Declassified: The Curator’s Files
Declassified: The Curator’s Files offers an inside look at the Navy SEAL Museum through the expert lens of our Curator, Anderson Hanna.
Join Mr. Hanna as he shares exclusive behind-the-scenes insights and stories that bring the history of Naval Special Warfare to life.
Into the Surf with Fire: NCDU Training and the Hagensen Pack at D-Day
In the spring of 1944, while most Allied planners were focused on the logistics across the English Channel, a select group of American sailors trained for something more immediate, blowing apart Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. These men were part of the Naval Combat Demolition Units (NCDUs), a new combat force designed to dismantle the German beach defenses before the D-Day invasion. Equipped with little more than swim trunks, Ka-Bars, and satchel charges, they would be among the first to land, and the first to bleed on the shores of Normandy.