Sea Stories

by William H. Mcraven

  Shaking my head, I waved a knife hand across my throat. “Let’s call it a day, sir,” I mouthed.

  Three.

  Without saying a word he nodded reluctantly.

  Grabbing the loadmaster, I pointed to the colonel and me and indicated that we were not boarding the plane. The loadmaster acknowledged and quickly went back to preparing the aircraft for departure.

  Brause and I returned to a waiting jeep. I shook his hand, thanked him for helping out with the exercise, and watched as a young petty officer escorted him back to Subic. Exhausted, I jumped in another jeep and drove home. It had been a long couple of days.

  Half an hour later, aboard the MC-130, call sign Stray 59, the pilot checked his instruments. Like the rest of us, the preceding days for him and his crew had been long and tiring. Adjusting his night vision goggles, he could see the water just a few feet below him. The water was closer than expected… too close to recover. The tip of the left wing caught the top of a small wave and in an instant the plane tumbled forward, exploding in a fuel-injected ball of flame as it violently ripped apart from the impact of aircraft and sea. Of the twenty-four men aboard—eight crew members and sixteen passengers from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines—all but one, Air Force first lieutenant Jeffrey A. Blohm, died in the crash.

  Life in the SEAL Teams always seems to revolve around fate or destiny or the hand of God. Why do some men live and others die? Why were some men saved that day? Did God have a different plan for us? What about the crew and passengers of Stray 59? Surely their families would have wanted them longer in their lives. They were all brave and honorable men, all worthy of a full and prosperous life.

  I think about them often.

  Twenty years later, as I rose to the rank of admiral and combat in Iraq and Afghanistan became a daily activity, I thought a lot about Stray 59. The role of the MC-130s, and their sister aircraft, the AC-130s, became more and more important to our special operations missions. With every plan I reviewed and every plan I approved, I asked myself silently whether the risk to the crew and the aircraft was worth the reward. I can only hope that the sacrifice of the men aboard Stray 59 saved lives—lives of men and women who have no idea that their destiny rested with a plane that took off from Cubi airfield in 1981 and never returned.

  May God rest their souls.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A GORILLA WALKS INTO A BAR

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  January 1986

  The last breath. It’s sudden. It’s short. It has a deep pitch to it, full of exasperation and a touch of regret. I always thought last breaths came with words, but they don’t. They just come and life is over.

  As I sat across from my dying mother, she exhaled one final time and passed away. My father gently stroked her hair and kissed her forehead, tears flowing down his cheeks. They had been man and wife for forty years, and both always assumed, with Dad’s heart condition, that he would be the first to go. They were wrong.

  Lying on our living room couch, she was twenty pounds lighter and the cancer had robbed the color from her skin. But she would have been happy to know that not a starched hair was out of place. We buried her the following Monday under a beautiful tree in the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. It rained all day.

  Dad didn’t understand why I had to rush back to work, and nothing I could offer him made sense. We were planning a highly classified mission to disable three oil-pumping facilities off the coast of Libya. Intelligence showed that Libyan leader Mohammar Gadhafi was responsible for supporting terrorist action including the bombing of a Berlin discotheque. The SEAL option was part of a larger operation to destroy the Gadhafi regime.

  At the airport Dad leaned in and shook my hand firmly. My family was never much for hugging, except my mom, who loved to put her arms around me and kiss me on both cheeks. But men, particularly military men, didn’t hug.

  “I’ll be all right,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but be safe.”

  “I may not be able to write for a while, Dad. Or call. But don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  I saw a lump rise in his throat. He couldn’t lose anyone else right now—certainly not his only son. Still, Dad knew that I was a man, and men had responsibilities—and that made him proud.

  He wrapped his arms around me, kissed me on the cheek, turned around, and walked away. I never forgot that feeling, and as a father I hug my children every chance I can. I am a hugger now.

  The flight took me from San Antonio to Dallas to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Seat 32A next to the bathroom. Somehow the military travel planners always put me in 32A. Did they think I had a small bladder or liked getting off last? After thirty-seven years I never did figure it out.

