Sea Stories

by William H. Mcraven

  “Geoff, I don’t know about this,” I said. “I can’t tell how stable this formation is. If the ice collapses, it will be very difficult to get you out. I don’t want you doing anything stupid.”

  Barker looked at me with the confidence of a man who had been in these situations before.

  “I’ll be fine, XO.”

  I nodded.

  “All right. Move out.”

  Ellis picked up the slack on the rope and I kept close to the hole, talking to Barker as he moved.

  “Everything okay?” I yelled as he faded from view.

  “Fine,” came the echo.

  I watched as the rope paid out farther and farther. Barker was now almost fifty yards into the cavern, when suddenly the rope snapped taut.

  Barker began yelling, but I couldn’t make out his words. Grabbing my flashlight, I ducked into the opening, latched on to the rope, and began moving in his direction.

  The rocks inside the cavern were smaller, but they still made movement difficult. The ice on the ceiling was melting and I could see that certain areas of the ice floe were thicker than others. My heart was pounding from the altitude and adrenaline.

  At the edge of my beam, I could see Barker coming down the hill in my direction. We met halfway. The look on his face said it all.

  As he turned his flashlight up the mountain, there, smashed into a million pieces—was a 1948 P2V2 Navy airplane.

  “Holy shit.” I smiled. “Would you look at that!”

  As the beams from the flashlight reflected off the ice we could see the outline of the aircraft. It was almost as if it had landed intact and then been pulverized over the years by tons of thawing ice falling from the cavern’s roof.

  “It looks like our midnight visitor was right after all,” Barker said.

  “Say what?”

  “Never mind, sir.”

  I could hear Ellis yelling, checking to see if we were okay. I responded back in a calm voice, knowing that he wouldn’t understand my words—but he wouldn’t move from the opening until he sensed panic and several tugs on the rope.

  Barker and I climbed back up the mountain toward the wreckage. I walked up the starboard side of the plane while he took the port. Pieces of metal were strewn everywhere, but in a recognizable pattern. The tail section and the rear fuselage were nothing but fragments, none larger than my fist.

  Suddenly, a large chunk of ice dropped from the ceiling, crashing into the midsection of the aircraft. Looking up, I could see the water beginning to cascade from the top of the roof to the sides. The cavern was melting, and more quickly than I realized.

  As we approached the wing section, Barker called out, “Sir, over here.”

  He reached down and pulled a long piece of leather from the wreckage. There on the back side of the worn brown cloth was a circular patch—the squadron’s emblem, still intact after all these years.

  “One of the crewmen’s flight jacket,” he said somberly.

  I nodded, knowing that the crewman was likely wearing that jacket at the time of impact. “Any signs of remains?” I asked.

  Barker picked through the rocks and rubble, but there was nothing to be found. We continued to move up the length of the fuselage.

  “Hey, look,” Barker said excitedly. “It’s a .50 cal!”

  Pushing the heavy rocks aside, Barker lifted the barrel of a .50-caliber machine gun, but the receiver section of the weapon was still buried beneath more rubble. Making my way across the center section of the aircraft, I joined in and we pulled the remaining stock of the gun out from under the debris. The weapon was almost completely intact. The barrel was bent slightly, but everything else seemed to be functioning.

  “Incredible,” Barker said. “The entire plane is crushed into pieces, but the .50 cal survives.”

  As I put the butt of the gun back on the ground, I noticed a small translucent piece of bone. I was no expert, but it appeared to be part of a hand. Digging further, I found another fragment, and Barker, who was searching as well, picked up a third piece.

  By now we were soaked from the melting ice and shaking from the cold. “Hey, boss,” Barker said. “I think it’s time we got out of here before we join the crew—permanently.”

  We gathered up the jacket and the bones and returned back down the cavern to the opening. We stepped through the hole, into the bright sunlight.

  “Well?” Ellis asked, coiling the rope around his shoulder.

  “It’s there,” Barker answered.

  “Hot damn!” Carter yelled.

  “I knew it!” Ellis proclaimed.

  “Let me have the harness,” Ellis said. “I’ve got to see this!”

