navysealmuseum.org | Fort Pierce | San Diego
Navy SEAL Museum Ft. Pierce

This is a page from an unknown British magazine dated December 1945. The caption reads: IN RUBBERIZED diving suits fitted with helmets and breathing apparatus, Britain’s web-footed “frog men” performed one of the most hazardous operations of the war. Shortly after dawn on D-Day, they slipped unobserved from rubber dinghies and swam like fish to neutralize underwater mines and booby traps. Also, they flattened massive obstructions the Germans had erected in the shallows off the coast of Normandy and opened a path to beaches for the flat-bottomed landing craft. In the Pacific, from the Marshalls to Balikpapan, the U.S. Navy had its “warriors in swim trunks.” Unarmed and garbed only in shorts and webfoot galoshes, these mermen of Underwater Demolition Units braved sharks and enemy fire to blast natural and man-made obstacles, clearing the way for our assault troops…(no additional narrative). The word “mermen” is British humor and take on the word “mermaid.” It is not in the dictionary.

Oct 16, 2025

This is a page from an unknown British magazine dated December 1945. The caption reads: IN RUBBERIZED diving suits fitted with helmets and breathing apparatus, Britain’s web-footed “frog men” performed one of the most hazardous operations of the war. Shortly after dawn on D-Day, they slipped unobserved from rubber dinghies and swam like fish to neutralize underwater mines and booby traps. Also, they flattened massive obstructions the Germans had erected in the shallows off the coast of Normandy and opened a path to beaches for the flat-bottomed landing craft. In the Pacific, from the Marshalls to Balikpapan, the U.S. Navy had its “warriors in swim trunks.” Unarmed and garbed only in shorts and webfoot galoshes, these mermen of Underwater Demolition Units braved sharks and enemy fire to blast natural and man-made obstacles, clearing the way for our assault troops…(no additional narrative). The word “mermen” is British humor and take on the word “mermaid.” It is not in the dictionary.