The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the United States Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the United States Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEAL's main functions are conducting small-unit special operation missions in maritime, jungle, urban, arctic, mountainous, and desert environments. SEALs are typically ordered to capture or kill high-level targets, or to gather intelligence behind enemy lines.[8]
SEAL team personnel are hand-selected, highly trained, and highly proficient in unconventional warfare (UW), direct action (DA), and special reconnaissance (SR), among other tasks like sabotage, demolition, intelligence gathering, and hydrographic reconnaissance, training, and advising friendly militaries or other forces.[9][1] All active SEALs are members of the U.S. Navy. Although not formally founded until 1962, the modern-day U.S. Navy SEALs trace their roots to World War II.[8] The United States military recognized the need for the covert reconnaissance of landing beaches and coastal defenses. As a result, the joint Army, Marine Corps, and Navy Seabees Amphibious Scout and Raider School was established in 1942 at Fort Pierce, Florida.[12] The Scouts and Raiders were formed in September of that year, just nine months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, from the Observer Group, a joint U.S. Army-Marine-Navy unit.
Recognizing the need for a beach reconnaissance force, a select group of Army and Navy personnel assembled at Amphibious Training Base (ATB) Little Creek, Virginia on 15 August 1942 to begin Amphibious Scouts and Raiders (Joint) training. The Scouts and Raiders' mission was to identify and reconnoiter the objective beach, maintain a position on the designated beach prior to a landing, and guide the assault waves to the landing beach.[8] The unit was led by U.S. Army 1st Lieutenant Lloyd Peddicord as commanding officer, and Navy Ensign John Bell as executive officer. Navy Chief Petty Officers and sailors came from the boat pool at U. S. Naval Amphibious Training Base, Solomons, Maryland, and Army Raider personnel came from the 3rd and 9th Infantry Divisions. They trained at Little Creek until embarking for the North Africa campaign the following November. Operation Torch was launched in November 1942 off the Atlantic coast of French Morocco in North Africa.[14]
The first group included Phil H. Bucklew, the "Father of Naval Special Warfare," after whom the Naval Special Warfare Center building is named. Commissioned in October 1942, this group saw combat in November 1942 during Operation Torch on the North African Coast. Scouts and Raiders also supported landings in Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Normandy, and southern France.[15]
The second group of Scouts and Raiders, code-named Special Service Unit No. 1, was established on 7 July 1943, as a joint and combined operations force. The first mission, in September 1943, was at Finschhafen in Papua New Guinea. Later operations were at Gasmata, Arawe, Cape Gloucester, and the east and south coasts of New Britain, all without any loss of personnel. Conflicts arose over operational matters, and all non-Navy personnel were reassigned. The unit, renamed 7th Amphibious Scouts, received a new mission, to go ashore with the assault boats, buoy channels, erect markers for the incoming craft, handle casualties, take offshore soundings, clear beach obstacles, and maintain voice communications linking the troops ashore, incoming boats and nearby ships. The 7th Amphibious Scouts conducted operations in the Pacific for the duration of the conflict, participating in more than 40 landings.[8]
The third and final Scouts and Raiders organization operated in China. Scouts and Raiders were deployed to fight with the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO). To help bolster the work of SACO, Admiral Ernest J. King ordered that 120 officers and 900 men be trained for "Amphibious Raider" at the Scout and Raider school at Fort Pierce, Florida. They formed the core of what was envisioned as a "guerrilla amphibious organization of Americans and Chinese operating from coastal waters, lakes, and rivers employing small steamboats and sampans." While most Amphibious Raider forces remained at Camp Knox in Calcutta, three of the groups saw active service. They conducted a survey of the upper Yangtze River in the spring of 1945 and, disguised as coolies, conducted a detailed three-month survey of the Chinese coast from Shanghai to Kitchioh Wan, near Hong Kong President John F. Kennedy, aware of the situation in Southeast Asia, recognized the need for unconventional warfare and special operations as a measure against guerrilla warfare. In a speech to Congress on 25 May 1961, Kennedy spoke of his deep respect for the United States Army Special Forces. While his announcement of the government's plan to put a man on the moon drew most of the attention, in the same speech he announced his intention to spend over $100 million to strengthen U.S. special operations forces and expand American capabilities in unconventional warfare. Some people erroneously credit President Kennedy with creating the Navy SEALs. His announcement was actually only a formal acknowledgement of a process that had been underway since the Korean War.[39]
