Some damaging mythologies have become common in discussions, articles, books, and speeches regarding the conceptualization, formation, and establishment of the U.S. Navy’s SEAL teams. Among those myths is one put forth by Lieutenant Commander Roy Boehm in his 1997 book First SEAL. In it, Boehm suggests that he was the Navy’s first SEAL, and a man fighting alone against a Navy command structure unwilling to recognize the value of naval special warfare. He would have us believe that, through the force of his own ideas and persona, he created the SEALs, handpicked the personnel, and secretly trained them. He further claims that SEAL Team Two was the first team established in the Navy, and that he was its first commanding officer or “officer-in charge.” These claims are demonstrably false.
In fact, the very notion of a “first” SEAL trivializes almost 60 years of concerted effort within the U.S. Navy to create an unrivaled special-warfare capability.
On 1 January 1962 I became the first commanding officer of SEAL Team One and continued to serve as a SEAL for the remaining 16 years of my naval career. On 6 January 1962, Lieutenant John Callahan became the first commanding officer of SEAL Team Two. Roy Boehm served eight short months with SEAL Team Two, and no documented evidence exists to support his claim to be the first SEAL. Indeed, there was a first SEAL, chronologically speaking, and no, it was not Roy Boehm. But more important, Boehm’s first-SEAL concept and narrative are fundamentally flawed, as SEAL teams were not “created” in the fashion that he would have his readers believe.
Instead, SEAL Teams were a product of the Navy’s consistent goal to create and maintain a fighting force relevant to the changing dynamics of 20th-century warfare. Moreover, the true essence of the modern SEAL teams was forged in the Vietnam War through the blood, sweat, and dedication of the thousands of SEALs who fought and served during that era and beyond.
What follows is an abbreviated chronology of the events that led to the establishment of SEAL teams; it is based on official documentation.
Creation Truths
The formation of the SEAL teams was evolutionary, and involved a process for which no one man should take credit. It did not happen overnight, nor did it result from the efforts of an isolated few. It was born of the efforts of many individuals throughout the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV), and largely in response to developments in Southeast Asia in the 1950s and early 1960s.
As early as 1958, Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, the Chief of Naval Operations, suggested the initiation of covert measures designed to keep the communist powers off balance. Again, in September 1960, apparently in light of the Laotian crisis and the increasing insurgency in South Vietnam, Admiral Burke directed the Deputy CNO (Fleet Operations and Readiness) Vice Admiral Wallace M. Beakley to study the Navy’s options with respect to unconventional warfare. Admiral Beakley concluded that “the Underwater Demolition Teams and the Marine reconnaissance units were organizations capable of expansion into unconventional warfare.”1
More concrete steps were taken on 13 September 1960, when an Unconventional Activities Working Group was formally established. Reporting to the Deputy CNO (Plans and Policy), the group was directed to investigate “naval unconventional activity methods, techniques and concepts, which may be employed effectively against Sino-Soviet interests under conditions of cold war.”2 The concept for special-operations units within the Navy, and even the acronym SEAL, had already emerged in outline form by 10 March 1961, far earlier than some have claimed.
Rear Admiral William Gentner, Director Strategic Plans Division, approved the preliminary recommendations of the Unconventional Activities Committee, a successor to the Unconventional Activities Working Group. These recommendations were forwarded to the CNO for review and concurrence. Included was a recommendation for a wide range of “additional unconventional warfare capabilities within, or as an extension of our amphibious forces” and emphasized operations conducted in “restricted waters.”3
The committee also proposed the establishment of one unit each under the Pacific and Atlantic amphibious commanders, that “would represent a center or focal point through which all elements of this specialized Navy capability (naval guerrilla warfare) would be channeled. An appropriate name for such units could be SEAL units, SEAL being a contraction of SEA, AIR, LAND, and thereby, indicating an all-around, universal capability.”4 Initial units would consist of 20 to 25 officers and 50 to 75 enlisted men.
Two months later, on 13 May 1961, Admiral Beakley addressed a memo to the CNO via the Vice CNO, Admiral James S. Russell. This memo proposed a concept of operations, a detailed mission-and-tasks statement for SEAL teams (which later appeared in NWIP 29-1), and other background information, including Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) employment in overt and clandestine special operations during the Korean War.5 Admiral Beakley stated, “If you agree in the foregoing proposals, I will take action to establish a Special Operations Team on each coast,” adding, “Steps will be taken to establish two additional billets (one CDR or LCDR and one Marine MAJ or CAPT) in OP-343E (Support Operations Section) to provide adequate staffing for a guerrilla warfare section.”6 Both the VCNO and the CNO subsequently concurred in marginal notes to the memo.
‘Unconventional Warfare Units Will Be Increased’
Shortly thereafter, President John F. Kennedy tacitly recognized the progress made toward the formation of SEALs on 25 May 1961 before a special joint session of Congress, in a speech now famous for its enunciation of his goal to land a man on the moon. In that speech he declared:
I am directing the Secretary of Defense to expand rapidly and substantially, in cooperation with our allies, the orientation of existing forces for the conduct of non-nuclear war, paramilitary operations, and sub-limited or unconventional wars. In addition our special forces and unconventional warfare units will be increased and reoriented.7
In Boehm’s book, that speech is referenced as the catalyst for him and others to propose the creation of a SEAL-like unit in furtherance of the President’s wishes. This claim is indefensible, since, as shown, the mission and moniker of SEALs already had been recommended by the Unconventional Activities Committee and approved by Admiral Gentner on 10 March 1961, more than two full months before President Kennedy’s speech. Moreover, the CNO had given Admiral Beakley the green light to establish SEAL teams two weeks prior to the speech. Once this critical link in Boehm’s assertion is broken, it is impossible to place him in the already dubious and self-appointed role of first SEAL.