  USS Cavalla (SSN 684), a Sturgeon-class nuclear submarine, had transited from Hawaii through the Panama Canal and was now moored at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico. The Cavalla’s passage through the canal raised the interest of a Soviet intelligence vessel that parked itself off the coast of San Juan listening for reflections of American intent.

  A week earlier, on a midnight flight out of Norfolk, Virginia, a large covered shipment arrived by C-5 transport plane at Roosevelt Roads and was immediately moved to a nearby hangar, away from prying eyes. During the ensuing days, this Dry Deck Shelter (DDS) was mounted on the hull of the Cavalla and would be the underwater garage from which we would launch our minisubmarines called SEAL Delivery Vehicles (SDVs).

  The SDV was a wet submersible. It was jet black in color, shaped like a long cigar with a cockpit in front and a passenger compartment in the rear. Water flowed freely through the SDV, requiring each SEAL to wear a scuba rig and a thick wet suit. Technically, the “boat” could carry up to eight men—albeit small men—but for this mission there would be only three: a pilot and navigator in the front, and a mission commander, who sat in the back and directed the operation.

  Commander Bob Mabry had just relinquished command of SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team Two (SDVT-2) to Commander Tom Steffens, but owing to Bob’s experience in SDVs, the Pentagon left Bob in charge of the overall mission, while Tom had command of the SDVs alone. For several months now, we had been planning and rehearsing the operation. Still, only a handful of SEALs and submariners knew the actual target. When directed by the President, the Cavalla would leave Puerto Rico undetected, transit the Atlantic, pass through the Strait of Gibraltar, and come to a position off the coast of Libya. Once there, we would conduct a submerged launch of the SDV. The SDV would travel underwater to the first of three Libyan oil-pumping stations.

  Diving down deep, the SEALs would place explosives on a critical component of the pumping station. Once the explosives detonated, the facility would be inoperable for six months to a year. In an effort to ensure that no oil leaked into the Mediterranean, the engineers were very specific about where we had to place the explosives.

  That all sounded good when you were looking at blueprints at Naval Intelligence, but at night, at depth, breathing through a scuba regulator in enemy waters, it didn’t seem so simple. Consequently, for our training, Bob Mabry convinced the Navy to build three mock-up training devices, which we lowered into the waters off the coast of Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. For the past two months, three SDV crews had been diving constantly in preparation for the mission. I was the mission commander on the third crew.

  Tonight, however, we were rehearsing a different part of the operation: combat search and rescue (CSAR). Mabry and Steffens agreed that if the SDV had mechanical problems inside Libyan territorial waters and couldn’t return to the Cavalla, we would have to send a helo in to quickly extract the SEALs. Technically, this was a challenging scenario. It required the SDV to carry a large sonar buoy that had a transmitter affixed to the top. Once activated, the transmitter sent a signal to a P-3 reconnaissance aircraft orbiting well outside Libyan airspace. The P-3 radar could get a general location on the beacon, but in order to triangulate the exact position of the transmitter we
needed a slow-moving SH-3 Sea King helicopter with a passive receiver. Once triangulated, the Sea King would fly to our position, lower a “horse collar,” and hoist us into the helo. Simple.

  “Starting flood up procedures.”

  “Roger, starting flood up procedures.”

  Turning the large valve in the Dry Deck Shelter, the ship’s diver opened the pipe and seawater began to flood the forty-foot chamber. The air in the shelter was humid, smelling of saltwater and neoprene from our wet suits. Movement was almost impossible as the SDV filled up the shelter with only a two-foot pathway on either side of the boat. It took forty-five minutes to fully flood the DDS, so I reviewed my mission checklist to ensure everything was in order.

  The Dry Deck Shelter was a spin-off from the giant Regulus missile chambers that were part of the Vietnam-era submarine USS Grayback. For two decades the Grayback had launched earlier versions of the SDVs, but now we had the technology to have a mobile Dry Deck Shelter, which could be transported worldwide and mounted on specially configured submarines. The Cavalla was the test bed for this capability. No one ever anticipated putting the DDS into a real-world operation this quickly.

