Key West: Home of ARSOF Underwater Operations by Kenneth Finlayson OSS Seal Dive Badge Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) became the standard employs a variety of methods to insert troops in their apparatus for underwa- area of operations. Infiltration by air, land, and sea are ter swimmers in the MU.2 SCUBA: Self-Contained Under- all viable options evaluated by ARSOF units during mis- Lambertsen transferred water Breathing Apparatus is sion planning.1 The proponency for waterborne opera- to the OSS in 1943 from the term commonly applied to tions training, either surface or sub-surface, has been the Army Medical Corps. underwater diving equipment assigned to Special Forces since 1952. This article will After training newly other than those of the “hard- trace the origins of Army underwater operations from recruited MU swimmers hat” variety. Where necessary, World War II to the establishment of the Special Forces on his apparatus on Cata- the different types of systems Underwater Warfare Operations (SFUWO) school at Key lina Island, California, will be explained. West, Florida. Special Forces underwater operations have and in Nassau, Grand undergone a number of Bahamas, Lambertsen course changes and facil- was sent to Ceylon (Sri ities upgrades since the Lanka) on 7 January 1945. school was established at He joined the MU at the Key West in 1965. base at Galle, Ceylon, The origins of ARSOF where the MU had been maritime operations can headquartered since be traced to the Office of arriving in the theater in Strategic Services (OSS) June 1944.3 during World War II. The Maritime Unit The OSS had a Maritime was in the China-Bur- Operations Branch and ma-India Theater (CBI) Maritime Unit (MU) because Brigadier Gen- that became operational eral William O. Donovan, on 20 January 1943. The the director of the OSS, Maritime Unit trained for promised Lord Louis surface and sub-surface Mountbatten, the the- swimming operations ater commander, that he using first-generation would furnish forces to underwater breathing assist in intelligence gath- equipment. In 1940, Dr. ering. The under-manned Christian J. Lambertsen and under-supplied CBI had invented a closed-cir- was an “economy of cuit (recycled air system) force” theater in World underwater breathing War II.4 Based on Cey- Dr. Christian Lambertsen device. It was known as lon, the MU was initially (left) and U.S. Coast Guard the Lambertsen Respi- located at the British Lieutenant John P. Booth con- The Lambertsen Rebreathing ratory Unit (LARU) and Naval facility in Trinco- ducted the dive training for the Unit was the closed-circuit Maritime Unit in Nassau, the underwater breathing system Bahamas. used by the Maritime Unit. Vol. 2 No. 3 India to Arrakan Coast of Burma, 1300 miles malee before relocating to gaining approval for adoption for standard use by Army Galle on the southwest- divers.8 Until the 1950s, the Corps of Engineers was the Sri Lanka Trincomalee ern end of the island. Gal- only Army element interested in diving. The Corps (Ceylon) le remained the primary employed “hard-hat” divers for underwater salvage MU base until the unit work and repair of lock and dam facilities. The creation moved across the Bay of Special Forces in 1952 expanded the Army’s interest of Bengal to the Mergui in maritime operations. By the mid-1950s, Special Forces Archipelago in Decem- soldiers were training for missions that required the ber 1944.5 This new base underwater diving equipment of the time, technology Colombo significantly reduced the that was readily available and rapidly evolving. 2,600-mile round-trip In the post-war years, underwater diving had moved from Galle to their pri- from a strictly military application to one of recreation. mary area of operations In the pre-war years, Frenchman Jacques Cousteau and Galle N 0 40Miles on the Arakan Peninsula Austrian Hans Hass had each invented “open-circuit” 0 40KM Indian Ocean of Burma. diving systems that used bottled oxygen and discharged Stationed at the OSS the used air into the water. Cousteau’s “Aqua-lung” was The Maritime Unit was based in Maritime Unit Base in marketed commercially after the war and became the Galle before moving across the Bay of Bengal to the Mergui Galle, Dr. Lambertsen standard for recreational divers. In an academic paper Archipelago in December 1944. continued to train the on physiology related to diving, Dr. Lambertsen coined MU swimmers with his the term SCUBA (self-contained underwater breathing rebreathing apparatus apparatus) that became the popular term for all types of and in the use of the underwater breathing systems. The first Special Forces British submersible, the divers were part of the SCUBA boom. In an early exam- Sleeping Beauty. “Dual- ple, men of the 77th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, hatted” as the unit medi- North Carolina, formed a “Para-Divers” Club