First SEALs (38 page)

J
OHN
B
OOTH
—
After the war, Booth worked with the CIA training underwater operatives and was involved in the Korean War. Booth had charm and a glint in his eye and remained a ladies' man until the day he died. He often said, “
I screwed my money away on women, but I wouldn't change a thing.”

At age ninety, he regularly swam five miles out to a reef in Key West, Florida, where he would spear and catch lobsters for food. This was his way to save money so he could purchase cigars and scotch and pick up “
senior hotties at the DAV [Division of American Veterans].”

He remained active into his nineties. When camping outside became difficult, he tied a rope to a tree so he could pull himself off the air mattress when he got up in the morning. Uncle John, as the author's daughter called him when he stayed with them, is greatly missed.

G
ORDON
“G
ORDY
” S
OLTAU
—
Soltau left the Navy in 1945 and then attended the University of Minnesota, where he excelled as a football player. In 1950, he joined the San Francisco 49ers as a place kicker and wide receiver. He was the NFL's top scorer in
1952 and 1953, and he was the 49ers top scorer for the nine seasons he played, with a total of 644 points. He was also very active in starting the NFL Players Association. At the time NFL players didn't receive the huge salaries they earn today, and Gordy, like most of his fellow players, had a day job. He worked at a printing and office supply shop that was purchased by Diamond International, and he worked his way up to executive vice president of the company.

After his football career, Soltau remained active in sports as a broadcaster. He is a member of the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame, and in San Francisco June 16, 2008, was declared Gordy Soltau Day. Gordy and his wife, Nancy, had one daughter and two sons. Now eighty-nine years old, Soltau continues to live in the Bay Area.

F
RANK
M
ONTELEONE
—
Uncle Frank, as he is known to the author's daughter, is a good friend to the author and considered part of the family. After the war he married his sweetheart and started a family. He became an expert tailor, specializing in high-end luxury apparel, often custom making suits for celebrities. In 2004, Frank sent the author the scapula he wore around his neck on his most dangerous missions behind the lines in World War II. The author wore it during the Battle of Fallujah and continues to wear it proudly every day.

J
OHN
P. S
PENCE
—
Spence remained in the Navy after the war, serving as a chief gunner's mate and master chief gunner's mate until his retirement in 1961. He and his wife and children then settled in California, where he worked for various military subcontractors. He later moved to Oregon, where he remained active with veterans groups until he died in his sleep at the age of ninety-five.

J
UNIO
V
ALERIO
B
ORGHESE
—
The end of the war did not put an end to the Black Prince's Fascist political leanings. He associated with several Italian neo-Fascist organizations, gradually becoming
more and more extreme in his beliefs. In December 1970, he participated in an aborted coup attempt and then fled the country to avoid arrest. He died in Spain in 1974 under suspicious circumstances.

“W
ILD
B
ILL
” D
ONOVAN
—
At the close of the war Donovan served as special assistant to the chief prosecutor at the war trials, a role for which he was uniquely suited given his experience as a lawyer and the head of the OSS. After the trials he returned to his law practice, Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine, but continued to advise U.S. presidents and accept assignments for the government. He and the firm helped buy the land for Walt Disney to create the theme park Disney World. He served as U.S. ambassador to Thailand from 1953 to 1954.

He lived to the age of seventy-six, when he passed away due to complications of vascular dementia. After his death the International Rescue Committee awarded him the Freedom Award. As befits the man President Eisenhower called “the Last Hero,” he is buried at Arlington. Donovan's legacy and vision lives on in all modern special operations, psychological operations, and intelligence. The past is present as the very agencies and organizations he pioneered are looking back to tackle the present and future.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Over the past twenty-two years, I have interviewed thousands of World War II veterans. In my prior books, the beginning of the thank you section always began with the veterans, and this one does as well. This is their story that they have entrusted to me. Sadly, this year has been a watershed, as many of my friends have passed. Of the scores of men from the Maritime Unit that I interviewed, I only know of two who are still living: combat swimmer and NFL All-Pro football player Gordon Soltau and Frank Monteleone.

I have many other people to thank, including my longtime friend Cyndy Harvey for her excellent editorial advice throughout the entire process. In addition, I'm very grateful to Brian Danis, who has spent many years following the men and researching the Maritime Unit. Thanks also to my research assistant Daniel Hamilton.

I'd also like to thank the innumerable staff at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, who have come and gone during the last twelve years, including the late John Taylor. I am also grateful to OSS Society President Charles Pinck for his unconditional support over the years, including presenting me with the 2012 Waller Award for my body of work related to intelligence and special operations history. It was a great honor to receive the award in front of the current leadership of America's intelligence and special operations community.

Great thanks go to my editor and very good friend Robert Pigeon for his vision, belief in the project, and skillful shaping of the draft. Also, thanks to Lissa Warren, the best publicist in the
world, and Sean Maher and Kevin Hanover from Da Capo's marketing department for always doing an excellent job.