The Navy needed to determine its role within the special operations arena. In March 1961, Admiral Arleigh Burke, the Chief of Naval Operations, recommended the establishment of guerrilla and counter-guerrilla units. These units would be able to operate from sea, air or land. This was the beginning of the Navy SEALs. Per Chief of Naval Operations' direction to, "...establish special operations teams as a separate component within Underwater Demolition Units ONE and TWO...", the new SEAL Teams would be formed entirely of personnel transferred from Underwater Demolition Teams. UDTs, which had already gained extensive experience in commando warfare in Korea, would continue alongside the SEAL Teams until their redesignation in 1983.[8][40]
Navy SEAL team boards a Light SEAL Support Craft
Navy SEAL team boards a Light SEAL Support Craft
The first two teams were formed in January 1962[41] and stationed on both US coasts: Team One at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, in San Diego, California, and Team Two at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The SEALs mission was to conduct counter guerilla warfare and clandestine operations in maritime and riverine environments.[12] Men of the newly formed SEAL Teams were trained in such unconventional areas as hand-to-hand combat, high-altitude parachuting, demolitions, and foreign languages. The SEALs attended Underwater Demolition Team replacement training and they spent some time training in UDTs. Upon making it to a SEAL team, they would undergo a SEAL Basic Indoctrination (SBI) training class at Camp Kerry in the Cuyamaca Mountains. After SBI training class, they would enter a platoon and conduct platoon training. Frederick H. Kaiser, a veteran of both UDT-12 and SEAL Team ONE, wrote of his training in 1964:
“The training program for an officer lasts 21weeks and covered physical conditioning, swimming, diving with various types of underwater breathing apparatus, reconnaissance operations, the use of explosives, and a myriad of other topics that were key to enabling you to accomplish future missions, while protecting your life along with that of your comrades. Follow-on training included 3 weeks of parachute jump training at Fort Benning, Georgia, Survival school at Camp Pendelton in California, and an assortment of other programs to meet the needs of the teams. During UDT/SEAL training, the officers and enlisted personnel were treated as equals, no favoritism, no special privileges. If anything, the officers took the brunt of the abuse, for if they were to lead their men in the future, their men had to know they would lead by example, that the officer would and could do any task he assigned his men.” [42]
According to founding SEAL team member Roy Boehm, the SEALs' first missions were directed against communist Cuba. These consisted of deploying from submarines and carrying out beach reconnaissance in a prelude to a proposed US amphibious invasion of the island. On at least one occasion, Boehm and another SEAL had smuggled a CIA agent ashore to take pictures of Soviet nuclear missiles being unloaded on the dockside.[43]
The Pacific Command recognized Vietnam as a potential hot spot for unconventional forces. At the beginning of 1962, the UDTs started hydrographic surveys and along with other branches of the US Military, the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) was formed. In March 1962, SEALs were deployed to South Vietnam as advisors for the purpose of training Army of the Republic of Vietnam commandos in the same methods they were trained themselves.
The Central Intelligence Agency began using SEALs in covert operations in early 1963. The SEALs were later involved in the CIA sponsored Phoenix Program where it targeted Vietcong (VC) infrastructure and personnel for capture and assassination.
The SEALs were initially deployed in and around Da Nang, training the South Vietnamese in combat diving, demolitions and guerrilla/anti-guerrilla tactics. As the war continued, the SEALs found themselves positioned in the Rung Sat Special Zone where they were to disrupt the enemy supply and troop movements and in the Mekong Delta to fulfill riverine operations, fighting on the inland waterways.
SEALs on patrol in the Mekong Delta
Combat with the VC was direct. Unlike the conventional warfare methods of firing artillery into a coordinate location, the SEALs operated close to their targets. Into the late 1960s, the SEALs were successful in a new style of warfare, effective in anti-guerrilla and guerrilla actions. SEALs brought a personal war to the enemy in a previously safe area. The VC referred to them as "the men with green faces," due to the camouflage face paint the SEALs wore during combat missions.[44]
In February 1966, a small SEAL Team One detachment arrived in South Vietnam to conduct direct action missions. Operating from Nhà Bè Base, near the Rung Sat Special Zone, this detachment signalled the beginning of a SEAL presence that would eventually include 8 SEAL platoons in country on a continuing basis. SEALs also served as advisors for Provincial Reconnaissance Units and the Lein Doc Nguio Nhia, the Vietnamese SEALs.[12]
1st Presidential Unit Citation awarded to SEAL Team TWO for extraordinary heroism in Vietnam from July 1967 to June 1969
SEALs continued to make forays into North Vietnam and Laos and covertly into Cambodia, controlled by the Studies and Observations Group. The SEALs from Team Two started a unique deployment of SEAL team members working alone with ARVN Commandos. In 1967, a SEAL unit named Detachment Bravo (Det Bravo) was formed to operate these mixed US and ARVN units.
