Combat Swimmer (2 page)

The forward torpedo room was designed to accommodate six men, who loaded the torpedoes into the forward tubes. We filled the space and then some. Sweat filled my wet suit and dripped off my face. Our suits would keep us warm once we were in the water, but now, as we waited for the submarine to reach the launch point, they were about to dehydrate us.

The trunk operator was already standing by in the chamber. The submarine dive supervisor stood by the entrance to the forward escape-hatch ladder, waiting to receive the word from the submarine commanding officer in the conn. I knew my commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Dave Schaible, was standing right next to him, making sure his boys were launched at the right place.

I was at the bottom of the ladder, going over in my mind all we were about to do. My swim buddy, Petty Officer Second Class Tom McCutchan, stood next to me, checking to see if all the men were ready to go. I knew they were. I could see it in their eyes. My men were all aggressive warriors, and they were well prepared for the mission. Adrenaline levels were high, and confidence levels even higher. All they wanted to do was get off the damn submarine before they sweated to death.

Suddenly, we all leaned slightly forward as the
Sea Lion
slowed to three knots. It was time to start. The first dive pair headed up the ladder and squeezed into the small forward escape trunk to begin the lockout cycle. The dive supervisor carefully lowered the bottom hatch and shut it tightly. Pressing the call switch on the 1MC internal communications system, he told the conn, “Ready to commence lockout.”

Through the speaker I heard, “Commence lockout.”

The loudspeaker squawked again as the trunk operator said, “Undogging side door.” Then, “Opening flood, opening vent.”

I heard the rush of water and the roar of escaping air as the trunk operator opened the flood and vent valves to fill the escape trunk with water. I watched through the small window in the bottom of the hatch as the seawater filled the trunk.

“Water at waist level, swimmers okay,” the trunk operator said.

“Roger,” responded the dive supervisor, located just under the escape trunk. “Continue the flood.”

I watched as the two swimmers washed their masks in the water, spat in them to reduce fogging, and put them on.

“Water at chest level, closing vent!” yelled the trunk operator.

“Side door opening.” I heard a clunk. Through the hatch window I saw the door swing open as the pressure in the trunk equalized with the pressure outside the submarine.

“Swimmers leaving trunk” came through the speaker.

I watched as my men escaped the cramped trunk for the freedom of the night ocean. They disappeared from my sight through the trunk's accessway below the main deck of the submarine. It was just after two in the morning and very dark.

I pictured the first swim pair moving aft toward the sail, holding on to lines that were strung along the deck to guide them to the small “cigarette deck” halfway up the sail. There each man would swap his mouthpiece for one attached to the submarine's air supply, so as not to deplete his Mark 6 gas supply while waiting for his teammates to arrive.

As soon as the second swimmer's fins cleared the entranceway, I watched as the trunk operator closed and dogged the side door.

“Opening blow, opening drain,” said the operator as he opened the blow and drain valves. That slightly increased the pressure in the trunk and forced the water out into a holding tank in the bilge area of the submarine.

“Roger,” replied the dive supervisor.

“Water at bottom hatch,” said the operator. “Securing drain and opening vent.” As he secured the valves, he cracked the vent to bring the trunk back to the “surface”—in other words, to make the air pressure equal to that inside the submarine.

When the gauges indicated the trunk was “on the surface,” the dive supervisor said, “Stand clear, opening hatch,” and pushed open the bottom trunk hatch.

The next pair of swimmers climbed up the ladder into the trunk to repeat the cycle. That first cycle had taken nine minutes—a good but not great time. We repeated the process until, 117 minutes later, only my swim buddy Tom McCutchan and I remained in the submarine.

I turned to Tom. “You ready?”

“Let's get the hell out of here,” he replied.

Up the five-foot ladder he went, me behind. Tom leaned forward as he got to the hatch opening. I reached up and guided his diving rig as he wiggled inside. When I got to the hatch opening Tom reached down, grabbed the top of my rig, and helped me wedge my frame through. It was a tight fit.

