Combat Swimmer

by Robert A. Gormly

  Duke and his assault team rescued the governor general and held his mansion until relieved—about eighteen hours longer than we had been told we’d have to. (Units from the 82nd Airborne Division were to have relieved our assault teams within four hours after H-hour.)

  Before they had to pull out, Kim’s team knocked Radio Grenada, which was spewing rallying cries for the Communist forces, off the air by destroying the transmitters.

  The mission to put Air Force combat-control people at Salines airfield failed because our Whalers couldn’t handle the weather and seas off Grenada. Air Force planners had started the chain of problems by not ensuring the first air drop was done in daylight, as we had insisted and they had agreed.

  Despite our successes, Urgent Fury showed the command was not as operationally ready as I wanted. Plus, my unfamiliarity with the operating procedures used by the Joint Headquarters played a role in a lot of our problems. Bottom line: I was the commanding officer. I accepted the Admiral’s praise and I accepted full responsibility for our shortcomings.

  We had to go back to SEAL basics and move forward again.

  In taking over SEAL Team Six, I was reminded of SEAL Team Two from 1966 to 1968. Six just hadn’t been tested in combat. The men were dedicated and had a clear mission, and I didn’t want to make a lot of immediate policy changes just to be making changes. (I did make one policy change: we’d do our drinking only after work was done.) I wanted to get to know the command better before I started to “mark my territory.” Unfortunately, we were sent into combat before I could do that.

  After Grenada, I realized I had to change the command’s belief in its own press. I had to foster self-confidence, but within the context of knowing one’s limitations. As I was making the rounds during turnover, I kept hearing, “We’re so good, we’re two years ahead of the state of the art.” Catchy phrase—but not the mind-set I wanted.

  Urgent Fury also showed shortcomings in our readiness and planning procedures. I told Seal Six’s officers and chiefs that our organization had to be ready to plan and fight in accordance with whatever stringent schedule was laid on us by our operational commander. I wasn’t going to accept an ad hoc approach to mission planning anymore. We would establish and train a cadre of operations, intelligence, logistics, and communications planners. The planning cadre would go to the Joint Headquarters at the earliest indication that something was up. We had to have communicators who could closely link with our operational commander’s communicators. Never again would I accept being cut out of the communications planning, after the problems that had caused in Urgent Fury.

  I told my operations officer to keep one of our officers or senior enlisted in the operations section at the Joint Headquarters permanently, not just when the staff down there asked for someone. We had to know what they were doing before the train left the station—this was a key to our future readiness.

  In the future, too, I wouldn’t run off to the Joint Headquarters before I was sure we had things well covered at Six. At the Joint Headquarters, I was effectively cut off from my planning base and dependent upon the operational commander’s staff for information. They had their own business to worry about.

  Finally, regardless of what the operational commander’s staff did, we were going to go to Zulu (Universal) time for all operations and exercises in the future. In all my years with the SEALs, Urgent Fury was the only occasion on which I saw the standard military procedure of using Zulu time violated. Doing that had caused us to jump in the dark instead of daylight as we had planned.

  In the three years before I arrived, Six had been funded at levels well above other SEAL Teams, and at their expense. Given all that money, Six’s lack of fundamental SEAL Team mission-essential equipment was baffling.

  Within six months after Grenada we had military radios, antiarmor weapons, and a new mix of small arms, designed to deliver maximum firepower with increased accuracy. We had new boats capable of operating at sea. We developed new parachuting procedures for the boats and the men, replacing the MC-1 static line parachutes and their two-point “capewell” release system with MT-1 square canopies and their simple, reliable single-point release system. Then we rehearsed and rehearsed, until I was certain we could do that complex, dangerous operation at night, at sea, without a problem.

  SEAL Six also had trouble with command integrity. In the three years since the command had been formed, each assault team had gone its own way, with different standard operating procedures, different emergency procedures, and different equipment. Even their basic patrolling hand signals were different. Going from one to the other was as big a change as going from one SEAL Team to another.

