First SEALs (12 page)

Though Horace never posed a problem, the sharks did. As one OSS swimmer colossally understated, the sharks caused “
a certain amount of consternation” as they approached many of the swimmers. In a display of true OSS ingenuity, the operatives invented a solution for the unwelcome interlopers: shark repellent. One version included copper acetate powder that was capsulated in a cloth sack. When a menacing shark approached, the swimmer released the powder, creating a dark cloud in the water similar to the inky fluid a squid emits.

The men continued their diving near Treasure Island, where they found an old shipwreck that proved “
ideal for planting limpet mines and other underwater demolitions.” At Nassau, Operational Swimmer Group II was split into two groups of twenty men each. The final training exercise was a mission to penetrate American harbor defenses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This exercise, code-named “Operation Cincinnati,” would serve both to gauge the effectiveness of the Swimmer Group and to test the Navy's vulnerability to these types of attacks.

Each of the swimmers was outfitted with fins and mask, waterproof wristwatch and compass, an M-3 grease gun in watertight covers, and a waterproof flashlight. They carried with them the explosives in special containers, and some also had sidearms. John Booth, a blue-eyed northerner and national champion swimmer
who commanded the attacking “Red Group,”
*
recalled the mission:

CATALINA ISLAND-TREASURE ISLAND-PACIFIC AREA OF OPERATIONS

The first few days were spent in dispatching swimmers with cable and bolt cutters against standard A/T and A/S nets to determine whether or not it was possible or plausible to have swimmers cut the cables in the net. It was possible to do this and if better and newer cutters had been available, it would have been easier. Next, the swimmers were sent out with Composition “C” [explosive] and primacord and ½ lb. of “C” was placed under each buoy (15) and all charges were put on a main line. The net sank immediately and only two charges failed because of faulty primacord. This was an A/T net. It was possible for swimmers to swim over or climb over all types of nets and booms and under A/T nets or through the overlap. A/S nets presented no obstacle to swimmers. The mesh is 1' x 2' at the smallest and is possible to swim through. Lifting A/T nets by means of a block and tackle was tried. It is possible to lift the net within 8' or 10' of the surface, but it takes about eight or ten men and two blocks. The breach thus made is about 8' wide at the top and 20'–30' at the bottom.

Seven-man LCRs, flying mattresses, and 2-man kayaks were taken across the anti-motor boat boom without too much trouble. There were two problems testing the net and boom and harbor defenses. The first time two 7-man LCRs and fourteen men left a submarine 100 yards off the A/S net, negotiated all of the harbor defenses, attacked target and returned to submarine without being detected. The second time six men and one LCR left from a point 1000 yards off net, negotiated net and harbor defenses, paddled for seven hours
around harbor, coming as close as 75 yards to some ships, bivouacked for one day on shore, attacked ships and installations in harbor, and returned to rendezvous without being detected.

President Roosevelt also noted the success of the mission and noted in his report, “
In these tests, the lengthy training showed commendable results, because the swimmers were able to circumvent the net defenses in each instance. An additional point of value was proof that the Navy sound detection gear did not reveal the presence of underwater swimmers.”

This mission, although it seemed fairly insignificant at the time, was actually tremendously groundbreaking, laying the foundations for America's future combat swimming programs, including the U.S. Navy SEALs. Lieutenant Commander Michael Bennett, U.S. Coast Guard, would later note, “
The exercise was the first of its kind in an actual maritime environment and took place almost 40 years before the Navy commissioned a US Navy officer from SEAL Team Six to set up Red Cell teams in 1984 to ascertain the Navy's vulnerability to terrorist attacks.”

A
FTER EXTENSIVE TRAINING
on the West Coast and in the Bahamas, the three swimmer groups were finally ready for overseas deployment. Lieutenant Arthur Choate, a former Wall Street millionaire, headed Group I, the first to deploy into combat.

Headquarters initially allocated Choate's group to the Aegean. Plans were underway to send them to the island of Karavostosi to concentrate attacks on German shipping on the island of Rhodes. They hoped the combat swimmers could also work with the British, specifically a commando group known as Force #133, and focus on German targets along the Thracian coast. However, Donovan personally interceded and canceled the planned deployment of Choate's group, sending them to Hawaii instead, where they would enter the Pacific war.