  “We’re not going back in until we have a good plan. It’s too dangerous right now,” I said.

  “Geoff, you and Pat see if we can enter the cavern from the side. Up near the wing section. If we can get in from that angle then we can reduce the distance between the wreckage and our escape if things go bad.”

  “Roger, sir,” Barker acknowledged.

  “You going to call this in, XO?” Carter asked.

  “Not yet, Chuck. Let’s give it a day before we radio in what we’ve found.” Overnight some other naval officers from the Pentagon and Hawaii had flown in to help assist in the identification of remains, if any were found. Additionally, some members of the aircrew’s family had come to Tofino. During one of our pre-mission coordination meetings, I had naively agreed that if we found anything at the site, I would radio back to Tofino and those relatives who were fit enough could join us to pay their last respects. But I assumed that if we found the aircraft it would be underwater and most of the elderly folks wouldn’t want to make the journey just to look at a picturesque lake—even if their relatives were buried beneath it.

  Now that the wreck was accessible, some of the more adventurous men would definitely opt for coming out to see the remains.

  Over the course of the next few days, with the help of a small Navy recovery team, we continued to pick through the wreckage, but there wasn’t much left of the plane. We salvaged another machine gun and some additional bone fragments, but the cavern became more unstable every day. Finally, I decided to call off the search. I radioed back to Tofino that we had found the plane and any relatives wanting to join us were welcome to fly out.

  By that afternoon, we had an additional eight folks on the ground, including Ray Swentek, the brother of the navigator, Edward Swentek. Ray had made it his calling in life to find the plane and have the bodies recovered. Without his efforts none of this would have happened. It was Swentek who had approached the Navy about getting the SEALs to conduct the search. I allowed Ray and several members of the other families to view the wreckage. We roped them in and provided escorts for their safety.

  As Ray Swentek walked the length of the plane I could see the pain in his eyes. This frozen metal carcass, twisted and crushed beyond recognition, was the final resting place of the brother he had idolized as a child. Somewhere in the cockpit, now pulverized by ice and rocks, his brother would be buried for eternity.

  I watched Swentek scour the area around the cockpit, slowly, deliberately picking through the rubble.

  “I was hoping to find it,” he said.

  “Find what?”

  “His Navy ring. He never took it off even when flying.”

  I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that we would find the ring, but I got down on my knees and began to sift through what was left of the cockpit.

  We didn’t find the ring, and as the melting ice began to thaw more quickly, I ordered everyone out of the cavern.

  Later that day we assembled all the family members and held a small memorial service near our campsite. Half of the bone fragments we buried under a makeshift cross, the other half we would return to Arlington and provide full military honors to our fallen.

  As we gathered around the cross it occurred to me that this would be the final time any man would venture to this location. Most of the crew who perish
ed that night had families, children who grew up strong in their absence, but who would never know their fathers except by some old black-and-white photos.

  We bowed our heads and I prayed. “Dear heavenly father, we know these men are with you in heaven. We give thanks for their service on earth and we pray that you will continue to bless their families and loved ones. We thank you for your guiding hand that brought us to this site and for allowing us to return these men home where they can rest in peace among others who have paid the same price. God bless them all.”

  “Amen,” came the response.

  For a brief moment tears flowed and heads remained bowed.

  I glanced up from the gravesite to see Barker staring off into the distance. His head was cocked hard to the right and his mouth was open. Beside him Ellis was wide-eyed and quietly pointing something out to Carter.

  Turning around, I looked in the direction of the ice floe, and there, high above the peak, a lone bright object sparkled in the sky.

  “It looks like a signal flare,” Swentek offered.

  It did look like a signal flare, I thought. In fact, it looked like a military-style parachute flare, bright white, almost silver, suspended in the air, possibly caught in an updraft off the side of the mountain.

  Suddenly another flare lit the sky, and then another and another and another. As we watched in silence, the entire ridgeline filled with glowing white orbs that hovered just above the mountaintop.

  “Boss,” Walker stammered. “How many flares do you see up there?”

  I began to count, but I knew the answer even before I finished.

  “There are nine of them,” Carter said.

  The orbs hovered for more than fifteen minutes, and then suddenly, one by one, they all rocketed skyward and were gone.

