Missions That Made Them Legendary

• In January 1962, President John F. Kennedy approved the creation of SEAL Group One and SEAL Group Two.
• Since then, US Navy SEALs have fought all around the world, making their title in high-profile operations.
• Whereas fame has helped SEALs promote themselves, the unit itself has been tarnished by their exploits.

Particular-operations forces have been on the coronary heart of US fight operations lately, incomes a excessive profile and a fame for pulling off high-risk operations.

However that hasn’t at all times been the case. US particular operators have needed to work very arduous to take their place on the tip of the spear.

Amongst these forces, the US Navy SEALs stand out. Within the 60 years since their unit was shaped, the SEALs have operated all around the globe, combating on their very own or in assist of different US navy models.

Here is how the SEALs have made their mark.

Frogmen and Underwater Demolition Groups

The Navy SEALs hint their origins again to the frogmen of World Battle II.

In the course of the warfare, the US navy established a number of special-operations models to combat Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Notable ones that influenced the creation of the Navy SEALs are the Amphibious Scouts and Raiders, Particular Mission Naval Fight Demolition Unit, and the Underwater Demolition Groups.

These models carried out particular and hydrographic reconnaissance, cleared seashores, and carried out unconventional-warfare missions in assist of Marine Corps and Army models in the course of the island-hopping marketing campaign throughout the Pacific.

Though Naval Particular Warfare models primarily fought within the Pacific theater, primarily due to the maritime aspect, the predecessors of the Navy SEALs additionally fought in Europe.

The D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, stay the deadliest day within the historical past of the Naval Particular Warfare neighborhood, with 37 killed and 71 wounded in motion — a 52% casualty charge.

In January 1962, with the warfare in Vietnam brewing, President John F. Kennedy approved the creation of SEAL Group One and SEAL Group Two, which drew from and labored along side the prevailing Underwater Demolition Groups.

The 2 models coexisted and used the identical choice and coaching course of — the notoriously troublesome Fundamental Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) coaching — till the Underwater Demolition Groups had been absorbed by the SEAL Groups within the Nineteen Seventies.

Since their inception, Navy SEALs have participated in nearly all minor and main US navy operations.

A fearsome fame

The Navy SEALs’ most well-known mission is Operation Neptune’s Spear in Might 2011.

SEALs from the Naval Particular Warfare Growth Group — previously referred to as SEAL Group 6 — flew from Afghanistan to Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the midst of the evening to raid a compound believed to dwelling to Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda chief and mastermind of the September 11 terrorist assaults.

One other high-profile operation carried out by Navy SEALs was the rescue of Richard Phillips, the captain of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama, who was taken hostage by Somali pirates off the coast of Somalia in April 2009.

An assault squadron from the Naval Particular Warfare Growth Group — the Navy particular missions unit liable for direct-action raids and counterterrorism operations — parachuted into the Indian Ocean and linked up with US warships monitoring the state of affairs, together with guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge.

The pirates had taken Phillips off the cargo ship in a lifeboat and had been attempting to barter when the Navy commander on the scene decided Phillips’ life was in peril. Three SEAL snipers then ended the standoff by firing from USS Bainbridge and hitting the three Somali pirates of their heads.

One other notable SEAL operation occurred within the opening hours of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when Navy SEALs and Particular Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewmen operators labored with Polish and British special-operations forces to assault and seize a number of Iraqi oil platforms.

The platforms had been the top of Iraq’s solely oil pipeline to the Persian Gulf, and so they funneled thousands and thousands of barrels of oil into supertankers each day. US officers anxious that Iraqi forces would use them to dump oil into the Gulf and dispatched the SEALs to neutralize them.

In a 40-minute operation, SEALs with shotguns and crowbars burst into the platforms, dealing with no resistance and with no losses on both aspect. “‘After they noticed our weapons, they put their arms proper up,” one of many SEALs mentioned on the time.

SEAL operations solely elevated within the 2000s. The terrorist assaults of September 11, 2001, prompted the SEALs ranks to swell by 50%. Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, stays the operation that employed the most important variety of Navy SEALs in historical past.

4 of the seven Navy SEALs who’ve acquired the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor beneath fireplace, earned it for his or her actions in the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The opposite three acquired it for his or her actions within the Vietnam Battle.

The price of fame

With the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the Navy SEALs solidified their standing as a family title. Within the years since, former Navy SEALs, together with some who had been a part of the operation in Abbottabad, have drawn on that have in second careers as pundits, authors, and motivational audio system.

Though their fame has helped the SEALs and the Navy with recruitment significantly, it has include a value to the unit itself. A string of scandals — together with drug abuse, assault, and allegations of warfare crimes — has tarnished the Navy SEALs’ fame.

“Let’s be trustworthy. As a neighborhood, now we have dropped the ball a number of occasions over the past 10 years or so. Public fascination facilitated by the media has definitely performed a component in our moving into the highlight, however we went together with it,” a former Navy SEAL officer instructed Insider.

The books, podcasts, TV reveals, and films — together with “Act of Valor,” a 2012 film that was commissioned by Naval Particular Warfare Command and starred active-duty SEALs — which have come out lately “have tarnished our fame of being ‘Quiet Professionals,'” added the previous SEAL officer, who nonetheless works in authorities and was not approved to talk to the media.

“There is just one manner again to the shadows the place we belong, and that’s by conserving our mouths shut,” which matches for Naval Particular Warfare Command too, the previous officer mentioned. “You may recruit with out compromising your fame. There needs to be and there’s a center floor.”

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a protection journalist specializing in particular operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (nationwide service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins College graduate.