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Afrogman is someone who is trained inscuba diving orswimming underwater in a tactical capacity that includesmilitary, and in some European countries,police work. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names ofcombat diver,combatant diver, orcombat swimmer. The wordfrogman first arose in the stage name the "Fearless Frogman" ofPaul Boyton in the 1870s[1] and later was claimed byJohn Spence, an enlisted member of the U.S. Navy and member of theOSS Maritime Unit, to have been applied to him while he was training in a green waterproof suit.[2]
The termfrogman is occasionally used to refer to a civilian scuba diver, such as in apolice diving role.[3]
In the United Kingdom, police divers have often been called "police frogmen".[4]
Some countries' tactical diver organizations include a translation of the wordfrogman in their official names, e.g., Denmark'sFrømandskorpset; others call themselves "combat divers" or similar.
Tactical diving is a branch ofprofessional diving carried out by armed forces and tactical units. They may be divided into:[citation needed]
These groups may overlap, and the same men may serve as assault divers and work divers, such as the AustralianClearance Diving Branch (RAN).
The range of operations performed by these operatives includes:[citation needed]
Typically, a diver with closed circuit oxygen rebreathing equipment will stay within a depth limit of 20 feet (6.1 m) with limited deeper excursions to a maximum of 50 feet (15 m) because of the risk of seizure due to acute oxygen toxicity.[5] The use of nitrox or mixed gas rebreathers can extend this depth range considerably, but this may be beyond the scope of operations, depending on the unit.
US and UK forces use these official definitions for mission descriptors:[citation needed]
Anti-frogman techniques are security methods developed to protect watercraft, ports and installations, and other sensitive resources both in or nearby vulnerable waterways from potential threats or intrusions by frogmen.
Frogmen on clandestine operations userebreathers, as the bubbles released byopen-circuit scuba would reveal them to surface lookouts and make a noise whichhydrophones could easily detect.[citation needed]
A few different explanations have been given for the origin of the term frogman.
In ancientRoman andGreek times, there were instances of men swimming or diving for combat, sometimes using a hollow plant stem or a long bone as asnorkel. Diving with snorkel is mentioned byAristotle (4th century BC).[6] The earliest descriptions of frogmen in war are found inThucydides'History of the Peloponnesian War. The first instance was in 425 BC, when theAthenian fleet besieged the Spartans on the small island of Sphacteria. The Spartans managed to get supplies from the mainland by underwater swimmers towing submerged sacks of supplies. In another incident of the same war, in 415 BC, the Athenians used combat divers in the port ofSyracuse, Sicily. The Syracuseans had planted vertical wooden poles in the bottom around their port, to prevent the Atheniantriremes from entering. The poles were submerged, not visible above the sea level. The Athenians used various means to cut these obstacles, including divers with saws.[7] It is believed that the underwater sawing required snorkels for breathing and diving weights to keep the divers stable.[8]
Also, in the writings ofAl-Maqrizi, it is also claimed that the naval forces of theFatimid Caliphate, in an engagement withByzantine forces off the coast ofMessina henceforth referred to as theBattle of the Straits, employed a novel strategy with strong similarities to modern-day frogmen tactics. In the writings ofHeinz Halm, who studied and translated the writings of Al-Maqrizi and other contemporary Islamic historians, it is described: "They would dive from their own ship and swim over to the enemy ship; they would fasten ropes to its rudder, along which earthenware pots containingGreek fire were then made to slide over to the enemy ship, and shattered on the sternpost." Apparently, this tactic succeeded in destroying many Byzantine vessels, and the battle ended in a major Fatimid victory; according to the Arab historians, a thousand prisoners were taken, including the Byzantine admiral, Niketas, with many of his officers, as well as a heavy Indian sword which bore an inscription indicating that it had once belonged toMuhammad.[citation needed]
The HungarianChronicon Pictum claims thatHenry III's 1052 invasion ofHungary was defeated by a skillful diver who sabotaged Henry's supply fleet. The unexpected sinking of the ships is confirmed by German chronicles.[citation needed]On 4 November 1918, during World War I, Italian frogmen sunk the Austro-Hungarian shipViribus Unitis.
