In this undated 1944 photo, two combat swimmers with the Maritime Unit of the Office of Strategic Services conduct a training exercise in Helford, England for a mission to destroy German U-boat submarine pens located in France during World War II.ALBANY, N.Y. – Before there were heavily armed Navy SEALs conducting nighttime helicopter raids, there were guys like Frank Monteleone landing on beaches in the dark on two-man motorized rafts dubbed “flying mattresses.”
The Brooklyn-born Monteleone was a member of an elite commando force within the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA. Created after the United States entered World War II, the OSS pioneered many of the intelligence-gathering techniques and commando-style tactics used by today’s U.S. special forces. The spy agency’s Maritime Unit, formed in 1943, shares the credit for setting the foundation for what would become the Navy SEALs, created in 1962 during the Kennedy administration.
Often only armed with knives and wearing nothing more than swim trunks and flippers, the Maritime Unit’s combat swimmers and other operatives carried out seaborne clandestine missions in the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean theaters of World War II. Their story is told in a new book published last month, “First SEALS: The Untold Story of the Forging of America’s Most Elite Unit.”
The book’s release comes as two members of the SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 are making headlines and drawing criticism from U.S. military authorities for going public about their roles in taking down the terrorist leader inside his compound in Pakistan.
“I’ve always wanted to do a book on these (World War II) guys,” said author Patrick K. O’Donnell. “The bin Laden raid was sort of the culmination of what all these men had built from 1943 to 1945.”