Presidential Unit Citation awarded to SEAL Team TWO for extraordinary heroism in Vietnam from July 1969 to June 1971
By 1970, President Richard Nixon initiated a plan of Vietnamization, which would remove the US from the Vietnam War and return the responsibility of defense back to the South Vietnamese. Conventional forces were being withdrawn; the last SEAL platoon left South Vietnam on 7 December 1971, and the last SEAL advisor left South Vietnam in March 1973. The SEALs were among the most highly decorated units for their size in the war, receiving by 1974 one Medal of Honor, two Navy Crosses, 42 Silver stars, 402 Bronze Stars, two Legions of Merit, 352 Commendation Medals, and 51 Navy Achievement Medals[45] Later awards would bring the total to three Medals of Honor and five Navy Crosses. SEAL Team One was awarded three Presidential Unit Citations and one Navy Unit Commendation; SEAL Team Two received two Presidential Unit Citations.[46] By the end of the war, 48 SEALs had been killed in Vietnam, but estimates of their kill count are as high as 2,000. The Navy SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida, displays a list of the 48 SEALs who lost their lives in combat during the Vietnam War.
An American-led intervention in Iraq started on 15 June 2014, when President Barack Obama ordered US forces to be dispatched to the region, in response to offensives in Iraq conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). American troops went, at the invitation of the Iraqi Government, to assess Iraqi forces and the threat posed by ISIL.[102] In early August 2014, ISIL attacked Kurdish-held territory in northern Iraq, and captured three towns in northern Iraq, close to the autonomous region Iraqi Kurdistan.[103] Consequently, the US started supplying the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces with weapons on 5 August. On 7 August, the US also started humanitarian aid air droppings of food, water, and medicine for the civilians fleeing ISIL in the Sinjar Mountains.[104] On the next day, 8 August, the US began airstrikes against ISIL positions in Iraq. Since then, nine countries, allied with the US in some coalition, have also executed airstrikes on ISIL in Iraq, more or less in concert with ground warfare of Kurdish and/or Iraqi government forces against ISIL. There have also been sporadic clashes between ISIL fighters, and US and Canadian troops, several thousand of whom are acting in advisory and combat roles with Iraqi and Kurdish forces.[105][106] By April 2015, ISIL had lost 25–30% of the maximum territory they had gained in Iraq in December 2014, to Iraqi and American-led Coalition forces, leaving them in possession of around 15,000 square miles of Iraq.
It's the old system to number the ODA and ODB (in application during the beginning of OEF and OIF) :
The first number refer to Group - Ex.: ODA 525
- "0" refers to 10 Special Forces Group (example : ODA 074,...).
- "1" refers to 1st Special Forces Group (example : ODA 172,...)
- "3" refers to 3rd Special Forces Group (example : ODA 373,...)
- "5" refers to 5th Special forces Group (examples : ODA 525, ODA 555,...)
- "7" refers to 7th Special Forces Group (example : ODA 774,...)
- second is a combination between Battalion & Company (see below) - Ex. : ODA 525
- ////////Alpha ////////// Bravo /////////// Charlie [= Company]
- 1 = 1st Battalion / 2 = 1st Battalion / 3 =1st Battalion
- 4 =2nd Battalion / 5 =2 nd Battalion / 6 =2nd Battalion
- 7 = 3rd Battalion / 8 = 3rd Battalion / 9=3rd Battalion
- third number is Team - Ex. : ODA 525
- 0 = ODB
- 1 = team 1 (ODA)
- 2 = team 2 (ODA)
- 3 = team 3 (ODA)
- 4 = team 4 (halo capabilities - ODA)
- 5 = team 5 (scuba/combat diver capabilites - ODA).
And at this point, you can also differentiate ODA and ODB :
- ODA = Operational Detachment Alpha / A-team. It's the basic SF unit.
- ODB (= Operational Detachment Beta /B Detachment / B team / SFOD-B ) : it's SF company headquarters. For ODB, the last number is always "0"
- ODC = provides command and control, and staff planning and supervision for SF battalion operations and administration.[107]