  “Sir, all systems are good to go. I have the first course at 270 degrees for ten thousand yards.”

  “Roger, Ron. I confirm 270 at ten thousand,” I replied.

  Ron Blackburn was the SDV navigator. A first class petty officer, he was a superb SEAL and very comfortable on these long dives. Ron’s only problem was that he was tall and slim, and having 3 percent body fat was never a good thing when you were spending twelve hours underwater. No wet suit in the world could make up for a nice layer of body fat. Every time we returned from a long dive, Ron was bordering on hypothermia, but he never complained.

  Once the shelter was flooded, the submarine crew from inside the Cavalla began to pressurize the chamber, equalizing it to the outside depth. With the pressure equal, the large shelter doors began to slowly open and the ship’s divers scurried about unhooking the SDV from the cradle in which it sat. Bioluminescent sea life filled the shelter and streams of glowing green protoplasm flowed off the edges of the submarine.

  A ship’s diver swam up beside me and gave me the okay sign. They were ready to launch us from the Cavalla.

  “Okay,” I mumbled through the full-face mask. “Dave, stand by to push out.”

  “Roger, sir, standing by to push out,” came the reply.

  Smart, hardworking, never a problem he couldn’t solve, Dave Roberts was the SDV pilot. A second class petty officer, he had been in SDVs his whole SEAL career and was just damn good at what he did.

  The ship’s divers grabbed the side of the now neutrally buoyant SDV, pushed it out of the shelter, and maneuvered it onto the deck of the Cavalla. The submarine’s conning tower, which was forward of the DDS, created a shield from the four-knot current pushing over the bow of the submarine. This made for calm waters on the deck.

  Pushing back the sliding hatch, I looked outside the SDV, checked to ensure the ship’s divers were ready, and gave the order to launch the SDV.

  “Stand by to launch,” I announced.

  “Roger, sir, standing by to launch,” Dave replied.

  Each command given was always repeated to ensure the order received was understood exactly. Our face masks were equipped with a communications system, but understanding muffled words spoken inside a rubber mask took some effort.

  Dave powered up the electric motor and with a slight push from the divers we eased off the side of the Cavalla and were underway.

  Like some giant gray whale returning to the depths, the Cavalla faded from view as Dave steered a course perpendicular to the submarine’s heading. We rose to fifteen feet, which was our normal submerged transit depth.

  “Must be a little choppy topside,” Dave said, to no one in particular.

  I could feel the swells pulling at the boat, sucking it upward and then casting it down again. Having been a pilot for years, I knew that Dave was fighting to keep the SDV level. The variations in pressure no longer bothered any of us. Our eardrums were so pliable that we could go from zero to thirty feet and back again without even having to clear them. Still, it was a matter of pilot pride to keep the boat as level as possible.

  “I’m going to bring her down a few feet.”

  “Roger,” I replied.

  We had ninety minutes to go before we surfaced and began our escape and evasion exercise. Just enough time for a little nap. I repositioned my legs between the two sonar buoys, four haversacks of demolition, and two extra diving rigs, curled up, and started to snooze. Cramped, cold, wet, and breathing into a Darth Vader mask, somehow to me everything felt completely natural. It was the nature of being a frogman, particularly an SDVer.

  Most SEALs hated the idea of being in SDVs: confined in a small space, no room to move, underwater for hours on end, long hot showers at the end of the dive being the only respite from the bone-chilling cold. But for me, the SDV recalled the glory days of the Italian frogmen of World War II or the British X-craft sailors who sailed their minisubs into the deep fjords of Norway chasing German battleships. I dreamed that someday the call would come for me to defeat the Soviets in a daring SDV attack on the Russian shipping in Vladivostok—someday.

  “Mr. Mac. Five minutes to our stop point,” Ron announced.

  “Roger, Ron. Five minutes,” I replied.

  Pulling my feet into my chest, I grabbed the larger of the two sonar buoys and maneuvered it into position for easy deployment. The flow of the water inside the rear compartment began to subside as Dave slowed the boat. Tiny swirls of green phosphorescence pooled in the air pockets of my hovering exhaust bubbles and I could feel the SDV begin to rise.

