page_title: Special Forces Underwater Operations
hierarchical_section_title: Special Forces Underwater Operations
caption_attribution_description: English: Dr. en:Christian J. Lambertsen
context_page_description: Special Forces Underwater Operations is the term for United States Army Special Forces combat operations involving the use of underwater infiltration methods. These typically involve the use of closed circuit dive equipment to infiltrate a beach landing site undetected. The US Army Special Forces, also known as Green Berets have been conducting maritime operations and underwater operations since their founding in 1952. Currently, every Special Forces company within the seven Special Forces Groups mans, trains, equips and deploys a SFUWO Operation Detachment Alpha. These twelve-man teams train for SFUWO as their primary infiltration method when conducting one of their missions of Unconventional Warfare, Direct Action, Counter-terrorism or Foreign Internal Defense, among others.
  US Army Special Forces first existed within the Office of Strategic Services Operational Groups. Army Green Beret Combat Divers were first in the OSS Maritime Unit. The Lambertsen Auto Re-breather Unit was the first closed-circuit re-breather adopted by the US Military and used in Combat Operations with the OSS MU. It was invented by Dr. Christian Lambertsen.
context_section_description: Special Forces Underwater Operations (SFUWO) is the term for United States Army Special Forces combat operations involving the use of underwater infiltration methods. These typically involve the use of closed circuit dive equipment to infiltrate a beach landing site (BLS) undetected. The US Army Special Forces, also known as Green Berets have been conducting maritime operations and underwater operations since their founding in 1952. Currently, every Special Forces company within the seven Special Forces Groups mans, trains, equips and deploys a SFUWO Operation Detachment Alpha (SFOD-A). These twelve-man teams train for SFUWO as their primary infiltration method when conducting one of their missions of Unconventional Warfare, Direct Action, Counter-terrorism or Foreign Internal Defense, among others.
  US Army Special Forces first existed within the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Operational Groups. Army Green Beret Combat Divers were first in the OSS Maritime Unit. The Lambertsen Auto Re-breather Unit (LARU) was the first closed-circuit re-breather adopted by the US Military and used in Combat Operations with the OSS MU. It was invented by Dr. Christian Lambertsen.  Army Special Forces have been conducting these operations for nearly seventy years. It was the Army Special Forces that fielded the first true Special Operations Combat Divers with detachments conducting SFUWO in the early and mid fifties, nearly a decade prior to the creation of the Navy SEALs. Archival footage from this time period depicts Green Berets conducting advanced underwater operations including underwater infiltration, submarine lockout procedures and even underwater demolition.
caption: Dr Lambertsen Army1942
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