I also want to thank several of my good friends and readers: Justin Oldham for his great advice and reading of drafts; my good friend David Mitchell, who offered invaluable suggestions; Ben Ibach, a dear friend and one of the smartest guys I know; Theana Kastens, whose keen eye improved the book; and former photo editor and superb artist, James Noel Smith.

Finally, I'd like to thank Dawn Hamilton, an extraordinary woman, who freely gave her time, input, and editorial advice to this project because of her love for history and heartfelt desire to have the veterans' story finally told.

NOTES

Back in 2001, I began interviewing the veterans of the Office of Strategic Services. I traveled to their homes and was welcomed to their reunions. Out of the five thousand veterans I have interviewed over the course of twenty-two years, I found them to be some of the most compelling, interesting, and extraordinary individuals I ever had the opportunity to meet and befriend.

They were also the most secretive. The men and women of the OSS remained silent about their war. When I gained their trust, it came with a powerful feeling of responsibility that I took very seriously. I was deeply honored to be named a member of the OSS Society, a postwar association of OSS veterans, and even more grateful when I was awarded the 2013 Waller Award for scholarship into Special Operations History.

I first found a tiny portion of Jack Taylor's amazing story in the National Archives in 2002. I was drawn in and became obsessed. I wanted to write a book about Taylor and attempted to weave in part of his story in the book
They Dared Return
; however, it was so vast that it demanded its own treatment. This book focuses on Jack and the core group of men around him. The Maritime Unit is an extensive subject and could easily span multiple volumes, and the book does not attempt to capture MU's back story in its entirety. In fact, additional treatments are required, especially with respect to OSS operations in the Adriatic and in the Pacific.

This book took more than a decade to produce. Many of the veterans in it are among my dearest friends. Sadly, only a few of them are still alive. Their story resides in millions of documents located in 3.5 cubic miles of records in the National Archives in College Park,
Maryland. I have dedicated years of research in these archives. The vast majority of the material quoted in this book comes from record group 226, the Office of Strategic Services, and entries dedicated to the Maritime Unit. In the notes it will be referred to as “NARA.” The records were miscategorized, sometimes misfiled, and extremely complex. I often felt like an archaeologist sifting through a dig and trying to reconstruct a mosaic from the documents that were scattered about in different record groups and entries.

First SEALs
tells a portion of this significant story and attempts to honor the renaissance men of the OSS.

PROLOGUE

    
1
      
Details on the
Shoreham Hotel
from the Omni Hotels website:
www.omnihotels.com/FindAHotel/WashingtonDCShoreham.aspx
.

2–3
      
Scene in
Shoreham Hotel
pool comes from Woolley's letter to Huntington, dated November 1942. NARA.

    
2
      
SCUBA Lambertsen filed the original patent for the LARU in 1940
. He later outlined his invention in the
Journal of the American Medical Association
. I interviewed Dr. Lambertsen extensively in 2003 regarding the development of the LARU and his experiences within the Maritime Unit. In 1942–1943, Lambertsen makes reference to SCUBA and changed the name of the LARU to SCUBA in 1952. Jacques Cousteau is sometimes credited with the invention of the term SCUBA, but he invented his open-circuit diving regulator in 1943.

    
3
      
“
assist in the . . . and raiding forces
.” Dennis J. Roberts, “History of the Maritime Unit.” This is an unpublished report largely cowritten by Theodore Morde and Roberts that resides in NARA.

CHAPTER 1: “CAVITIES IN THE LION'S MOUTH”: THE BIRTH OF UNDERWATER COMBAT SWIMMING

    
6
      
Scene in
Alexandria Harbor
comes from Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani,
The Black Prince and the Sea Devils: The Story of Valerio Borghese and the Elite Units of the Decima Mas
(New York: Da Capo Press, 2004), 91–106.

    
6
      
“
painfully constricting [their] legs
.” Ibid., 91–106.

    
7
      
“
[I had] to drag . . . to avoid drowning
.” Ibid., 91–106.

    
8
      
“
Overnight, [the eastern Mediterranean] . . . the dominating power
.” William Schofield, P. J. Carisella, and Adolph Caso,
Frogmen: First Battles
(Wellesley, MA: Branden Books, 2014), 143.

    
9
      
“
Our intelligence organization . . . Spanish-American War
.” Michael Warner,
The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency
(Central Intelligence Agency, 2000),
www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/oss/art02.htm
.

    
9
      
“
through COI and . . . a centralized intelligence agency
.”
War Report of the OSS
(
Office of Strategic Services)
, introduction by Kermit Roosevelt (New York: Walker and Company and Washington, DC: Carrollton Press, Inc., 1976), 5.

    
9
      
“
the significance of . . . in modern warfare
.” Ibid., 5.

    
9
      
“
knew everybody
.” Author interview with an OSS veteran who was one of Donovan's aides.

  
10
      
“
accepted [the mission] . . . in World War II
.” Ibid., 7.

  
10
      
“
It is essential . . . pertinent information
.” Ibid., 7.