Underwater Demolition Team

We don't have to go into all of them right now, but we can do it as we go.

But I love the Kronosport UDT timer because when I was growing up, there was this...

There were two magazines that would come.

One was called Brigade Quartermaster, and the other one was U.S. Cavalry.

And for those who remember, it was like SHOT Show in a magazine or in a catalog.

And they had different knives and watches and things like that in there.

And one of the things that popped up in the mid-'80s was the Chronosport UDT timer.

And I think it was $350.

He was in charge of our special operations group eventually.

Uh, the, the, the stories about him are legend, but he began in UDT in about nine- before they had the SEALs, about 1960.

Mm-hmm.

Then he was recruited by the CIA, went over to the CIA, and his mission in 1960, about 1962 or so, was just after the, just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, uh, was infiltrating anti-Castro groups.

They said, "We're seeing an awful lot of them." And he reported that to, I think it was the CIA Director McCone.

He said, "Hey, there are Russians there with missiles." And so that they wouldn't give away the team and have them killed, then they sent over the U-2, and the U-2 confirmed it, so it became the U-2 story.

But it was really Rudy Enders, the UDT guy, who put them in there.

Oh, that's amazing.

Yep, yep.

In fact, Underwater Demolition Team taught us when I was an Explorer Scout how to dive.

And it was my first experience with a hookah setup.

That's where there's a generator up on top and a long hose and then a mask.

Like, I would say, "John Cole, the USS Stoddert, naval gunfire support." Well, it turns out half of them were SEALs.

Well, they were actually UDTs, Underwater Demolition Team, which are now SEALs.

They mobilized later that night on our ship and used our ship as a platform from which to work.

And we had three or four missions with them.

Uh, Draper Kaufman founded those in World War II.

And then, uh, EOD and UDT, uh, were kind of intermixed, and then the Vietnam, or right around the Vietnam era in 1962, so a little right before Vietnam- Uh, parts of them split off and created what's called the Sea Air Land teams, the SEAL teams, and then they became all that.

So we have a lot of the same training.

I didn't go to BUD/S, but I went diving, jumping, uh, blowing stuff up with your friends.

It, it was at, at Fort Pierce, Florida.

There was a guy named Draper Kauffman that was running the training, and he was trying to prepare what they call the Naval Combat Demolition Units and then, then what became the Underwater Demolition Teams in World War II.

These were the Navy frogmen that swam up on enemy invasion beaches.

And the Naval Combat Demolition Units were, they were jumping out of boats in the first wave at the Normandy invasion.

It, it used to be a bit like with the French military.

It used to be the, the, the plongeur-démineur, the, the UDT, the clearance divers, uh, who were getting rid of mines and explosives and doing underwater reconnaissance.

Um, and then they, they became the SEALs.

So they, they, they were the ones who then like it got formalized into their, uh ...