  I had to develop a system to ensure we were all singing off the same sheet of music and to tell me if anyone was hitting wrong notes. I needed to review our training and develop standards to measure how well we could do our mission. In June 1983, before relieving Dick Marcinko, I asked to see training records for the two assault teams. The training officer told me they were training so hard, they didn’t have time to keep records. Under Marcinko, the Team had been training hard for three years, but I had no way of knowing how well they could do certain procedures. We implemented standards and measured our ability to meet them. The process eliminated bullshit: you either met the standard or you didn’t.

  As the training standards went up I could see the command improving in all aspects. The Team leaders and chiefs worked the men hard. Like all SEAL Teams, in order to train realistically we had to get out of town. This was a problem. I’d increased the numbers of assault teams to allow the men more training time and time off. But for the duration of my tour the average man was spending more than 280 days a year away from home. They didn’t seem to mind; they were there to operate and fight. But we were violating Navy policy, which called for men to be away from home no more than 180 days per year. I had no choice.

  At least with three assault teams the men could take leave occasionally. The only one of us who took no time off during my three years in command was me. I couldn’t have been comfortable on leave; I’d have spent the time thinking about Larry Barrett tearing down the taxiway to catch the plane. Becky was the happiest person on the block when I left Six in July 1986.

  The true measure of any organization is the ability of the key members to make critical decisions without consulting the leader. I knew we were ready when I was paged one night late in 1985 while eating dinner with Becky at a Pizza Hut (big spender Bob). The code on my beeper was the one for real-world immediate recall—drop whatever you’re doing and head for the Team, because we’re going to war. “What the hell? I’m the only one who’s supposed to authorize this code,” I thought. I called the Team. My operations officer answered, and before I could ask what was going on, he told me he’d gotten a call from the Joint Headquarters saying that a C-141 would be at a local military airfield soon to pick us up for an operation. Knowing I’d approve, he authorized the code. I took Becky home, and by the time I got to Six, all the gear and people were already loaded on trucks and headed for the airfield, along with our boats—ahead of schedule.

  Generally I was in my comfort zone, but not completely satisfied. Satisfaction causes complacency. Complacency causes screwups. At Six, we weren’t allowed to screw up. In the years after Grenada, we got very good at doing the things we needed in order to carry out our missions.

  21

  THEY CAN RUN, BUT THEY CAN’T HIDE: THE ACHILLE LAURO MISSION

  As a rapid-deployment force, SEALs had to deal with any contingency. In the 1980s that came to include terrorism. During the Achille Lauro mission we would also learn a tactic we had no training for: diplomacy.

  On October 7, 1985, I was in Washington. It seemed I was always in Washington, trying to push our requirements through the bureaucracy. This day I was in the SEAL resource sponsor’s office, trying to get him to help us get the manning increase we’d been promised after Grenada, nearly two years ago.

  The good captain listened
as I explained why I needed additional SEALs now and said, “Sorry, Bob, the other Teams need people too.”

  “Don’t give me that. You and I know no other Team has the same mission and readiness requirements.”

  Later, when I remembered that conversation, I thought, “Too bad he couldn’t have gone back to my headquarters with me.” As soon as I walked in the door of my office, my operations officer came in and told me the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise ship with a lot of American passengers aboard, had been hijacked just after sailing from Alexandria, an Egyptian port on the Mediterranean. Within hours, we were on a C-141 heading that way. En route, we developed a good plan to recover the ship and free all the hostages. Meanwhile, before we reached our forward operating base, the PLO ordered the hijackers to return to Alexandria and turn themselves in to the Egyptian authorities.

