We featured the early beginnings of what we now know as the Navy SEALs in a previous post, and since the SEAL story is not exactly a short one, this is probably something that we will be doing over the course of the next few weeks or months.

From the first batch of Amphibious Scouts and Raiders who trained jointly at the Amphibious Training Base in Little Creek in 1942, a second group composed of Scouts and Raiders were formed in 1943 as a joint and combined operations force and given the code name Special Service Unit #1, a little less than a year after the joint training. They were sent on their first mission in September 1943 to Finschafen on New Guinea. Later operatives were also sent on missions to Gasmata, Arawe, Cape Gloucester and the East and South coast of New Britain. All these missions were deemed successful and completed without any loss of men.

Later, non-Navy personnel on the force were reassigned and the Special Service Unit #1 was renamed the 7th Amphibious Scouts. Along with their new name is a new mission: they were to “go ashore in assault boats, buoy channels, erect markers for incoming craft, handle casualties, take offshore soundings, blow up beach obstacles and maintain voice communications linking the troops ashore, incoming boats and nearby ships,” according to the site that perhaps knows this story best – the Navy UDT-SEAL Museum. And if these tasks sound familiar, do not be surprised; today’s SEALs also have these tasks and skills on their list of responsibilities.

The 7th Amphibious Scouts served in the Pacific, conducting operations for the duration of the conflict in the area that arose as a result of the Second World War. They were part of more than 40 landings in the area during that time.