Moreover, only 11 days after President Kennedy’s speech, on 5 June 1961, the CNO, in a widely distributed letter signed by Admiral Beakley to the Fleet Commanders-in-Chief, addressed the development of an improved naval guerrilla/counter-guerrilla warfare capability. The letter states:
To augment present naval capabilities in restricted waters and rivers with particular reference to the conduct and support of paramilitary operations, it is desirable to establish Special Operations teams as a separate component within Underwater Demolition Units One and Two. An appropriate cover name for such units is ‘SEAL’ being a contraction of SEA, AIR, LAND. The concept of SEAL operations is set forth in enclosure (1).8
The enclosure included the same detailed mission and tasks statement for SEAL teams that appeared in Admiral Beakley’s earlier memo to the CNO. It also addressed organization (now 10 officers and 50 enlisted men for each team), build-up and training using Army schools, use of specialized small craft, other equipment, and staff planning.
On 11 December 1961, a CNO speed letter addressed to the Fleet Commanders-in-Chief authorized the establishment of two SEAL teams and UDT-22 to be effective in January 1962, the culmination of almost four years of investigation into and formulation of a special-operations capability for the Navy.9 A lieutenant at the time, I received orders, dated 11 December 1961, to detach as executive officer of UDT-12 and report to COMUDUONE as prospective commanding officer in connection with the establishment of SEAL Team One located at Coronado, California.10 On 1 January 1962, I released a message standing up SEAL Team One for duty. The Commander Amphibious Force Pacific command history states, “SEAL Team ONE was commissioned on 1 January 1962 and began specialized training in the field of unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency.”11
Little Creek Chronology, Clarified
At the same time, Lieutenant John Callahan was ordered to detach from UDT-11 and to report to Little Creek, Virginia, for duty as prospective commanding officer of SEAL Team Two. Delayed because of travel time to move his family across country, Lieutenant Callahan arrived in time to release the “stand up” message for SEAL Team Two on 6 January 1962. Commander Amphibous Force Atlantic’s command history states that “with increased emphasis placed on unconventional warfare, UDU2 was expanded with the recommissioning of UDT-22 on 13 January 1962 and the establishment of SEAL Team 2 on 6 January 1962.”12
Lieutenant (junior grade) Roy Boehm was serving as a platoon commander in UDT-21, also located at Little Creek, when he received orders to detach and report for duty as SEAL Team Two’s first executive officer. He reported for duty on 8 January 1962.13 He held the position for almost eight months until relieved by Lieutenant (junior grade) Tom Tarbox in August 1962. Lieutenant Boehm was subsequently transferred to Service Squadron Eight and, although he remained in the Navy for years, he never returned to a UDT or SEAL team for duty, nor did he serve in any capacity within the Navy’s special-warfare community.
Boehm’s book depicts him as the victim of a staunchly bureaucratic Navy that did not favor establishing SEAL teams and, once established, failed to equip and train the new teams appropriately. This stonewalling, according to Boehm, required him to operate outside the system, taking extraordinary and perhaps illicit action to get his men trained and equipped. Quite the contrary, the Navy supply system provided outstanding support in provisioning the two newly formed SEAL teams. Much of the equipment required for the SEALs was purchased directly from commercial vendors to shorten the time from purchase to operational use. This was certainly true of the AR-15, which went into immediate service with SEALs in Vietnam. It later became the standard-issue M-16 weapon system. Travel and per diem funding was also made available to send SEAL personnel to the myriad training courses best suited to the capability needs of the new teams. The support at all levels of command was so exemplary that it facilitated two officers from SEAL Team One being tasked to travel to Vietnam to determine specific requirements for SEAL involvement in that theater only two weeks after the teams were established. That survey resulted in the deployment of personnel from both SEAL teams to Vietnam beginning in April 1962, just four months after the commands were established.
The Real SEAL Story
Roy Boehm was not the U.S. Navy’s first SEAL. He was not a member of SEAL Team One, which was the first team established. In fact, there were no commando units in the Navy during the period leading up to the establishment of SEAL teams. As a result, Boehm could not have designed or led such a unit that would eventually become the Navy SEALs, as he asserted. Rather, all personnel resources to man the first two SEAL teams were transferred from the existing three UDTs, one team in the Atlantic Fleet and two teams in the Pacific Fleet.
Formation of SEAL teams was not the act of one or two individuals, but the result of the Navy’s long-term commitment to create a special-warfare capability that would extend the success of the UDTs to a new era of naval special warfare. Numerous individuals in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations worked tirelessly to formulate a strategy and mission for what would later be known as SEAL teams. And thousands of Navy SEALS, through their individual dedication and resourcefulness, created one of the most renowned fighting forces in U.S. naval history. It remains so today.
1. Edward J. Marolda et al., The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict, vol. II (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986), p. 96.
2. Ibid., p. 97.
3. Memo, Op-60 to CNO, ser BM-00286-61 of 10 March 1961.
4. Ibid.
5. Memo, OP-03 to CNO via VCNO, Op-343E ser 0043P34 of 13 May 1961.
6. Ibid.
7. President John F. Kennedy Special Message to a joint session of Congress, 25 May 1961.
8. CNO ltr Op-343E ser 0048P34 of 5 June 1961.
9. CNO spdltr OP-301C1 ser 697P30 of 11 December 1961.
10. BUPERS ORDER 113149, 11 December 1961.
11. COMPHIBPAC Command History ser 044 of 1963; also see SEAL Team ONE Command History ser 059 of 29 December 1967.
12. COMPHIBLANT Command History ser N251/097 of 6 February 1963.
13. Inaugural page, SEAL Team TWO Personnel Diary of 8 January 1962.