  When we landed in the afternoon of October 8, the commanding general of the Joint Headquarters and I went over the situation. The Achille Lauro was heading for Alexandria, but our orders remained in effect. Simply stated, we were to recover the ship and free the hostages. Ready to go, we continued to refine our plan, but because Air Force transport had a slow reaction time key equipment and people I needed to carry it out had not yet arrived. They didn’t get there until it was too late to conduct the mission under cover of darkness. To act in the daytime would have been too risky for the passengers, because the hijackers could spot our approach to the ship.

  As the Achille Lauro approached Alexandria, we waited to see what would develop. Would the hijackers really surrender? Finally, early in the evening of October 9, they gave themselves up to Egyptian authorities. We had already learned that they’d killed one passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, but all the others appeared to be safe. We were ordered to return to our stateside base; the crisis was over.

  At 2000 on October 9, all of my men were loaded on our C-141, ready to return home, and I was waiting for the commanding general to give the word to take off. We were all disappointed at not having had a chance to execute our plan, particularly since the hijackers had murdered a fellow American. I was deep in thought about what I had to do when we got back: go to Washington to continue the fight with the bureaucracy. The sound of the plane’s engines brought me back to the present. We were about to begin taxiing when the commanding general came on the radio and told me to keep the engines running but hold the plane. He’d just received word that President Reagan had ordered 6th Fleet aircraft to intercept an EgyptAir Boeing 737 carrying the Achille Lauro criminals out of Egypt.

  I figured a deal had been cut. The Egyptians probably wanted the hijackers out of their country as soon as possible, because they didn’t want to have to bring them to justice and risk the ire of Islamic fundamentalists.

  The general said that as soon as the 737 was detected leaving Egyptian airspace, F-14s from the aircraft carrier Saratoga were going to force it into Sigonella, Italy, where we shared a NATO base with the Italians. Our C-141 was to land right behind the 737, take custody of the criminals, and fly them back with us.

  Sounded like a great idea to me. We would have a crack at getting the bad guys, and the Egyptians would save face. Forcing their plane down at Sigonella seemed particularly fortuitous because I had already rerouted one assault team there after it became apparent we weren’t going to launch an operation on the Achille Lauro.

  I told the troops what was happening. About five of them immediately began forcing themselves to puke in order to get rid of the sleeping pills they’d taken so they’d sleep all the way home. Lieutenant Pat and I (Pat had been my assault team leader during Urgent Fury and was now my operations officer) quickly briefed the C-141 pilot. Then off we flew, in company with the CG’s bird, headed for Sigonella. The CG and I planned and coordinated over the radio en route. I learned that in addition to the four criminals, there were two PLO members and Egyptian “guards” aboard the 737. The plane was headed for Tunisia.

  Our plan called for my assault team in Sigonella to block the 737 as soon as it taxied off the runway and stopped. One of the two teams with me would board the plane; the other assault team, I’d keep in reserve. I asked for permission for my guys at Sigonella to shoot out the 737’s tires as soon as it came to a stop. The general relayed the request, but it was denied. We were told to tread lightly until we saw what the Egyptians were going to do. My guys already on the ground were to do no more than surround the 737 until the CG and I arrived.

  I told the CG that we should contact the 737 pilot on the ground-control frequency as soon as we arrived and tell him to turn over the criminals. I figured we could explain the situation to him in terms he couldn’t refuse. Either he handed over the criminals, or we were going to take them. If we took them, Egyptians would die. Faced with those options, I figured he’d hand them over.

  The F-14s intercepted the 737 as planned, and the Egyptian pilot didn’t argue too hard when the F-14 flight leader told him to declare an emergency and land at Sigonella.

  We landed in the slipstream of the 737. I ran off my bird to the Boeing’s rear, where my Sigonella assault team had established a command post. They had the 737 surrounded, the team leader told me. All of his men were concealed in the weeds nearby.

  I told Lieutenant “Bo,” one of the two team leaders who flew in with me, to assemble his assault team off the tarmac behind the 737 and to its left, and be prepared to assault the jet on my order. Bo was a hard-nosed former Army Ranger, and his guys were ready to go.

