First SEALs (8 page)

With security firmly in place, Duncan reported, “
Experimentation under Lieutenant Alexander started yesterday and will continue until all of his prospective work has been completed. That should be by Wednesday of next week at the latest [mid-September 1943]. Conditions are good for this work. The water is clear; the weather so far has been clear and warm; the management of Silver Springs has loaned us an electric boat and has been most cooperative in all matters.” This would be the last report Lieutenant Duncan wrote for the OSS; shortly after the training concluded he returned to the fleet due to the flap with Kauffman.

As the training was winding down in the pristine, crystal waters of Silver Springs, an OSS camera crew began capturing on film the remarkable exploits of the LARU-equipped underwater combat team. After the war, the footage would be classified top secret and locked away in a vault for decades before the Navy SEALs would again view it in the 1960s.

SEA

6

CRAZY YANKS: THE MARITIME UNIT'S BEACHHEAD IN EGYPT

L
IEUTENANT
J
ACK
T
AYLOR WAS ON
his own in Cairo. As he wandered through the maze of the city's bazaar, a colorful, exotic scene played out before him. Even though the direct threat from Rommel, the German field marshal who made
blitzkrieg
assaults across the deserts of North Africa, and his
Afrika Korps
had since passed, Egypt's capital teemed with spies, danger, and intrigue. Carts filled with an array of fresh fruits, other foods, and various sundries lined the winding, narrow streets. The sweltering heat of the summer air was heavy with pungent odors, and thick smoke from burning hookahs swirled amidst the crowds and filth. Flies blanketed the vendors' succulent offerings, relentlessly assaulting man and beast alike. The first
OSS Maritime Unit officer to be deployed overseas, Taylor sauntered through the ancient metropolis, grappling with the massive responsibilities that lay before him. With no staff and only the lowly rank of lieutenant, Jack Taylor was charged with building the infrastructure of the Maritime Unit's first foreign base and training center.

I
N
A
UGUST
1943
, the Cairo headquarters fit into Donovan's greater obsession with the Mediterranean, stemming from his earlier travels and fact-finding mission in 1941. Based in Egypt, the Cairo OSS focused most of its missions on intelligence gathering against German-occupied Greece and the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea. Colonel C. B. Guenther, OSS's station chief in Cairo, directed OSS's Secret Intelligence (SI) branch through a program known as “The Greek Desk.” Getting the SI agents in and out of Axis-occupied areas and ferrying supplies by sea were operations ideally suited for the Maritime Unit.

At the Cairo headquarters of the OSS, Taylor would meet some of the agency's most interesting characters—Indiana Jones–like individuals who crossed the line between academia and international intrigue. Most of the secret intelligence staff were classical archaeologists—men and women who had spent decades unearthing the history of ancient Greece. These scholars-cum-spies possessed an astute understanding of the culture and nuances of Greek politics, and most were fluent in the language. The agents of the Cairo Desk risked their lives by using their scholarly profession as a cover for covert activities. Many considered archaeology to be an overused veil, as the Germans and British commonly used it as a cover throughout World War I. But rather than a classical archaeologist turned spy, one of the first special operators Taylor met in Cairo was a famous Hollywood leading man, Sterling Hayden. Together they would undertake some of the most daring missions of the war.

Hayden cut quite a magnificent figure. He stood “
six foot five in his leather jumping boots and weighed close to two hundred and thirty pounds. A British parachute emblem and a small American flag were neatly stitched to the sleeves of his combat jacket. There was also the conventional military insignia, and a .357 Magnum revolver strapped to his thigh.” Hayden attempted to downplay his Hollywood past, even legally changing his name to John Hamilton. Still, the former star remained recognizable.

“
‘Haven't [I] seen you somewhere before?' Taylor asked.

“‘I don't know, sir.'

“‘Your face is familiar, did you play football in college?'

“‘No sir, I never went to college.'

“‘Oh.'”

On entering the not-exactly-covert OSS headquarters in Cairo, visitors walked into a luxurious stone mansion in the heart of the city. Observing the opulent scenery surrounding him for the first time, Hayden dryly noted that “
the chiefs of the various OSS headquarters overseas had a spectacular talent for living in style. The Cairo villa looked like a bastard version of the Taj Mahal. The high wall around it was pierced by a tall iron gate; there were broad verandahs of inlaid tile and a profusion of shade trees above vast stretches of lawn. A young platoon of servants glided in endless circles, the punkahs [fans] revolved overhead, and through a leafy crevasse you could gaze each dawn on a pair of Egyptian girls as they combed each other's hair.”