  In silence, we packed up the remainder of our gear and shuttled the family members back to Tofino, and as the sun began to set over the mountaintop I boarded the helo for one of the last rides out. As I adjusted the headset the pilot came up on comms.

  “You guys are the talk of Tofino, Commander. People have been searching for that plane for years. Now that the lost souls have found their way to heaven, maybe our luck will change.”

  I adjusted the volume on my headset and unconsciously leaned over to look the pilot in the eye. “What did you say?”

  The pilot grinned. “My ancestors believe that the remains of the dead must be visible to heaven so their souls can be guided through the great dome.”

  Checking his compass setting, he glanced around to make certain we were clear of the mountains. “Legend says that the sky is a great dome and there is a hole in it through which the spirits pass in order to get to heaven. The spirits who live in heaven light torches to guide them through.” The pilot craned his helmeted head in my direction and laughed. “It’s all just Indian folklore, but I’m sure some local will buy you boys a beer when you get back to Tofino.”

  Sitting back on the floorboard, I watched as the ice floe disappeared into the distance, the thumping of the rotor blades marking our progress back to Tofino.

  I looked skyward, smiled, and rendered a salute. The crew was finally home.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AMERICAN PIRATES

  Aboard the amphibious ship USS OGDEN, Indian Ocean

  October 1990

  Fire!”

  Whoom! The five-inch round from the destroyer’s gun blasted out of the barrel, the concussion wave rolling across the short expanse of ocean and rocking those of us standing nearby on USS Ogden. A plume of water exploded twenty yards in front of the Iraqi tanker Amuriyah. But still she kept going.

  “Fire!”

  Another round rocketed from the barrel, the smoke drifting across the port side of the destroyer, the shell landing another twenty yards from the tanker. Over the bridge-to-bridge communications I could hear the master of the Amuriyah yelling obscenities at the commanding officer of the Australian destroyer Brewton. Even in Arabic, obscenities sound the same.

  “Fire!”

  The third round flew just over the bow of the Amuriyah. The master, just visible on the bridge of the ship, threw the helm hard to port and the nine-hundred-foot supertanker lumbered closer to the American task force.

  “Stand by for .50 cal.”

  “Fire, fire, fire!” The gunner on the destroyer’s .50-caliber machine gun opened up with a short burst, barely missing the small Iraqi flag that flew from the forwardmost stanchion.

  “Stop! You are crazy! You cannot do this!” the master pleaded in broken English.

  “Amuriyah, this is United States warship Ogden. I say again, under United Nations Resolution 665, you are directed to stop and be boarded.” The tone was firm and measured.

  “Never, never, never! You are pirates. You cannot board my ship!”

  On the horizon I could see a small shape approaching at high speed. It was an F-14 jet screaming across the water just fifty feet above the deck.

  “Cease fire!” came the command from the destroyer.

  The F-14 was kicking up water behind it and accelerating as it approached the tanker. The crew of the Amuriyah could see the aircraft now and they moved to the rails, ready to jump overboard if necessary.

  Splitting the seam between the Amuriyah and USS Ogden, the jet blew past with such velocity that the thundering of the engines brought me to my knees. The crew of the Ogden, lining the rails, roared with approval. It was an impressive show of military power, but still the tanker remained defiant and plowed ahead unabated.

  Once again, the loudspeaker belted out an order. “Commander McRaven, stand by to board the vessel!”

  That was my cue. We’d spent the last eighteen months preparing for something like this. Now it was showtime.

  Five months earlier, I had left my wife, Georgeann, and my two boys, Bill and John, on the pier in San Diego as USS Okinawa pulled away for a routine six-month deployment to the western Pacific. There are few things more gut-wrenching than watching your family slowly disappear into the distance as your ship sails out of port. While I loved being a SEAL, there was nothing in the world more important to me than my family. My boys were at that age where we were constant companions. I rarely missed a youth basketball or baseball game and we loved spending time on the water in San Diego. Additionally, before I departed we were thrilled to find out Georgeann was pregnant, but that made the farewell even harder. The only saving grace was we knew I would be home in time for the delivery.