Italy started World War II with a commando frogman force already trained. Britain, Germany, the United States, and theSoviet Union started commando frogman forces during World War II.[citation needed]
The wordfrogman appeared first in the stage nameThe Fearless Frogman ofPaul Boyton, who since the 1870s broke records in long distance swimming to demonstrate a newly invented rubberimmersion suit, with an inflated hood.[1]
The first modern frogmen were the World War IIItalian commando frogmen ofDecima Flottiglia MAS (now "ComSubIn":Comando Raggruppamento Subacquei e Incursori Teseo Tesei) which formed in 1938 and was first in action in 1940. Originally these divers were called "Uomini Gamma" because they were members of the top secret special unit called "Gruppo Gamma", which originated from the kind ofPirelli rubber skin-suit[9] nicknamedmuta gamma used by these divers. Later they were nicknamed "Uomini Rana," Italian for "frog men", because of an underwater swimmingfrog kick style, similar to that of frogs, or because their fins looked like frog's feet.[10][verification needed][need quotation to verify]
This special corps used an early oxygen rebreatherscuba set, theAuto Respiratore ad Ossigeno (A.R.O), a development of theDräger oxygenself-contained breathing apparatus designed for the mining industry and of theDavis Submerged Escape Apparatus made by Siebe, Gorman & Co and by Bergomi, designed for escaping from sunken submarines. This was used from about 1920 forspearfishing by Italian sport divers, modified and adapted by the Italian navy engineers for safe underwater use and built by Pirelli and SALVAS from about 1933, and so became a precursor of the modern diving rebreather.[11][12]
For this new way of underwater diving, the Italian frogmen trained inLa Spezia,Liguria, using the newly availableGenoesefree diving spearfishing equipment;diving mask,snorkel,swimfins, and rubberdry suit, the first specially madediving watch (the luminescentPanerai), and the new A.R.O. scuba unit.[13] This was a revolutionary alternative way to dive, and the start of the transition from the usual heavy underwater diving equipment of thehard hat divers which had been in general use since the 18th century, to self-contained divers, free of being tethered by an air line and rope connection.[citation needed]
AfterItaly declared war, theDecima Flottiglia MAS (Xª MAS) attempted several frogmen attacks on British naval bases in the Mediterranean between June 1940 and July 1941, but none were successful, because of equipment failure or early detection by British forces. On September 10, 1941, eightXª MAS frogmen were inserted by submarine close to the British harbour atGibraltar, where usinghuman torpedoes to penetrate the defences, sank three merchant ships before escaping through neutral Spain. An even more successful attack, theRaid on Alexandria, was mounted on 19 December on the harbour atAlexandria, again using human torpedoes. The raid resulted in disabling thebattleshipsHMS Queen Elizabeth andHMS Valiant together with adestroyer and anoil tanker, but all six frogmen were captured.[14] Frogmen were deployed by stealth inAlgeciras, Spain, from where they launched a number oflimpet-mine attacks on Allied shipping at anchor off Gibraltar.[15] Some time later they refitted the internedItalian tankerOlterra as a mothership for human torpedoes, carrying out three assaults on ships at Gibraltar between late 1942 and early 1943, sinking six of them.[16][17]
Nazi Germany raised a number of frogmen units under the auspices of both theKriegsmarine and theAbwehr, often relying on Italian expertise and equipment. In June 1944, aK-Verband frogman unit failed to destroy the bridge atBénouville, now known asPegasus Bridge, during theBattle of Normandy. In March 1945, a frogman squad from theBrandenburgers was deployed from their base in Venice to destroy theLudendorff Bridge over theRhine which had been captured by the US Army in theBattle of Remagen. Seven frogmen swam 17 kilometres (11 mi) downriver to the bridge carrying explosives, but were spotted byCanal Defence Lights. Four died, two fromhypothermia, and the rest were captured.[18]
The BritishRoyal Navy had captured an Italian human torpedo during a failed attack on Malta; they developed a copy called theChariot and formed a unit called theExperimental Submarine Flotilla, which later merged with theSpecial Boat Service. A number of Chariot operations were attempted, most notablyOperation Title in October 1942, an attack on theGerman battleshipTirpitz, which had to be abandoned when a storm hit the fishing boat which was towing the Chariots into position.[19] Operation Principal in January 1943 was an attack by eight Chariots onLa Maddalena andPalermo harbours; although all the Chariots were lost, the newItalian cruiserUlpio Traiano was sunk.[20] The last and most successful British operation resulted in sinking twoliners inPhuket harbour inThailand in October 1944.[21] Royal Navy divers did not use fins until December 1942.[citation needed]
In 1933 Italian companies were already producing underwater oxygen rebreathers, but the first diving set known as SCUBA was invented in 1939[22] byChristian Lambertsen, who originally called it the Lambertsen Amphibious Respirator Unit (LARU)[23] and patented it in 1940.[24] He later renamed it the Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, which, contracted to SCUBA, eventually became the generic term for both open circuit and rebreather autonomous underwater breathing equipment.
