Underwater Demolition Team
The Underwater Demolition Team (UDT), or frogmen, were amphibious units created by the United States Navy during World War II with specialized non-tactical missions. They were predecessors of the navy's current SEAL teams.
Patch of the Underwater Demolition Teams.
U.S. Naval Combat Demolition insignia. – U.S. Navy Seal Museum
"NCDU 45"; Ensign Karnowski, Chief Carpenters Mate Conrad C. Millis, MMCB2 Lester Meyers and three gunners mates. The unit received a Presidential Unit Citation with Ens. Karnowski earning the Navy Cross & French Croix de Guerre with Palm, while MM2 Meyers received a Silver Star. Two men were wounded and one was killed.
80-G-258013 At Morotai NCDU 21 with MacArthur's 7th Fleet makes a channel using 8 tons of explosives in a single blast. Debris was thrown 800 yards or nearly a half mile.
A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater in a tactical capacity that includes military, and in some European countries, police work. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver, combatant diver, or combat swimmer. The word frogman first arose in the stage name the "Fearless Frogman" of Paul Boyton in the 1870s and later was claimed by John Spence, an enlisted member of the U.S. Navy and member of the OSS Maritime Unit, to have been applied to him while he was training in a green waterproof suit.
A SEAL Delivery Team member climbs aboard a delivery vehicle before launching from the back of the submarine USS Philadelphia.
A 1945 British navy frogman with complete gear, including the Davis apparatus, a rebreather originally conceived in 1910 by Robert Davis as an emergency submarine escape set.
A French frogman with chest counterlung loop rebreather with two breathing tubes (model "Oxygers", 1957).
Royal Navy divers in Sladen suits during World War II