  “Surfaced,” came the call.

  Reaching behind me, I grabbed the handle on the compartment door and slid the hatch to the rear. Immediately a wave poured over the boat, knocking me back into the aft area.

  “Whoa. It’s a bit rough up here,” I muttered to myself.

  “Hey, I thought the weather guy said the seas were going to be calm tonight,” Dave said, opening the front canopy and climbing onto the top of the boat.

  “Maybe he meant two hundred feet down on the Cavalla,” Ron said, laughing.

  Grabbing the buoy, I pulled a small pin, which initiated the buoy’s saltwater activation. Immediately I could hear a pinging sound.

  “Okay, start the clock,” I said.

  Ron looked at his watch. “It’s now 2115. They said thirty minutes, tops, and we should be out of here.”

  “I bet we’re lucky if they find us in an hour,” Dave said.

  “It’s a little eerie being out here without a safety boat,” Ron said, pulling off his wet suit hood.

  No one wanted to say it, but Ron was right. Every training dive until now, we had a safety boat. On board the boat was a diving supervisor, a corpsman, a safety diver, and radio communications in case something went wrong. Tonight, we were all alone. We were training to go on a real-world mission, Mabry had lectured. You won’t have a safety boat off Libya. You might as well get used to it now.

  “I can’t see squat,” Dave said.

  The fog was beginning to roll in and the swells were getting bigger.

  “How far to Vieques?” I asked.

  “Looks like we’re about ten miles off the coast,” Ron said. “But my Doppler navigation isn’t working in these water depths, so the more we drift the less confident I am in where we are.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be long now,” I said, trying to sound confident. “Then we can turn the boat over to Lieutenant Snell and head back to Roosey Roads. I bet the master chief still has the bar open.”

  The plan called for a replacement crew to come out with the helo. They would jump in, assume control of the SDV, and return it to the Cavalla. We would get a free ride to the base and maybe, just maybe, a cold beer and a warm rack.

  Thirty minutes came and went. Then an hour. Then two. Then three.

  �
��I’m getting frickin’ cold, Mr. Mac,” Dave stated unemotionally.

  “Yeah, me too, Dave,” I agreed.

  “Make that three of us,” Ron stuttered, shaking uncontrollably.

  Expecting to be in the water two hours tops, all of us were wearing “shorty” wet suits. Our usual one-inch-thick wet suits were fine for sedentary twelve-hour dives, but for short dives they caused overheating and you had to continuously douse yourself with cold water to avoid passing out. Even though the waters off Puerto Rico were in the eighties, anything below body temperature quickly drained your core temperature.

  “It’s been five hours since we launched. Maybe we should try to return to the Cavalla,” Ron said.

  “We don’t have any idea where the Cavalla is right now, Ron. We’ve been drifting for three hours. I guarantee you, Mabry and Steffens have every airplane in the fleet looking for us. We just need to stay put and stick with the plan.”

  It wasn’t a very good answer and I’m not sure I believed it myself. Ron was a good sailor, though. Through his shaking and stammering I heard him say, “Yes sir.”

  “Well, the good news is, it isn’t raining,” I said, as another small wave came rolling over the top of the SDV.

  “Yeah, we wouldn’t want to get wet.” Dave smiled, clutching his arms tight to his chest.

  “You sure that damn beacon is still pinging?” Ron asked.

  “Yeah, it’s still pinging,” I replied. “Just no one’s listening.”

  I lay back on the top of the SDV as we bobbed around lost in the middle of the Caribbean. As any leader would, I thought I needed to take charge and help us get through this long night. I made a mental list of our situation. Let’s see, we had no communications. We only hoped the beacon was sending out a signal. We had no idea where we were and no way to get back to our host submarine. We were very cold and getting colder. The weather was continuing to deteriorate and the sun wasn’t due up for another three hours. We weren’t going to die—at least I didn’t think we were—but we were going to be utterly miserable unless I came up with a good idea.