Lambertsen demonstrated it to theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS) (after already being rejected by the U.S. Navy) in a pool at a hotel in Washington D.C.[25] OSS not only bought into the concept, they hired Lambertsen to lead the program and build up the dive element of theirMaritime Unit.[25] The OSS was the predecessor of theCentral Intelligence Agency; the maritime element still exists inside the CIA'sSpecial Activities Division.[26]
John Spence, an enlisted member of the U.S. Navy, was the first man selected to join the OSS group.[2]
In April 1956, CommanderLionel Crabb, a wartime pioneer of Royal Navy combat diving, disappeared during a covert inspection of the hull of theSoviet NavySverdlov-class cruiser,Ordzhonikidze, while she was moored inPortsmouth Harbour.[27]
TheShayetet 13 commandos of theIsraeli Navy have carried out a number of underwater raids on harbors. They were initially trained by veterans ofXª MAS and used Italian equipment.[28] As part ofOperation Raviv in 1969, eight frogmen used two human torpedoes to enter Ras Sadat naval base nearSuez, where they destroyed twomotor torpedo boats with mines.[29]
During the 1982Falklands War, theArgentinian Naval Intelligence Service planned an attack on British warships at Gibraltar. Code namedOperation Algeciras, three frogmen, recruited from a former anti-government insurgent group, were to plant mines on the ships' hulls. The operation was abandoned when the divers were arrested by Spanish police and deported.[30]
In 1985, theFrench nuclear weapons tests atMoruroa in the Pacific Ocean was being contested by environmental protesters led by theGreenpeace campaign ship,Rainbow Warrior. TheAction Division of the FrenchDirectorate-General for External Security devised a plan tosink theRainbow Warrior while it was berthed in harbor atAuckland inNew Zealand. Two divers from the Division posed as tourists and attached two limpet mines to the ship's hull; the resulting explosion sank the ship and killed a Netherlands citizen on board. Two agents from the team, but not the divers, were arrested by theNew Zealand Police and later convicted ofmanslaughter. The French government finally admitted responsibility two months later.[31]
In the U.S. Navy, frogmen were officially phased out in 1983 and all active duty frogmen were transferred to SEAL units. In 1989, during theU.S. invasion of Panama, a team of four U.S. Navy SEALs usingrebreathers conducted a combat swimmer attack on thePresidente Porras, a gunboat and yacht belonging toManuel Noriega. The commandos attached explosives to the vessel as it was tied to a pier in thePanama Canal, escaping only after being attacked with grenades.[32] Three years later duringOperation Restore Hope, members ofSEAL Team One swam to shore in Somalia to measure beach composition, water depth, and shore gradient ahead of a Marine landing. The mission resulted in several of the SEALs becoming ill as Somalia's waters were contaminated with raw sewage.[33]
In 1978, the U.S. Navy Special Operations Officer (1140) community was established by combining Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) and Expendable Ordnance Management officers with Diving and Salvage officers. Special Ops Officers would become qualified in at lease two functional areas - normally EOD or Diving and Salvage, and Expendable Ordnance management. Officers trained in diving and salvage techniques were now allowed to follow a career pattern that took advantage of their training, and Unrestricted line officers were now permitted to specialize in salvage, with repeat tours of duty, and advanced training. Career patterns were developed to ensure that officers assigned to command were seasoned in salvage operations and well qualified in the technical aspects of their trade. "The combination gave a breadth and depth of professionalism to Navy salvage that had not been possible before."[34]
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