  After two months underway, we received word that Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait. President Bush ordered the commencement of Operation Desert Shield to allow for the buildup of U.S. forces in order to liberate Kuwait and defend Saudi Arabia. USS Okinawa, which was the lead ship for Amphibious Squadron Five (PHIBRONFIVE), was ordered to proceed to the Indian Ocean and await further directions. We departed Subic Bay, Philippines, and after a short stop in Hong Kong sailed through the Strait of Malacca, eventually arriving in MODLOC (a naval acronym meaning “modified location,” that is, steaming around in circles waiting for the next order) off the southern tip of India.

  In addition to the Okinawa, there were four other ships in the squadron: USS Fort McHenry, USS Ogden, USS Cayuga, and USS Durham, which along with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit/Special Operations Capable (MEU/SOC) made up the ARG (Amphibious Ready Group)/MEU Team.

  The squadron commodore was a charismatic Navy captain named Mike Coumatos. Coumatos flew Huey helicopters in Vietnam and had that swagger that comes from being a combat pilot. Short, with a large bushy mustache, he was wickedly smart, very professional, with a gambler’s streak of boldness. He and I hit it off from the very beginning. He trusted my judgment and I trusted his leadership implicitly.

  The MEU/SOC commander, Colonel John Rhodes, was also a Vietnam-era helo pilot with two Silver Stars and four Distinguished Flying Crosses to show for his bravery. Rhodes was vintage Corps: physically fit, disciplined, with a drive for perfection that made his MEU one of the best I had ever see
n. He was hard on his staff and his Marines, but they reflected his style in everything they did. It was a superb Navy–Marine Corps team.

  As the Naval Special Warfare Task Unit commander and the senior special operations officer, I was often tasked to command all the elements that were special operations or special operations–like. This included an experienced Marine Force Recon element, the Navy SEAL platoon, and occasionally the Marine boat raid company, the Radio Recon battalion, and a Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal platoon. We were all well acquainted with each other, having done a nine-month pre-deployment workup prior to leaving San Diego.

  While on our way to MODLOC, the ARG/MEU suffered a terrible tragedy when two UH-1N Huey helicopters collided during night operations, killing all eight men aboard. It was a stark reminder that there is no such thing as normal operations when you are at sea. Under the strong leadership of Coumatos and Rhodes, we searched for forty-eight hours, then paid our respects to the fallen and proceeded with the mission. I had witnessed losses before, but it was never easy. Some of the Marines had families back home. Young children like mine. Each time I passed the Marines’ empty staterooms I was reminded of just how fragile life is and how fortunate I was to have known such fine men.

  MODLOC off India was tiring. Not a cloud in the sky. No wind. No land as far as the eye could see, and the scorching sun made the steel decks so hot we only conducted flight operations during the early morning and evening hours. We had no television, mail took thirty days to reach us, and the only way to find out what was going on in the world was through our ship’s Teletype. Every day we anxiously waited for news of the impending war. Saddam Hussein had been warned: Get out of Kuwait or we will force you out. The United Nations issued Resolutions 661 and 665 authorizing a naval blockade to stop any ship providing economic support to the Iraqis.

  In October, an Iraqi cargo vessel leaving the Arabian Gulf had been directed by the U.S. Navy to stop. Unfortunately, two Navy destroyers were unable to halt the Iraqi ship from departing the Gulf. The destroyers hailed the vessel, demanding that the master of the ship allow a boarding party to embark. After some verbal exchanges and inappropriate hand gestures, the master kept moving. The destroyers fired .50-caliber automatic weapons across the bow of the Iraqi vessel, but it kept steaming ahead. Finally, the warships attempted to cut off the vessel with several high-speed runs, narrowly avoiding a collision, but to no avail. The master of the Iraqi vessel was determined to continue on, and the only way to stop a ship at sea, short of sinking her, was to board her—underway. And the only underway boarding capability in the vicinity of the gulf was with Amphibious Squadron Five and the 13th MEU/SOC. But we were still seven days away. In a small early victory for Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi cargo vessel fled the Persian Gulf and the Navy broke contact and let the ship proceed on its way.