I am about six feet, one inch, and I weighed 205 pounds in those days. Tom was equally tall but not quite as heavy. Together, we more than filled the escape trunk. We wriggled around as the dive supervisor gingerly closed the bottom hatch, trying not to catch one of our feet. As we moved, the fiberglass coverings on our diving gear bumped against the piping in the trunk. We had to be careful not to bang them too hard. We also had to be careful not to snag one of the canvas-covered rubber breathing bags or our breathing hoses, crammed against our chests. The Mark 6 was a somewhat fragile rig. It wasn't designed for locking out of submarines.

As the water flooded into the trunk and began to creep up my legs into my wet suit, a feeling of calm came over me. It was time to do the mission. The rising water began to relieve some of the weight I carried. Fully immersed, we would be almost neutrally buoyant. When the side door opened, I put in my mouthpiece, hunched down, and eased into the short accessway to the main deck. Tom was right behind me. We both stopped and put on our swim fins. From this point on there would be little need for talk.

We swam along the deck, careful not to look around too much. We didn't want the water flow from the moving submarine to rip off our face masks. The submarine was highlighted in an eerie blue-green glow as the sea's microscopic organisms contacted the hull and signaled their existence with phosphorescence. I could see about twenty feet along the submarine deck as we held the guideline and swam upward toward the sail.

As the cigarette deck came into view, I saw that my men had retrieved and distributed all our equipment from the external storage areas. They appeared ready to go. Tom and I slipped over the railing and settled in next to the men.

After checking with my assistant platoon commander, Lieutenant Junior Grade John Hennigan, I swam to the small, air-filled “Bubble” attached to the sail, stuck my head in, and pulled out my mouthpiece. “We're ready to launch,” I told the sub CO through the loudspeaker.

“Roger,” he replied. “We'll be at the drop-off point in five minutes.”

I signaled to John and waited for the CO's signal to go. I could see John's baby face peering at me through his face mask . . . we kidded him about his young looks, but he was tough as nails. I could see he'd done his usual good job getting things organized outside the submarine.

“Thirty seconds to launch” came through the speaker in the Bubble. “That was a quick five minutes,” I thought.

The men spat out the mouthpiece from the air regulators attached to the manifold on the cigarette deck and went back on their Mark 6 rig. They were hovering at the top of the railing around the cigarette deck, holding on to the “Lizard Line,” the long rope that keeps SEALs together during submerged operations.

At precisely 0400, the submarine CO said over the speaker, “Course to Point Alpha same as planned—
go
!”

“Roger. See you in about five hours.”

“We'll keep the coffee hot,” Dave said, giving us his personal send-off.

I gave the hand signal to push off. The lead pair swam into the boat's flow stream and set a course toward the beach, while I positioned myself next to Tom on the Lizard Line and started kicking to get clear of the submarine. Looking back along the line, I saw the latter half of my team falling into formation as the sub slowly disappeared into the murk.

My best navigators were the lead pair, and I knew they would guide us to the target beach. We swam in double file, each pair holding a loop spliced into the Lizard Line. Tom, swimming at my side, appeared to hang suspended as we moved effortlessly through the water, and in front of me the fins of the swimmers gave off a bioluminescent glow.

The trip to Point Alpha was going to take about an hour and a half. On long swims, like this one, it was hard for me to keep from going into a trance. Swimming always relaxed me, and the water was wonderfully warm. The slight current created by my swimming cooled me as the wet suit got more comfortable.

 

We were on our way to an enemy beach on a small island in the Caribbean, where we would prepare the way for an amphibious landing by a large naval force. We had to reconnoiter the beach without being seen, which meant we had to stay underwater. A submerged swimmer reconnaissance is the most complicated operation I ever ran as a SEAL officer, and it took more than three hours to conduct the mission briefing. Once we left the submarine, we weren't going to be able to talk things over: all communication would be in sign language. Every man had to know not only his own assignment but everyone else's so he could take over any role if we had casualties.