Hayden soon met Taylor and found him an “
oddly chilling guy.” Nevertheless, the two men formed a bond and worked together well. Because the Maritime Unit (MU) and Special Operations (SO) spawned from the same branch and Taylor was the only MU personnel in Cairo, it was natural for him to work with Hayden and the other SO men in the theater.

Hayden was a true adventurer cut from the same cloth as Taylor. He had spent years at sea, sailing schooners and piloting boats on transoceanic voyages. The two men also shared a connection to Hollywood. In 1940 and 1941 Hayden was one of the silver screen's leading men. Paramount, with whom he had a contract, called him “The Most Beautiful Man in the Movies” and “The Beautiful Blond Viking God.” But Hayden was no shallow movie star; he possessed a profound depth of character and understanding of life. In his autobiography, he wrote,

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a
routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea . . . cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it. What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine—and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need—really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in—and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all—in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?

Hayden took an interesting path to the OSS. Prior to America's entry into World War II, Hayden wanted to serve. He knew Donovan's son through their shared interest in sailing, and Donovan offered the former movie star a cryptic invitation to go to Scotland for commando training. Hayden seized the opportunity with alacrity and was soon parachuting out of airplanes, learning hand-to-hand combat, and mastering small arms. One instructor noted that Hayden took to commando operations “
like a duck to water.” As part of his training, he successfully made ten parachute jumps, but on the eleventh he broke his ankle, dislocated his knee, and sustained spinal injuries. That effectively ended his commando days, and he returned to the United States.

There he tried to join the U.S. Navy, but they rejected him due to the extent of his many injuries. Dejected, he took off alone in a schooner for the West Indies, where he proceeded to get thoroughly intoxicated with a group of Marines. The entire group ended up in jail, but Hayden was so taken with his drinking buddies that after his agent bailed him out, he returned to New York and enlisted as a private in the Marine Corps.

After passing through boot camp just as easily as he breezed through commando training, Hayden received orders to transfer to the OSS on Donovan's orders. He shed his Hollywood past and even his name, legally changing it to John Hamilton. “
To complete my metamorphosis and cut my last tie with Hollywood, Madeleine [his wife] went to court and obtained legal permission for a change of name. Henceforth I was John Hamilton,” he recalled.

Hayden made the transatlantic journey to Cairo with a taciturn, tough former State College wrestler, Captain Lloyd Smith. Stocky, with a mind for numbers, the blond-haired, blue-eyed operative was a former wrestler at Penn State.
*

C
AIRO WAS AN ICONIC STEW
of one-of-a-kind personalities, including Captain Hans V. Tofte. Born in Denmark, Tofte had played an active role in resisting the Nazi takeover of his country. When the Gestapo learned of his involvement and began closing in, he escaped and fled to the United States. Almost immediately he began fighting for the Allies as a British Army major in command of a guerrilla team fighting in Burma and China that ran a supply line between the two areas. He later returned to the United
States and enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army, where he swiftly rose through the ranks and volunteered for the OSS.

Originally the OSS assigned Tofte to their training facility designated Area F, the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland. Lacking revenue to pay its debts, the club leased its posh grounds to the OSS. There they turned raw recruits into special operators and Operational Groups—twenty- to thirty-man commando teams with language and cultural skills. Trained in everything from demolitions to guerrilla warfare, these groups were the forerunners to the U.S. Army Green Berets.

An expert on hand-to-hand combat, Tofte instructed OSS agents, as well as Marines and FBI agents who came to the facility, on the deadly art of “gutterfighting,” such as using a single karate chop to an opponent's neck or face to kill or cripple him. In his day Tofte earned a reputation as “the world's second best killer”—the “best killer” being Tofte's mentor, Captain William Ewart “Dan” Fairbairn, the inventor of gutterfighting. Fairbairn was known as the “Shanghai Buster” for all the skulls he cracked while organizing riot squads for the Shanghai police. He summed up the black art simply: “
I developed a system that got results . . . there's no fair play; no rules except one: kill or be killed.”

Fairbairn and Tofte taught recruits the finer points of the “Tiger's Claw,” a clenched hand whose forceful upward swing was designed to gouge out an opponent's eyes. Along with offensive moves, Fairbairn had a number of counters, including how to get out of a bear hug: “
To break a bear hug . . . go limp . . . grab his testicles. Ruin him.”

Fearless and highly skilled, Tofte didn't hesitate to put a snarky recruit in line. On one occasion, a hulking, famous professional wrestler named “Jumping Joe” Silvaldi, who was going through training at Area F, challenged Tofte. Tofte drily recalled, “
Unfortunately, his insults went a bit over hand and I broke one of his arms.”