FROG FATHERS: Lessons from the Normandy Surf is, in a sense, a ghost story, though perhaps not in the way we traditionally think of ghost stories There are no hauntings or apparitions. No seances, conjurings or things that go bump in the night. Yet the dead are very much at the heart of this story. And they are with us for every part of its telling.

Eighty years removed form D-Day and with precious few survivors left to instruct us, we rely instead on more recent generations— generations in the form of four (4) retired, Navy SEAL combat veterans — men who served their country bravely in other wars, but who now seek to connect with their collective past and learn whatever lessons are still available from the Navy Combat Demolitioneers who were their predecessors.

Our ghost hunting begins in Fort Pierce, FL, where, in 1942, the Army’s newly commissioned Scouts & Raiders, under the command of Lieutenant Lloyd E. Peddicord, Jr., established an amphibious training base (ATB) to prepare for a series of landings in the Mediterranean. And where later, in 1943, following Admiral King’s directive that the creation and training of beach and obstacle clearance teams be given “highest priority”, the first Navy Combat Demolition Units (NCDUs) joined them.

Here, on the grounds of what is now the National Navy UDT/SEAL Museum, NSW historians and subject matter experts help us unravel the base’s origins and delve into the training the men stationed here underwent in preparation for Operation Overlord and the Normandy invasion.

Next stop, Normandy and a date with the ghosts of General Eisenhower’s great crusade.