Into Enemy Waters: A World War II Story of the Demolition Divers Who Became the Navy SEALs

The Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT), created in World War II, were special-purpose warriors (sometimes called frogmen) who preceded an amphibious landing and destroyed obstacles to the landing ships following behind them. This involved swimming up to a defended coast with just a box of explosives and a knife they were trained to use not as cutting fuses and detonation cords, not weapons. They trained hard for dangerous work and saved many infantry lives by preparing the beaches, usually while under enemy fire. Journalist Dubbins’s narrative of the UDT focuses on one of the few remaining frogmen, George Morgan, a combat swimmer who survived swimming up to Omaha Beach, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, among others. The development of the teams is related through the acts of Draper Kauffman, who organized, trained, and fielded UDT. There is some greatly simplified World War II history for context. There are extensive endnotes, mostly secondary sources and interviews with Morgan. This is an interesting, popular history of a combat unit that evolved into the modern Navy SEALs.