in 1955 cal officer, he divided with membership open to those individuals who were his time between train- trained parachutists and SCUBA divers. ing the MU swimmers, The club officers, Master Sergeant Carl maintaining the delicate J. Brewster, President; Master Sergeant submersibles, and attend- Walter Boyling, Vice-President; Sergeant ing to the medical needs First Class Everett White, secretary; and of the men. At the end Sergeant First Class George H. Campbell, of the war, Lambertsen treasurer, received certification from the transferred back to the National Frogmen Club of Glendale, Cali- Army Medical Corps fornia, at that time the official sanctioning where he remained until body for recreational diving in the Unit- The Sleeping Beauty was an his discharge in 1946.6 ed States.9 At this time, the other Special 77th SFG underwater submersible of The MU focused Forces Groups were training and conduct- Distinctive Unit British design. its efforts against the Insignia Arakan coast of Japanese- occupied Burma, gathering intelligence and inserting agents along the mangrove-dominated coast. Between 1 January 1944 and 23 May 1945, thirty-six missions were conducted—the majority against the Japanese in Burma, but some covered Thailand, Sumatra, and the Andaman Islands.7 The MU was eventually incorporated into the “OSS 101 Arakan Field Unit” on 15 February 1945, where they continued to conduct maritime operations until disbanded on 15 June 1945. Dr. Christian Lambertsen and the underwater swimmers of the Maritime Unit in the CBI pioneered the techniques and equipment that formed the basis for the future of Special Forces under- water operations. The end of the war prompted President Harry S. Tru- man to dissolve the OSS by executive order in 1945. But military interest in underwater operations continued. Between 1947 and 1949, Dr. Lambertsen worked with Army Field Forces Board #2 improving his LARU and Members of the 77th Special Forces Group. SCUBA- qualified members in the Group formed a “Para-Divers” Club in 1955. Veritas Men of Detachment-Berlin assist local officials with an Graduating class of the Navy’s Underwater Swimmers underwater body search and recovery in Bavaria, 1961. School, June 1958. Sergeant Robert F. Mulcahy is in the second row, 5th from the right. ing underwater operations. The 1st Special Forces Group (SFG) on Okinawa and the SF Group. “At that time, SF Scuba was a hodge-podge Detachment A in Berlin, as well as the 8th SFG in Pana- of programs. We had the same problem with HALO ma all conducted training and operations to become pro- (high-altitude low-opening parachuting) and we needed ficient in SCUBA operations because it was an infiltration to develop training programs. In 1961, the Special War- technique.10 The early Special Forces SCUBA divers were fare Center established a cross-training program with the trained by the Navy at their underwater swimmers Navy Underwater Demolition Teams.”13 It soon became school at Key West, Florida. Sergeant Robert F. Mulca- clear that the Army Special Warfare Center needed a hy was one of ten members of 77th SFG who completed facility for its own underwater operations course. the Navy’s Underwater Swimmers School at Key West In 1964, Captain Ola L. Mize was assigned to the in June 1958.11 The next year, Mulcahy and nine SCUBA Advanced Training Committee at the John F. Kennedy divers from the 77th SFG received advanced underwater Special Warfare Center (formerly the U.S. Army Special training at Norfolk, Virginia, with the Navy.12 The grow- Warfare Center). Mize, recipient of the Medal of Honor ing interest in Special Forces underwater operations led in the Korean War, was initially the committee chief. to the establishment of a course of instruction through The Advanced Training Committee was responsible the U.S. Army Special Warfare Center in 1961. for HALO (now called Brigadier General William P. Yarborough, command- military free-fall) train- er of the U.S. Army Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, ing, the Fulton Recovery saw the need to standardize the underwater training in System (Skyhook), and the Jumpmaster courses for HALO and static- line parachuting. At BG Yarborough’s direction, Mize was also put in charge of a program of instruction for underwa- ter operations. “I took over the Scuba School, and the biggest assets were [SFC Johnny] Dolin the medic and ‘Ski’ Sichowski who was a UDT [Navy Underwater Demolition Team vet- eran] from World War II. As the commander of the We tried our best to find John F. Kennedy Special someplace here in North Warfare School, Brigadier Carolina for the school. General William P. Yarborough was instrumental in the We tried talking with Certificate awarded to Sergeant Robert F. Mulcahy upon establishment of the Special completion of the Navy’s Underwater Swimmers School at Forces Underwater Operations Key West in 1958.