Edwin P. Hoyt - Seals at War: The Story of U.S. Navy Special Warfare

January 31, 1968. SEAL Team No. 2, 8th Platoon, discovered fourteen hundred enemy troops near the river by Chau Doc. Enormously outnumbered, they linked up with a handful of U.S. Army advisers in the town. They found two jeeps and mounted a .50-caliber machine gun on one of them. Several American civilians were missing. The Viet Cong attacked about an hour later, seizing the city piece by piece. At the house of a missing American nurse, the SEAL team found that the Viet Cong had gotten there first and were ran-sacking the place while the nurse hid in a wardrobe in the living room.

As the Viet Cong came near her hiding place, she panicked and bolted for the back door. As she swung the door open, she was met by Viet Cong in the backyard.

They were as startled as she, and just stared at her. The SEALs kicked in the front door, and the nurse turned to run to them. She opened a clear field of fire for the SEALs and they began shooting, but as their bullets hit the back door, they knocked it shut. The SEALs grabbed the nurse and sprinted for the jeep with the Viet Cong racing after them.

THE DELL WAR SERIES

The Dell War Series takes you onto the battlefield, into the jungles and beneath the oceans with unforgettable stories that offer a new look at the terrors and triumphs of Americas war experience. Many of these books are eyewitness accounts of the duty-bound fighting man. From the intrepid foot soldiers, sailors, pilots, and commanders, to the elite warriors of the Special Forces, here are stories of men who fight because their lives depend on it.

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Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
666 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10103

Copyright 1993 by Edwin P. Hoyt

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eISBN: 978-0-307-57006-2

v3.1

The Making of a SEAL

Over the past quarter century the art of warfare has changed as it has become apparent that most operations in which the military is involved (Operation Desert Storm excepted) do not require the deployment of large numbers of ships, aircraft, and land armies but of small, efficient forces that can move swiftly and strike precisely. Such affairs as Israels Entebbe raid showed how quickly a small force could strike, and such as the failed American raid to rescue hostages in Iran showed why the striking force should be homogeneous and self-contained. To meet this challenge the United States has now developed the Special Warfare Command, representing all three services. The Navy arm is the Naval Special Warfare Command, and its backbone is the fighting team called the Navy SEALs, who can operate on land, sea, and from the air. Two of these attributes they exhibited in Operation Desert Storm. In one operation, with only a handful of swimmers, they gulled the Iraqis into believing that an amphibious action was imminent in the beginning of that war. Their efforts and a few explosions caused the Iraqis to move troops into the beach area, troops who otherwise would have been pitted against the Marines inland. The SEALs also staged a lightning raid into Baghdad during the war, indicative of their land-operating potential.

These successes did not come about by accident. They were the result of what is now fifty years of effort by the Navy to improve its combat capability in special ways, based on experience. This increased capability is developing constantly, as the SEALs hone the sharp edge of their training programs and make use of every new development in warfare, from improved landing craft to improved computers and sophisticated computer programs. As one veteran SEAL at the Special Warfare headquarters in Coronado, California, said, The new breed of SEALs is smarter and more experienced and all the way around more capable than we were.

That statement is a proud reminder of the strong bond that exists between these underwater warriors of two generations. SEALs tend to work together and play together, further cementing ties woven during their initial and subsequent training. The older generation, now lieutenant commanders and warrant officers and chief petty officers, are the instructors of the young, retaining the traditions of this very special service and working to improve the standards of performance. It is all very real and all very deadly, for the SEALs are a combat unit, and in every clandestine operation every mans life is on the line.

The roots of the Navy SEALs lie in the development of amphibious warfare by the U.S. Navy, beginning in 1942. Before that time the Navy did not have any underwater capability except for the helmeted Navy diver, whose tasks were primarily salvage and repair. The Europeans were far ahead in this field, particularly the Italians, whose frogmen accomplished some remarkable feats in the war, crippling several elements of the British fleet with limpet mines at Alexandria and in similar operations elsewhere.

The American amphibious program was designed to meet needs in the Aleutians and at Guadalcanal, but it was so hurriedly constructed that no thought was given to the conditions and problems an amphibious landing force might encounter in the shallow waters just offshore. The Guadalcanal landing was misleading. It was too easy, except on the Tulagi side of the channel; the Marines did not encounter any combat troops at the beginning. The ships came right up to the land, with no reefs or obstructions to bar their way, and began to unload supplies without difficulty. But that was not the pattern that would develop, as the Navy discovered in their next major operation, halfway across the world, in North Africa. There the Navy did find obstructions and did learn that it needed information and the capability of creating suitable conditions for the landing of small craft on an enemy shore.

One of the first, and most famous, of the underwater men was Phillip H. Bucklew. He was a college football player who turned professional before World War II. During the war he became an instructor in the Navy/Marine Corps Scout-Raider School in Florida. Before the North Africa landings, the commanders of the invasion force became concerned about the conditions of the beaches. What kind of beaches were they? What conditions would the landing troops face? Bucklew went into the beach alone, to gather intelligence about landing beaches, and returned with the information and a bucket of sand for the officers to study.