G. A. WOOLLEY—Commander Woolley had a profound impact on America’s underwater activities after World War II when he consulted with the U.S. Navy. In June of 1945, General Donovan personally recommended Woolley for the Legion of Merit in a letter that read as follows:

  It is recommended that the Legion of Merit, in appropriate degree, be awarded to Commander H. G. A. Woolley, D.S.C., Royal Navy, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the United States.

  Prior to July 1941, Commander Woolley arrived in the United States for services with the British Admiralty Delegation. As the result of cables exchanged between this country and our Ambassador in London, the latter advised that a Presidential representative should confer with Commander Woolley who would be able to inform him of British plans and forces available in the event of operations being necessary to seize the Atlantic Islands. Commander Woolley was interviewed by the Representative and subsequently by the President.

  At the suggestion of the President, it was requested that Commander Woolley might be appointed officially to advise United States Service Departments on British Combined Operations questions. This was approved by the British Chiefs of Staff in Washington and London and the United States Chiefs of Staff were informed officially of his appointment and availability on 23 July 1941.

  From this date until February 1942, Commander Woolley was in close touch with the United States Marine Corps (particularly with officers of USMC Headquarters and with the Fleet Readiness Section) and was able to provide considerable information regarding British plans, operational technique, equipment, etc. on matters with which the United States amphibious forces were currently equally concerned. He also was sole alien observer at the large scale amphibious landing exercise at New River in August 1941 and attended many discussions and represented the British view on technical and organization problems which arose in the exercise. Subsequently, he attended a large scale landing exercise at Virginia Beach in January 1942 and took part in the ensuing discussions. These included an address before the staff of the Ground Forces.

  In connection with Army forces, Commander Woolley was consulted regarding possible future operations against Dakar and was specially commended for an address on Combined Operations to Military Intelligence Divisions in November 1941.

  In February 1942, Commander Woolley was replaced by a British Inter-Services Committee of which he was to have been a member. However, at this time he was borrowed by the COI, from the British at the consent of Field Marshall Dill, to brief the former on British Combined Operations organization and particularly British small raiding forces (Commandos) in connection with discussions on this subject between COI, the President, and the Secretaries of War and Navy.

  On completion of the foregoing work, in May 1942, at the request of COI, he was placed under the orders of Colonel Goodfellow, chief of Secret Operations, and directed to establish and conduct a base for training of agents in clandestine maritime operations (infiltration by sea, sabotage of shipping, etc.). This work was carried out very successfully. When the Colonel commanding the British para-military school subsequently visited the United States at my request, he ment [sic] and gave a most favorable report in comparison with the similar British school.

  Commander Woolley originated the idea of
the development of underwater swimming apparatus for use in sabotage operations and supervised the development of the Browne and Lambertson [sic] apparati. The Browne apparatus was subsequently adopted for use by the Navy Department. He also originated and supervised development of new type 2 man and 8 man folbots which have been of considerable value to OSS and of which some 300–400 have been ordered and delivered for British use because they were much better suited for operations than any similar material developed in England.

  He also originated the idea of the use of an inflatable paddle board. This and the first flying mattress were developed under his supervision. The latter was further developed under his successor and has also been adopted and used by the Navy Department.

  At the end of 1942, he was sent on a tour of Marine Corps and Army Training Camps to study new training methods and equipment with a view to his appointment as Training Instructor of OSS Operational Groups.

  At my direction, he then formed the Maritime Unit of OSS on the basis of an operating, planning, training and supply Branch to meet OSS Maritime requirements in the Field. Detailed plans were prepared for all theatres and the first unit was selected, trained and dispatched to the Eastern Mediterranean and carried out valuable service in establishment of caïque and similar services.

  Commander Woolley proposed and was given permission to [organize] the first OSS Special Commando Swimming Unit. This was subsequently transferred to the United States Navy in the Pacific and has performed valuable operational services. He also arranged with the Navy Department for three Sub chasers for OSS in London for use by Norwegians in Norway Ferry Service. These were instrumental in the accomplishment of most valuable service. He also recommended use of fast surface craft to facilitate OSS operations and obtained approval for the inclusion of 12 such craft for OSS use.