Lieutenant Frederick James Wadley, whom Taylor had met back in the winter of 1942 in Santa Monica while testing Browne's Aqualung, commanded L Group. Wadley's group included former Navy diver John P. Spence as well as one of the OSS's first frogmen, Norman Wicker. The group was sent to England, where they would train and prepare for missions related to the invasion of Normandy.

Operational Swimmer Group II, led by Dr. Lambertsen himself as well as senior combat swimmer John Booth, headed to the Far East to operate out of Ceylon, running missions into Burma and Malaysia.

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Eventually a fourth group made up of many men from the L-Unit would be formed into Operational Swimmer Group III.

*
John Booth passed away in 2012. He was a lifelong friend of the author and would frequently stay at his residence on his many trips from Rhode Island to Florida. I will never forget what Booth, ever the optimist, told me after my divorce: “I was divorced around the same age you are [thirty-five]. You are in your prime and at the height of your power!”

10

THE
YANKEE
, OPERATION AUDREY, AND THE BOOT

NOVEMBER 1943, BARI HARBOR, ITALY

Hayden, Taylor, and Smith looked over the long, local fishing boat covered in layers of grime as she wearily rocked in Italy's Bari Harbor. The repurposed, aging craft with a sloping deck and broad bow was outfitted with a radio antenna resembling a crucifix that incongruously stood more than ten feet above the pilot's cupola. Fifty-two feet long, fourteen feet wide, with a German two-cylinder eighty-horsepower engine, the
Yankee
was a far cry from the sleek, high-speed boat Taylor envisioned to be the ideal vessel for engaging in covert, treacherous missions across the enemy-infested waters of the Adriatic Sea. Even with a .50 bolted to her foredeck, she didn't look like a boat built for war. However, such prosaic features would make it easier for the craft to fit in with the local vessels and avoid suspicion. In spite of her unimpressive appearance, Hayden took a liking to the boat and promptly christened her the
Yankee
, after another vessel he had sailed.

Taylor and Hayden, both experienced men of the sea, would captain the
Yankee
on numerous operations, aided by a crew of
eleven: pilot Voyeslav Ivosevitch, one Marine sergeant, eight partisan seaman-gunners, and a cook named Tony. Taylor and Hayden would also use the craft to run supplies to Yugoslavia for Tito's partisans. The
Yankee
would also play a big role in Smith's life. He didn't know it yet, but for
Lloyd Smith the
Yankee
represented his ticket out of the most dangerous mission of his life.

As in Cairo, Jack Taylor was the first MU representative to set foot in Bari, Italy, a new theater of OSS operations. Since their landings in Salerno in September, the Allies had been slowly clawing their way up the spine of the Italian boot: the Fifth Army and Americans on the western side with the British Eighth Army on the east coast facing the Adriatic. The OSS established a base in Bari. Recently liberated by the Allies, the port lay on the heel of the Italian boot with a key entry on the Adriatic. Because of Italy's recent switch to the Allied side, “
everything was in turmoil . . . to find lodgings was difficult; to visit the officials and make arrangements necessary to procure labor, fuel, transport, berthing for ships, and so forth seemed at first impossible,” recalled one OSS agent.

Despite the challenges, Taylor, Hayden, and Tofte got to work almost immediately. Their first task was to build a fleet for a clandestine supply operation dubbed “Operation Audrey.” The
Yankee
was but one craft, and they would need dozens to carry out their plans.

W
HEN
I
TALY SURRENDERED
to Allied forces on September 3, 1943, the Italian army still occupied much of Yugoslavia.
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Tito's partisan forces who sided with the Allies quickly disarmed many of the Italian troops, taking their weapons and artillery for themselves. After the Italian surrender, mountains of equipment, including shoes, uniforms, rations, and weapons stored in warehouses in
Sicily, fell into Allied hands. Tofte, Taylor, and Hayden immediately recognized that this gear would well serve and support the guerrilla forces fighting the Germans in Yugoslavia. Tofte, Area A's former hand-to-hand combat instructor and now a major in the OSS, was charged with managing supply runs in the Adriatic to distribute the seized largesse to the Yugoslav partisans.