The Islamic State group is trying to work on its special forces prowess. Well, they’ve got their work cut out for them, according to combat vets that viewed a recently released promotional video by the extremist group. The video, first posted by news site Vocativ, features a dozen scenes of training, door breaching and amphibious sneak attacks. There are countless reasons why this whole thing is a giant soup sandwich, a former Navy SEAL told Navy Times in a Wednesday interview. Starting with: Why kind of special ops mission happens in broad daylight? “Well, the only thing that they had…
Browsing: Diving
In two ceremonies over a three-day span at the end of last month, four enlisted sailors and one officer received Bronze Star Medals. Navy Diver 1st Class (DSW/SW) John Hanson and ND2 (DSW/SW) Robert Klingaman received their honors June 25 at Southeast Regional Maintenance Center in Jacksonville, Fla., according to a Navy release. Both earned the awards while attached to Naval Special Warfare Group 3, for what the release called “a highly sensitive special operation critical to the national defense of the United States.” A spokesperson with SRMC could provide no further details; both men served with the Little Creek,…
The rare torpedo discovered by dolphins off the coast of California arrived safely at the Washington Navy Yard on May 30. Naval History and Heritage Command’s Underwater Archaeology Branch now has the remains of the Howell torpedo, a Navy release said. It is only the third one known to exist; the other two are displayed at the Naval Undersea Museum and the Naval War College. Before arriving in D.C., the torpedo was placed in fresh water, which helps leech the salt out of the artifact, the release said. “It’s kept in water because it was found in a saltwater environment,”…
A group of Navy dolphins who detect underwater mines found something unique during a training session: a Howell torpedo that is more than 100 years old. In April, a bottlenose dolphin named Ten surfaced from a training dive off the coast of Coronado, Calif. and touched the front of the boat with his nose — a sign that he had found something during the dive, the Los Angeles Times reported. Navy personnel were surprised that he had signaled positive in a place they didn’t expect, but they were even more surprised when Spetz, another dolphin in the program, did the…
The top 20 percent. That’s where Explosive Ordnance Disposal Training and Evaluation Unit 2 now finds itself in terms of public AND private employers in terms of programs, policies and culture for creating an effective and flexible workplace. EODTEU 2, located in Virginia Beach, Va., received the 2010 Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility from Rear Adm. Michael Tillotson, the commander of Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, during an awards ceremony Feb. 4. “It’s fantastic to be recognized,” said Lt. Cmdr. Oliver Herion, the executive officer of EODTEU 2. “Our team at all levels, officer, enlisted and…
Scoop Deck spent an awesome morning with retired Capt. (Dr.) Don Walsh, pilot of the bathyscaphe Trieste, which recorded the deepest dive any man has made. He and Jacques Piccard on Jan. 23, 1960 dove 35,797 feet (6.8 miles) into the deepest known part of any ocean, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. (Navy Times has some special coverage regarding that dive in the upcoming edition.) Walsh, a submariner by trade, shared another interesting story: how he got his doctorate. The Naval Academy grad didn’t finish on the top rungs of his class. In his words, he was “officially stupid.” After…
Scoop Deck has seen many titles on business cards — commander, director, secretary, chairman … but never one as good as the one we received today: Scoop Deck spent an awesome morning with retired Capt. (Dr.) Don Walsh, pilot of the bathyscaphe Trieste, which recorded (by far) the deepest dive any man has made. More to come on that … Also present was Sagalevich, Walsh’s Russian counterpart who later took Walsh to view the sunken remains of Bismark and Titanic. In fact, Walsh gives a very couteous nod to his good friend, calling him the “true leader in submersible science.” Sagalevich,…
Local fishermen in search of some record large-mouth bass in a San Diego-area lake last winter found something else on their electronic fish finder: A World War II carrier bomber. A cursory look determined the airplane is a Curtiss SBC2 Helldiver, a daring dive-bomber that apparently had made an emergency landing into Lower Otay Reservoir, southeast of San Diego, during a bombing test run on May 28, 1945, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The Navy had bought more than 7,000 of the Helldiver, which joined with the better-known Douglas SBD Dauntless on bombing runs during the Pacific theater campaigns in the…
