10 Naval Aviation News January–February 2003

In the ongoing war against terrorism, thecombined abilities of Naval Aviation andNaval Special Warfare (NSW) forces have

become increasingly visible. While theirorigins are separated by nearly half a century,these two seemingly divergent warfarespecialties actually followed similar paths andfaced similar challenges in their development.Technology and politics have profoundlyaffected the growth of Naval Aviation andNSW, and the two titans now appear to be ripefor renewed interaction.

Tactical Influence

Naval Aviation: New warfare areas mustwage uphill bureaucratic battles to prove their

validity. This is clearly seen in the early stages

of Naval Aviation. The Department of theNavy acknowledged aviation in 1914 when theposition of Director of Naval Aeronautics wasestablished. Seaplanes emerged from WW Iand were recognized as potentially usefulmachines to naval commanders. Progress inNaval Aviation procurement occurred in 1921when the Bureau of Aeronautics was createdand managed the acquisition and developmentprocess. A group of naval officers seized theopportunity and doggedly expanded theaeroplane’s practicality by constructing arunway on top of a collier, which wascompleted in 1922. This experimental vessel,Langley (CV 1), proved its tactical validity in1925, whereupon the Navy accelerated work

Naval Aviation News January–February 2003 11

Facing page: it’s a certain type of individual who welcomes what other people fear. Aviatorsand special warfare types share the choice to operate in extremely hostile environments.

Naval Aviation and Naval Special Warfare enjoy a rich history of combat operations that haveforged a close bond, exemplified in the photo above: SEALs from Naval Special Warfare

Group 2 and HH-60H Seahawks from Helicopter Combat Support Special Squadron 4 traintogether to refine the tactics of special operations insertions.

Fleet Combat Camera, Atlantic

on CV 2 and CV 3.

NSW: If one had to pick the origin of modern NavalSpecial Warfare it could be said that the landing onTarawa in November 1943 validated the need for pre-assault reconnaissance and obstacle-removal specialists.The Navy responded to the need by transforming thecharacter of Naval Combat Demolition Units intoUnderwater Demolition Teams (UDT). Frogmen fromUDT-1 and UDT-2 first moved onto the tactical scene inJanuary 1944 at Kwajalein and Roi-Namur, blasting coraland eliminating invasion obstacles. The community

increased to more than 30 teams by the end ofWW II and saw action throughout the Pacificand at Normandy. UDTs expanded their missionduring the Korean War where their demolitionexpertise proved invaluable in clearing mines inWonsan Harbor. In 1954 the UDTs werereorganized into UDTs 11 and 12 at Coronado,Calif., and UDTs 21 and 22 at Little Creek, Va.;however, UDT-22 was subsequentlydisestablished in 1956. Through the end of thedecade, UDTs subsisted within the Navy likeother specialty offshoots; they provided anecessary service but had little influence on warplanning.

OperationalInfluence

Naval Aviation: Theoffensive capabilities ofcarrier-based aircraft weredemonstrated in dramaticfashion in 1929 when aircraftfrom Saratoga (CV 3)

successfully attacked the Panama Canalin Fleet Problem IX. War games in the1930s continued to suggest to thosefew not blinded by the luster ofbattleships that future naval operationswould center on air strikes. The Navytook a big step in preparing for a two-ocean war on 14 June 1940 whenCongress passed the Naval ExpansionAct, then augmented it five days laterwith funding to build four more

12 Naval Aviation News January–February 2003

Right, a UDT memberrecovers into a rubberboat during combatoperations in the Pacificduring the closing monthsof WW II. Below, UDTfrogmen conduct amission on the coast ofKorea in 1952.

battleships and start the Essex-class carriers, andauthorized the Navy to possess 10,000 aircraft. TheNavy had 1,194 combat aircraft in July 1940, butby July 1945 those figures had risen to 29,125. ViceAdmiral Bill Halsey’s 1942 raids on the Marshall,Wake and Marcus islands, as well as successes atthe Battle of the Coral Sea and Battle of Midway,moved Naval Aviation from the arena of operationalinfluence into the realm of strategic influence.

