As 2012 marks the 70th Anniversary of the founding of O.S.S., the United States first covert espionage organization for secret, unorthodox overseas wartime operations, many have no idea that Southern California is highly responsible for all this to have taken place. (The modern O.S.S. direct successor is today’s CIA…) This 70th Anniversary includes the Amphibious classified O.S.S. Maritime Unit-Special Operations Diving Unit and its Operational Swimmers Groups, who were the forerunners of Navy SEALs, who they themselves this year celebrate their 50th Anniversary.
This event is to celebrate, recognize and honor how the O.S.S. “Swimmandos” (swimmer/commando, combat swimmer/frogmen…) came to be, via a very storied legend and lore that is steeped in Southern California’s geographic, societal, Hollywood and waterman-ship history. The event will bring together the remaining O.S.S MU and MU Operational Swimmer veteran personnel and their families, to honor them at the places where the key men of the Swimmers developed their diving and waterman techniques to make this type of special maritime warfare possible.
Tonight’s event will be conducted by O.S.S. Swimmer expert Erick Simmel who will Q & A the honored guests on this historic topic. This event at the Adventurers Club is the first evening leading three other days of insights to secret and pioneering sites on the Santa Monica and Los Angeles coastline, Catalina Island, Newport Beach and Camp Pendleton.
Tonight’s Guest of Honors are:
Mr. Walter Mess
Some Operatives never live a life like 007. Occasionally one comes around.
At 99 years old and 8 months( He turns 100 on December 20th 2012…) …The legendary Walter Mess was one of General Donovan’s “Best and Brightest” of O.S.S. and particularly O.S.S. Maritime Unit.
A true American treasure and enigma, by 1937 when Mr. Mess played professional football, already spoke several languages and held law and business degrees and a Coast Guard Ships’ “Master” rating which would soon help him on several of his future secret operations. In 1937 -- 4 years prior to the U.S.A. involvement in WW II -- Mess was recruited by Donovan, who at the time was in private law practice, into Donovan’s private OI (Office of Intelligence – the “Blackwater” of its Day) while completing his PhD in Law, at Catholic University at night. There he became one of the United States most private secret agents.
By 1938 – Mess was trained by the British and then dropped into Czechoslovakia where he walked out to the Adriatic with four 13-15 yr olds for training in the USA & reinsertion as USA agents. Mess also set up interaction with the British Station Chief & Tito. (One of those boys became USA Ambassador to Slovakia in recent years.)
In 1939 - Again flown by RAF into Poland on similar mission - Brought out three more young men.
In Nov `41 into US Army for COI (pre O.S.S. training) Pulled from OCS to repeat `37-`38 missions.
In 1942 things really started to heat up. Working at COI, Mess ventured to the Philippines on a mission by submarine. Later that year, he was in Morocco with the then new (O.S.S.) team to resupply a team to bring more gold to buy off the Vichy French to insure the French would not shoot at U.S. troops upon landing in operation Torch!
Late 1942 / early 1943 - Mess attended Boat training in the Gulf Mexico the Florida Keys and Cuba on his Army Air crash Sea rescue boat P-564 which would later become the O.S.S. Maritime units’ Flotilla operating in the China Burma India Theater. Mess repaired the cracked hull of a “Liberty ship” in Anchorage Alaska. O.S.S. boats P-564 & 563 loaded in San Diego liberty ship. Mess was the ship's Captain across the South Pacific to Ceylon via Sydney & Calcutta.
In late 1943 he commenced ultra classified OSS MU ops in the Bay of Bengal against Jap forces. Mess became an official O.S.S. operative and MU’s senior “flotilla officer commander” of O.S.S. Maritime Unit Operations in Burma, India and Thailand. As senior flotilla officer for O.S.S. SEAC MU operations, Mess’s O.S.S. air crash sea rescue (PT) Boat P-564 numbered over 36 missions with P 564 across the Bay of Bengal for official O.S.S. MU operations ferrying OG and Operational Swimmer teams; Also returned over 220 downed pilots & crewmen from 3 E&E pickup points on Burma coast.
In Apr 1944 he became primary boat for Dr Lambertsen & swimmers for combat evaluation of system & then swimmers became integral part of O.S.S. OG (operational groups) and SI (secret intelligence missions. These missions included many of the firs underwater.
This did not include the Occasional interruptions for special individual missions for the Viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten head of the British SOE and is O.S.S. Swimmer counterpart, the SRU.
In 1945 when the Japanese were eliminated from the Burma Coast, P-564 ["Jeanie"] no longer needed. Walter transferred to O.S.S. Det. 404 and assisted with air support missions to O.S.S. teams in the interior of Burma and Thailand. He made 10-15 + parachute jumps, including leading 30-50 Kachins (Burmese Highlanders) on 7 jumps to clear 7 landing strips for Air Ops.
