[HN Gopher] World War II frogmen who trained in secret off the C...
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       World War II frogmen who trained in secret off the California coast
        
       Author : Thevet
       Score  : 26 points
       Date   : 2022-07-11 03:52 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
        
       | lapetitejort wrote:
       | And now the spiritual successors of the Frogmen, the Navy SeALs,
       | begin their training in full view of tourists on Silver Strand
       | Beach, California.
        
       | eesmith wrote:
       | Tangent coming!
       | 
       | This reminded me of the book "Up Periscope", which I read as a
       | kid, about a frogman during WWII using a sub to infiltrate a
       | Japanese camp to photograph a code book.
       | 
       | I remember it talked about the then-new diving technology. I
       | thought it was SCUBA. It was Aqua-Lung; verified with a checked
       | out copy at
       | https://archive.org/details/upperiscope00whit/page/150/mode/... .
       | 
       | Turns out that book is based on the movie. ('Garner called the
       | film "another piece of crap that Warner Bros. stuck me in while I
       | was under contract."' says Wikipedia.)
       | 
       | And Aqua-Lung wasn't available until after WWII.
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua-Lung
       | 
       | Guess the book wasn't that accurate.
       | 
       | I enjoyed it when I was 12 or so.
        
         | Spooky23 wrote:
         | That was a fun book. I remember I picked it up at a yard sale
         | when I was on vacation around the same age.
         | 
         | Thanks for the nostalgia. Too bad it wasn't real.
        
       | andyjsong wrote:
       | > To fill its ranks, the agency recruited top swimmers from
       | throughout the armed forces. Korean prisoners of war, released
       | after showing a commitment to fighting the Japanese, also
       | participated in OSS training on Catalina.
       | 
       | Interesting that they would mix Korean nationals and Japanese
       | Americans together. I wonder what the group dynamic was like. It
       | also reminds me of Silmido and Unit 684, except the S. Korean
       | government cancelled the mission since North and South relations
       | were improving, so the soldiers killed their trainers and
       | committed mutiny.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_684
        
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       (page generated 2022-07-12 23:00 UTC)