Today's mission was straightforward. We had to give the amphibious force commander the location of every man-made and natural obstacle that might impale a landing craft. We had to locate and mark mines as well. The commander also needed to know whether the beach sand could support tanks, bulldozers, and other heavy equipment in the landing force. And of course, we had to do it all without the enemy knowing we'd been there.

To accomplish our mission we had to leave the submarine about two miles off the beach. We'd swim submerged all the way. Three hundred yards off the beach, we'd establish a grid reference, “Point Alpha.” In designated swim pairs, we'd proceed along assigned lanes within the grid system, recording the water depth and any natural or man-made obstacles we encountered. After assembling back at Point Alpha, we'd swim back to sea, to a submarine rendezvous point. All of this had to be done underwater, much of it at night. Each man would spend about seven hours submerged—if all went well. We were trained as well as any UDT Platoon could have been, but it would still be a tough mission. None of us wanted to face our commanding officer, Dave Schaible, if we blew it.

I felt the line slow and looked at my watch. It was 0530 and we had arrived at Point Alpha. It was still dark. Tom and I swam to the front of the line, where one of the men was already screwing the first of his reference augers into the sandy bottom, twenty-five feet beneath the surface. It looked like the right place. To make sure, I drifted slowly toward the surface, with Tom below me holding on to my weight belt. When my depth gauge read five feet I signaled Tom, and he remained at that depth keeping a close eye on me. I oriented myself to a compass heading that would have me facing the beach, then gently rose until my face mask broke the surface. I quickly scanned the beach and saw no enemy activity. Maybe they were all still asleep.

I lined up my compass board in the predawn light with a hill about 300 yards to my right front and checked the bearing, then quickly turned left to see the jagged outcrop of rocks that marked the left flank of our target beach. I took another bearing and headed down. My face had been above the surface about thirty seconds—not bad. It would have been almost impossible for anyone to see me amid the light chop of the water. We were close enough to where we needed to be. When we got back to
Sea Lion,
I would adjust the position of Point Alpha and record the data from the new reference point.

We descended to the first auger stake anchoring our survey line, and I gave the signal to begin the reconnaissance. Two of the men snapped their swimmer reel into the auger stake and began a course parallel to the beach, laying out their 500-yard base line. The swimmer reel, a deep-sea fishing reel containing a light nylon line, was used to log distances underwater. Every fifty yards of line was marked by lead shot, so we'd swim a designated number of fifty-yard intervals to get to the right location.

In turn, each swim pair left Point Alpha and swam down the base line until they reached their designated spot. The swimmers assigned to the lane closest to Point Alpha stopped, tied a butterfly knot in the base line, and attached the end of the line from their swimmer reel to the knot. Then they headed for the beach on a course perpendicular to the line.

In the first light of dawn, I watched as each pair moved past to their assigned positions. The lighter it got, the better for us to see—and the easier for the enemy to see us. All the men knew the risks and knew they had to be careful but thorough. There was no margin for error. The information we were gathering was critical, but it was also critical that we not be discovered. Not only were our asses on the line but the entire operation hung in the balance.

Tom and I hooked into the first auger stake and started making our way to the beach. We swam a sinuous course, taking depth readings every twenty-five yards and looking for obstacles. With that technique we could cover about twenty-five yards off our base line, or a lane about fifty yards wide.

Just as we passed the hundred-yard point, Tom grabbed my arm and pointed. To our left front was a large man-made, concrete tetrahedron with a five-foot length of railroad tie sticking out of the top. We took fast measurements, writing them on the plastic board on top of our reel. Water depth eight feet. Obstacle designed to impale a landing craft. No mine attached.

At a four-foot depth I saw two steel tetrahedrons and noted their position. We couldn't get any closer to the beach for fear of being seen. Tom reached down and drove a coring tube into the sand, taking a sample to determine if the beach would support heavy equipment. As he pulled the tube out and capped it we turned and headed back out to sea, reeling in our line. On the way out, we found and recorded two more man-made obstacles and a large coral head that would have to go before landing craft could be brought in.