  Lieutenant Randy Rhodes put his assault team in position next to our C-141. Randy was a former enlisted SEAL who had worked for me when I commanded Team Two. His guys were ready to do whatever I needed.

  As Randy and Bo positioned their assault teams, I tried to figure out where we were on the airfield. The lights from the EgyptAir 737 inhibited my night vision. I could see the shapes of hangars in the distance. I couldn’t tell our exact position, but I figured we were on the U.S., not the Italian, side of the field.

  The commanding general’s plane landed. He raced over to our command post. One of his radiomen arrived with a radio tuned to the airfield ground-control frequency. When we called the 737, its pilot told us there was an Egyptian ambassador, with proper credentials, on board and he wanted to talk to us. This was a new wrinkle.

  The general and I huddled. Having an ambassador on board seemed to us a signal that the Egyptians wanted to get rid of their cargo. We figured he’d turn over the criminals to us as soon as we got him off the plane. I also figured the president and the State Department had managed to convince the Egyptians they ought to lose the bad guys, and that’s why the ambassador was on board. If they intended to take them to Tunisia as we’d been told, there would be no need for an ambassador. We decided the best thing to do was get him off the plane and talk to him. I told the CG I’d go.

  I went to the forward door of the aircraft and waited while the crew lowered stairs. An armed man stood beside the door. I couldn’t see very far into the plane from the bottom of the stairs, but behind the crew members operating the stairs, I could see two more armed men. I was unarmed, because I didn’t want to spook the ambassador, but I knew my snipers had zeroed in on the door.

  The ambassador appeared in the door, turned, and said something to one of the men behind him. I yelled for him to come down the stairs, and he did. He was a well-dressed, short, round man, obviously very nervous. I asked for his credentials, and he produced a letter and a diplomatic passport. The letter said he was an authorized representative of the Egyptian government, and the passport looked authentic.

  One of the snipers covering me radioed that he had Abu Abbas, one of the most infamous Palestinian terrorists, in his sights as the ambassador came down the stairs. Pictures of Abu Abbas were scarce, but we knew what he looked like, and we thought he might be one of the two Palestinians on board.

  I took the ambassador by the arm and headed for my command post. As I walked up to the commanding general with the Egyptian in tow, I heard one of th
e radiomen say that one of our intelligence agencies had sent us interesting information regarding the Egyptians. President Hosni Mubarak had instructed the pilot to turn over the criminals. The ambassador’s eyes widened in surprise. He said he wanted to confer with Mubarak first. (We later learned Mubarak thought the Italians had the plane.)

  The ambassador and the general began a heated discussion. The CG pointed to me and told the Egyptian that if he didn’t hand over the criminals immediately, I was going to take my men aboard and get them. I called Bo on my radio and told him to get ready. The ambassador paled and he started arguing that it wouldn’t be necessary for us to take them by force if only he could talk to Mubarak. He said he was concerned for the safety of the crew members. The general said if we had to take the hijackers by force, he couldn’t guarantee the safety of any of the Egyptians on the plane. The ambassador got more nervous and repeated that he was sure that wouldn’t be necessary, if only he could speak to Mubarak.

  One of my men came up and grabbed my shoulder, saying we were about to have a problem. A large number of Italian troops and police had arrived on the scene. I had been so busy with the ambassador that I hadn’t even noticed. I began getting reports over the radio from all of my guys that the Italians were quietly surrounding us. The situation was getting more tense. I told the men to stay off their triggers because we appeared to be about to get the bad guys.

  At this point I was about ten feet away from the CG and the ambassador. A group of Italians walked up to me and demanded to see whoever was in charge of our forces. I told them I was. An Italian general demanded to see my general. I said the CG was busy and he could talk to me. We argued about it for a few minutes. The Italian general stormed off, yelling something in Italian I didn’t understand. More Italian police and military began to appear around us. I was worried their egos might take over and they’d do something really stupid.