Mr. Mess had over 100 secret operations under his leadership—many unbelievable—all very classified missions. Mr. Mess is a tireless, vigorous and stalwart example of the MU leadership General Donovan envisioned and is a lasting pioneer for all modern day U.S. Navy, Coastguard, Marine Corps and law enforcement, maritime , Special Boat unit operations and Air Force Special Tactics Squadron missions which American Treasure O.S.S. pioneer Walter Mess squarely left his foot print on.
Other Scheduled O.S.S Swimmer guests are Weldon, Abbott Soltau and Backus
Mr. Henry “Hank” Weldon
Mr. Weldon was a Navy Specialist recruited into OSS OSG Group A training. His
group were the first O.S.S combat swimmers to train at Catalina Island’s secret
O.S.S. base known as “Area WA, Toyon Cove” During this phase of the training
Hank was part of a “training mission” which was the first operation to pit
combat swimmers against America’s maritime harbor defenses and successfully
prove that a combat swimmer unit could defeat a standing port security element.
Mr. Gordon “Gordie” Soltau
Mr. Soltau, who would later gain fame as a San Francisco 49er football player in
the post WW II era, was during the war, a very young and highly athletic USN
O.S.S. Operational Swimmer who landed agents and saw action in England with the
L- Unit, and in Burma and Malaysia.
Mr. Norman Abbott
OSS OSG Group II in Burma. Trained at Camp Pendleton, Catalina Island and the
Bahamas Islands, before engaging in Operations in Burma Thailand and Malaysia.
Norman was the nephew of comedian Lou Abbot of Abbott and Costello comedy fame.
He had a long time post war dramatic motion picture and television industry
career as a director.
Mr. Sam Backus
As a Operational Swimmer with OSG II in Burma, Backus would later be part of the
first official Navy sponsored simulated attack on a U.S. Navy facility by combat
swimmers, attacking and sinking several U.S. Ships in Guantanamo Bay Cuba… and
the first unofficial Lobster Dive using a SCUBA rebreather on the California
Coast … off Laguna Beach. Backus would later deploy to Burma for operations
along the Burmese Arakan Coast.
Commander Tom Hawkins USN (Ret.)
invited) SEAL and authority on O.S.S. Navy Officer Jack Taylor considered by
many to be the first and O.S.S. Missions and their post war legacy into the U.S.
Navy SEALs.
Master Chief Harold Dunnigan USN (Ret.)
Former Santa Monica Lifeguard who as a pre Korean War era young Santa Monica
Lifeguard knew and trained with many of the prewar SM and LA County Lifeguards
who became OSS Operational swimmers. Chief Dunnigan would later become highly
entrenched within the Navy UDT and SEAL programs as well as becoming one of the
longest serving Los Angeles County Lifeguards He was all so the basis for a
influential character on the successful dramatic TV Series Baywatch.
Martin Sugarman PhD
invited) Sugarman's life reads like a Graham Greene spy novel, the title of
which could be 'Surfer Dude, Man of Mystery.' In between Sugarman’s sojourns as
an artist and combat photographer in both Kashmir and Bosnia in the 1990’s. His
great contribution to the preservation to the O.S.S. swimmers knew many of them
without knowing who they really were. His Chronology of their stories
intertwined with his expertise on the rich history of Santa Monica Canyon, where
many of the pioneering O.S.S. waterman and lifeguards, Bob Butts , Pete Petersen
, Fred Wadley, Gard Chapin, Art Garrett, Frank Donahue and Fred Zendar, lived
and worked Sugarman knew them in their later lives and learned their stories as
part of his great scholarship of ‘California Cool and Watermanship, H2O
Magazine. H2O set the standard for highlighting the (Will Rogers) state's beach
culture and spotlighting the surfer waterman lifestyle.
Craig Lockwood
Laguna beach based Lifeguard Author historian and expert on watermanship will
discuss the Southern California Waterman ship era before 1941 and after 1945
until the middle 1950’s
Arthur C. Verge, PhD
LA County Lifeguard, author & historian of the Los Angeles area watermen.
The exciting Event will continue for the Friday Saturday and Sunday with the O.S.S. MU Swimmer (veterans) to Pre war historic locales on the LA and Santa Monica coast line, a voyage on only operational O.S.S. era Crash boat the P-520, to where the men who would become O.S S. Wartime secret training areas on Catalina Island and Camp Pendleton. This will be followed by a BarBQ at residence of late O.S.S. Swimmer Operative Jim Eubank and his wife Vera (tentative). Club members and guests will be invited to additional events, subject to space availability.