Free First SEALs by Patrick K. O'Donnell Page A

operate. The OSS took a number of stopgap measures to compensate for the boats’ problems, including swapping out the marine engines for tank and aircraft engines that the service somehow obtained. For months Taylor hounded OSS and Allied headquarters in the area to provide his fledgling Maritime Unit with fast motorboats.
    Despite the lack of high-speed craft, Taylor accomplished a great deal in the few months he was in Egypt. Additional MU personnel hadn’t left the United States by October 8, so Taylor had to rely entirely on himself. Of his accomplishments in the region the chief of the Maritime Unit in Washington noted, “Lieutenant Taylor has been successful in establishing water transportation out of Alexandria to various island contacts, and his service is being enthusiastically received by all parties in the Middle East. Lieutenant Taylor is the caliber of a man who can do a big job in his field; in spite of all handicaps he has proven his worth to Maritime.”
    Always forward thinking and pioneering, Taylor realized the fast craft he was requesting suited a range of missions, including those of the underwater variety that Taylor had spent so much time planning for in the States. He would later write, “Provisionally tried underwater swimming apparatus now includes underwater breathing apparatus and mask; luminous and waterproof watches, depth gauges, and compasses; protective underwater suit; auxiliary swimming devices; and limpets and charges. With this equipment and proper training, operatives could make a simple and almostperfectly secure underwater approach to a maritime target and effect a subsequent getaway. An underwater operative, for example, could place a limpet against the hull of an enemy munitions ship in a crowded harbor with good chances of destruction.”
    Taylor also saw the opportunity to open up a new dimension of warfare, one that would become a hallmark of the U.S. Navy SEALs: parachute insertion. Taylor was one of the first OSS officers to document this groundbreaking method of delivering underwater commandos to the target, stating, “Underwater operatives and equipment might be landed by parachute to attack targets in inland waterways, such as hydro-electric dams on a lake or important locks in canals. Such an approach offers a unique technique in the penetration of enemy defenses.” Several months later Taylor’s innovative ideas were incorporated into the Maritime Unit training manual, which included an exercise to destroy a canal by parachuting underwater swimmers into the target, where they would don rebreathers and plant limpet mines along the enemy-held waterway.

    A FTER THE ASSAULT ON Salerno in September 1943, the Allies trained a significant focus on Italy. Determined to remain in the midst of the fighting, Jack Taylor requested and received a transfer to Italy to set up Maritime Unit operations in the port city of Bari on the Adriatic Sea to implement the plans he hatched with Hayden and Tofte to complete the supply service to the Yugoslav partisans. Led by Josip Broz Tito, the partisans numbered about 180,000 men. Joining forces with the Loyalist troops led by Draza Mihailovic, Yugoslavia’s insurgent troops embarked on a series of military operations that tied up roughly fifteen German divisions. The Allies wanted to keep those German troops in Yugoslavia rather than fighting in Italy or on the Eastern Front. In this context, supplying Tito’s forces became a key priority for the Allies and the OSS.
    Taylor’s request for transfer was helped along by a letter from the British governor general of the island of Samos, which thanked the OSS and expressed “his appreciation for the services rendered and for the medical supplies.” According to official MU history, “It was experience of this type that caused Lieutenant Taylor to be appointed OSS Operations Officer at Bari when the decision was made in December, 1943, to