On The Road With Tom & Suzie: UDT/SEAL Museum, Fort Pierce, Florida 2019

As I write this chapter, we are sitting in Hermosa, South Dakota, just south of Rapid City.

We have driven a long way since our last Blog chapter but that is because it is more fun to be out driving and looking at amazing things than it is to sit in this chair and get you caught up, but here we go.

After the Flagler Mansion, we drove a short distance north to a campground near Fort Pierce, Florida so that we could visit the Navy UDT/Seal Museum.

After the start of World War II, it was quickly determined that the only way to defeat Adolf Hitler's armies that had captured all of Europe was to directly assault the European Continent and take it away from them.

The Allied Forces decided that the invasion would begin with an assault on the beaches of Normandy, France. The problem was that the Nazis also figured that would be a good place for the Allies to invade so they prepared very complicated defenses along all of the French beaches to counter any Allied attack.

Some of these defenses were passive obstructions to impede the Allied landing craft and slow the establishment of a beachhead from which to begin the Allied assault.

These passive obstructions were meant to impale and sink landing craft and prevent tanks and other armored vehicles from getting to the beach.

Something had to be done to determine what types of obstacles were present and figure out a way to defeat them.

It was decided in June 1943, to establish the Naval Combat Demolition Unit (NCDU) training school at Ft. Pierce, Florida.

This new demolition unit took volunteers from the Navy Bomb and Mine Disposal School and from the Navy Civil Engineering Corps. and Naval Construction Corp (Seabees) and began intense physical training to weed out anyone that couldn't meet the physical qualifications necessary for the upcoming mission to the beaches of France.

This harsh training is given credit as the beginning of the infamous “Hell Week,” a period of intense instruction that remains a fundamental component in modern-day Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training program.

By the end of Ft. Pierce training there was an overall attrition rate of 65-75%, much like it remains today in BUD/S.

After completing their training, these newly minted "Frogmen" were sent to England where they transferred to ships and were then taken close to the shores of France. There, under cover of darkness and horrible weather, they transferred to smaller boats that took them close to shore. Then, they slipped into the water and swam to shore, all alone except for their swim buddy. They were armed only with a knife and a slate tablet and pencil.

Once they arrived at the beaches, they snuck around in the dark, mapping the obstacles as well as testing the density of the sand to determine if the sand would support tanks and trucks that needed to be brought to shore.

After completing their recon, they swam back out to sea where they were recovered by the small boats and returned to their ships where final plans were made for the invasion.

On the day of the invasion, these same heroes would precede the landing craft, swimming to the beaches to blow up the obstacles so that as many landing craft as possible could make it to the beach.

The plan worked and that is a small part of the reason we speak English and not German.

The Underwater Demolition Team Frogmen also played a very large part of the beach landing preparations during operations in the Pacific theater as well.

The museum explains the beginning of the UDT/SEALS and then has numerous displays of equipment.

This was a large, fast attack boat that would carry a large number of SEALS and their gear into very shallow water.

Helm area

Team seats. You can tell by their construction that they are made to absorb tremendous shock from the high speeds and rough conditions these boats operate in.