The Emergence of the Navy SEALs in the Vietnam Conflict

Adam Schwarze has nearly two decades of military leadership experience spanning the United States Marines and the Navy. Active in the Navy SEALs, Adam Schwarze has a lifelong interest in the history and tradition of this special operations force, which focuses on conducting clandestine and unconventional operations and counter-guerrilla warfare.

An evolutionary product of the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs), which became a defining presence in the 1950 Korean War, the SEALs were officially formed at the behest of President John F. Kennedy in early 1962. SEAL Team ONE was co-located with UDT-11 and UDT-12 at the Naval Amphibious Base (NAB) in Coronado, California, while SEAL Team TWO was located in Virginia alongside UDT-21. Personnel from the existing UDTs transferred to the newly formed SEAL units, which were highly classified for several years and through the height of the Vietnam War.

The establishment of the SEAL teams coincided with the US’ agreement to boost aid to South Vietnam in its battle against the communist Viet Cong rebels. This group had been waging a subversive war in South Vietnam since the end of the French Indochina War in 1954 and gradually expanded to open warfare with assistance from an influx of North Vietnamese troops that infiltrated South Vietnam.

Two officers within SEAL Team ONE were first deployed to South Vietnam, where they undertook initial surveys and commenced planning for training that would verse indigenous South Vietnamese in procedures and tactics of maritime commandos. SEAL platoons were subsequently sent to South Vietnam, with each platoon permitted autonomous operation and assisted by a mobile-support boat team. This set in place a system that was refined over the next decade as the SEALs took a vital role in a conflict defined by guerrilla tactics.