NSW: Chief of Naval Operations AdmiralArleigh Burke recognized that future hostilitieswould involve guerrilla activities, and in March1961 recommended forming naval special forces tocounter the threat. In an address to Congress on 25May 1961—shortly after the Bay of Pigs incident—President John F. Kennedy emphasized the need to“expand rapidly and substantially, in cooperationwith our allies, the orientation of existing forces forthe conduct of non-nuclear war, paramilitary

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From the early years through the late 1960s, the Navyhad aircraft that could operate from the sea. The CurtissF-boat, left, a seaplane, plows through Pensacola Bay,Fla., before taking off in 1918. Below, Langley (CV 1) wasthe Navy’s first aircraft carrier. Her deck was the crucibleof learning for fledgling carrier pilots.

Adm. John S. Thach, seen below as a lieutenantcommander in WW II, was an innovative Naval Aviatorwho developed the “ThachWeave” tactic in WW II toincrease the combat effective-ness of aircraft. Far right, Thachflies an F4F Wildcat in formationwith another illustrious aviator,Lt. Edward H. O’Hare. Bottom,Navy carrier aircraft attack theJapanese carrier Shokakuduring the Battle of the CoralSea in May 1942.

operations and sub-limited orunconventional war.” This led to thedevelopment of National SecurityAction Memorandum 57,“Responsibility for ParamilitaryOperations” on 28 June 1961, whichprompted each branch of the armedforces to form its own counter-insurgency force. The Navy utilizedUDT personnel to form separated unitscalled Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) teams.SEAL Teams 1 and 2 werecommissioned in January 1962.

Throughout 1963 and 1964 SEALsoperated in Vietnam as instructors toSouth Vietnamese frogmen. Theirtasking steadily expanded and by 1966SEALs were stalking Viet Cong in theRung Sat Special Zone in OperationGame Warden. Integrated withHelicopter Attack Squadron Light(HAL) 3, Attack Squadron Light 4 and Patrol Boat, Riverforces, SEAL tactics soon gained respect. In support ofefforts to disrupt supply lines from Cambodia, HAL-3transported special warfare personnel on more than 6,000missions during 1970.

NSW gained momentum after the Vietnam War, whenin May 1975 Cambodians seized SS Mayaguez. Theincident reinforced the need for quick-response maritimespecial operations forces.

Strategic Influence

Naval Aviation: Naval Aviation persevered after WWII despite attempts by the Air Force to denigrate themission. Following the Korean War, Naval Aviationgained premier status in the sea service’s strategicplanning. As the Cold War heated up, the Navy wasforced to concentrate its efforts on building long-range,nuclear-laden bombers, as well as ships big enough tolaunch and recover them. Soon the massive jet-equippedcarriers of the Midway (CV 41) and Forrestal (CV 59)classes emerged as the Navy’s undisputed mission andexpenditure showpieces. In fact, the number of aircraftcarriers increased from 17 in 1951 to 24 in 1961. Naval

14 Naval Aviation News January–February 2003

Left, President John F.Kennedy reviews the men ofUDT-21 in April 1962. Below,Forrestal (CVA 59) leaves thepier at Newport News, Va., in1955 as a Navy airship hoversnearby. It’s interesting to notethat in the jet age the Navyoperated airships until 1962.

continued on page 16

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During the Vietnam War, VAL-4 flew the OV-10 Bronco, above, andHAL-3 operated the UH-1 “Huey,” right, providing close-air supportfor SEALS. In addition, the Seawolves of HAL-3 transportedSEALS in the Mekong River area of South Vietnam. Below, SEALSleap from a Navy patrol boat to raid a Viet Cong base in the KienHoa provence of South Vietnam, 1968.

JO1 Tom Walton

Aviation held its ground during theCold War, despite encroachments bysubmarine-launched ballistic missiles,by exercising its conventionalcapability in the form of thousands ofAlpha Strike sorties and maritimereconnaissance flights during the Vietnam War.Following the collapse of the USSR, the focus of navalstrategy became power projection, with aviationexemplified by the Nimitz (CVN 68)-class carriers, as themeans to that end. A quote from the 1992 strategystatement “. . . From the Sea” illustrates the Navy’sgeneral thinking for the past decade, and also hints at agreater interdependence between the Navy’s two primary“feet-dry” forces, aviation and NSW: “This strategicdirection, derived from the National Security Strategy,represents a fundamental shift away from open-oceanwarfighting on the sea toward joint operations conductedfrom the sea.”

