AdamJoshua
03-08-2015, 12:59 PM
I was cleaning and organizing for my move and found the picture below.
My dad was one of the first Frogmen / UDT (there was a LIFE magazine article about his team), he served in WWII and Korea. He used to tell me about the wet gear they would wear, the hoods were extra tight to keep the water out and they would push your face forward after you wore them for awhile (as you can see in the picture), you'd climb into the back of the actual wetsuit and they would seal the back up with a big metal C clamp.
He told me many guys ended up with broken noses and bloody faces because they would ride small inflatables in to the beach and you'd be hunkered down into the back of the person in front of you, but when you'd hit the surf and the boat was tossed the C clamps would smash you in the face, needless to say many times they would ditch the boats early or one guy would take it in to the beach and the rest of the guys would just swim. :r
My dad is on the far right, the guy in the middle was his best friend in the Navy and I met him when I was about 10 years old, the guy on the left was killed in Korea when they were on a mission to rescue a couple POWs.
I always thought he was the major stud for volunteering for that duty, he didn't talk about it all that much but I finally asked him (when he was in his 80s) why he volunteered and he told me that he would get violently sea sick on the ships, didn't matter how big the ship was he'd spend the entire time sick as a dog, so he heard about this team forming up and he figured that was the perfect way to get off the ship. :r Sort of a let down, but pretty funny when you think about it, he'd rather go through some of the most dangerous duty there was than sit on a ship throwing up constantly. :r
http://i.imgur.com/qbRNcfn.jpg
My dad was one of the first Frogmen / UDT (there was a LIFE magazine article about his team), he served in WWII and Korea. He used to tell me about the wet gear they would wear, the hoods were extra tight to keep the water out and they would push your face forward after you wore them for awhile (as you can see in the picture), you'd climb into the back of the actual wetsuit and they would seal the back up with a big metal C clamp.
He told me many guys ended up with broken noses and bloody faces because they would ride small inflatables in to the beach and you'd be hunkered down into the back of the person in front of you, but when you'd hit the surf and the boat was tossed the C clamps would smash you in the face, needless to say many times they would ditch the boats early or one guy would take it in to the beach and the rest of the guys would just swim. :r
My dad is on the far right, the guy in the middle was his best friend in the Navy and I met him when I was about 10 years old, the guy on the left was killed in Korea when they were on a mission to rescue a couple POWs.
I always thought he was the major stud for volunteering for that duty, he didn't talk about it all that much but I finally asked him (when he was in his 80s) why he volunteered and he told me that he would get violently sea sick on the ships, didn't matter how big the ship was he'd spend the entire time sick as a dog, so he heard about this team forming up and he figured that was the perfect way to get off the ship. :r Sort of a let down, but pretty funny when you think about it, he'd rather go through some of the most dangerous duty there was than sit on a ship throwing up constantly. :r
http://i.imgur.com/qbRNcfn.jpg