NSW: Middle-eastern terrorism began to impact theAmerican psyche in the late 1970s and culminated in theIranian hostage crisis. The calamity of Operation DesertRescue in 1980 accentuated the need to merge andstandardize crisis response forces from the severalservices into a cohesive organization. In 1983 existingUDTs were reconfigured and redesignated as eitherSEAL teams or Swimmer Delivery Vehicle Teams.Shortly afterward, President Ronald Reagan decided tounleash Operation Urgent Fury. The preemptive assaulton Grenada proved to be a real-life test of the new NSWorganization.

The evolution of Naval Special Warfare forces wassubject to the military and political forces that were onthe move in the mid-1980s within the U.S. government.The Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of1986 sought “to place clear responsibility on thecommanders of the unified and specified combatant

commands for the accomplishment ofmissions.” The approach establishedcombatant commands to ensure unityof effort in using forces from theseveral services. The United StatesSpecial Operations Command

(SOCOM) was assigned the responsibility of “providingtrained and combat-ready special operations forces to thecombatant commander and when directed by thePresident or Secretary of Defense for exercisingcommand of selected special operations missions.”Special operations forces were assigned missions ofunconventional warfare, direct action, strategicreconnaissance, foreign internal defense, civilian affairs,psychological warfare, counterterrorism, humanitarianassistance, and theater search and rescue.

The Navy was reluctant to relinquish its NSW forcesto SOCOM but eventually complied in July 1987 when itestablished the Navy Special Warfare Command(NSWC) as the naval component commander toSOCOM. By this time there were about 1,300 SEALsamong six SEAL teams, a 50-percent increase inpersonnel since 1983.

In the buildup for Operation Desert Storm, NSWCdeployed an NSW group to the theater. Once in place,SEALs conducted strategic reconnaissance, earlywarning patrols, hydrographic reconnaissance, directaction, mine hunting, and combat search and rescue.

In March 2002 the NSWC added two new SEALteams, bringing the total to four East Coast teams andfour West Coast teams. The new organization is expectedto improve training and deployment cycles by rotatingteams and support units as integrated squadrons.

Converging Destinies?In many ways 11 September 2001 has advanced NSW

into the realm of strategic influence in the same way

16 Naval Aviation News January–February 2003

Kitty Hawk (CV 63) crew membersspell out their support of OperationEnduring Freedom on the flight deckof the forward-deployed carrier in2001.

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Naval Aviation was propelled to the forefront by theevents of 7 December 1941. The use of Kitty Hawk (CV 63) in OperationEnduring Freedom is oneexample of increasedinteraction betweenaviation and specialoperations forces. WhileU.S. diplomats soughtpermission from regionalallies to stage forces onforeign soil, Kitty Hawkwas outfitted as a specialoperations forces airbaseand deployed to the theaterof operations.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are acquiringmissions at an astonishing rate. The presence of UAVs inNaval Aviation may be a boon for NSW and serve as acatalyst to merge the communities. To reduce the risk ofcivilian or friendly casualties, “eyes-on” identification isalways prudent. Thus, as armed drones orbit overheadthey may be controlled by, or depend on, NSW forces fortarget validation.

As Navy missions movefurther inland, Naval Aviationand NSW will become evenmore integrated; Navyhelicopters dedicated tosupporting quick-reaction SEALmissions is one example.Aviation and NSW werespawned from different eras and

for different purposes, but today stand side by side inthe fight against terrorism. A renewed affiliationbetween NSW and Naval Aviation benefits bothcommunities and revitalizes the Navy to manageasymmetrical threats in future contingencies.

Cdr. Tyler is Executive Officer of Helicopter Combat Support SpecialSquadron 4, Norfolk, Va. HCS-4 is one of two reserve squadrons thatspecialize in NSW support and combat search and rescue. As a civilian, he is employed by the Naval Sea Systems Command in Dahlgren, Va.

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Operation Enduring Freedom has demonstrated the benefitsof a close bond between Naval Aviation and special warfareforces. Right, a Navy SEAL observes munitions beingdestroyed in eastern Afghanistan. Below, an SH-60FSeahawk leaves the motor vessel Kota Sejarah afterdropping off SEALs and Marines conducting a search forillegal contraband and al Qaeda troops. Special warfarepersonnel were deployed aboard Shreveport (LPD 12).Bottom, SEALs from Naval Special Warfare Group 2 prepareto fast-rope from a Helicopter Combat Support SpecialSquadron 4 HH-60H Seahawk onto patrol boats from SpecialBoat Unit 20.

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