Read Online First SEALs by Patrick K. O'Donnell - Free Book Online

“Tiger’s Claw,” a clenched hand whose forceful upward swing was designed to gouge out an opponent’s eyes. Along with offensive moves, Fairbairn had a number of counters, including how to get out of a bear hug: “To break a bear hug . . . go limp . . . grab his testicles. Ruin him.”
    Fearless and highly skilled, Tofte didn’t hesitate to put a snarky recruit in line. On one occasion, a hulking, famous professional wrestler named “Jumping Joe” Silvaldi, who was going through training at Area F, challenged Tofte. Tofte drily recalled, “Unfortunately, his insults went a bit over hand and I broke one of his arms.”
    The training program turned many Ph.D.s into bar fighters. But Fairbairn remained realistic on the bounds of his training, noting, “In a sense, this is for fools, because you should never be without a pistol or a knife. However in case you are caught unarmed, foolishly or otherwise, the tactics shown here will increase your chances of coming out alive.”
    Tofte trained women as well, teaching them to use an umbrella as a weapon “every bit as dangerous as a bayonet.” However, Tofte longed to take a more active part in the war, and recognizing the value of his skills, the Army eventually sent him to Cairo with a mission to destroy the Italian oil industry in Albania. As soon as he arrived, that mission was canceled, but Tofte would soon tackle an equally formidable challenge with the assistance of the MU. Taylor, Tofte, Smith, and Hayden initially went about their own missions but would come back together as a team and thrust themselves into the heart of combat and Allied operations as they moved into continental Europe.

    S INCE J ANUARY 1943, when Churchill and Roosevelt met at the Casablanca Conference to plot their war strategy, the two Allied leaders had faced mounting pressure from the Soviet Union to open a western front. Roosevelt and Churchill disagreed on the best approach. The Americans preferred to use their existing forces in North Africa to invade Europe. Churchill, with an eye on postwar Europe and keeping the Soviet Union in check, favored launching an invasion of southwest Europe through Greece and the Balkans and persuading neutral Turkey and its large army to align with the Allies. But the Turks refused to budge and maintained neutrality. Despite Churchill’s protestations regarding Greece and the Balkans, the Allies decided to first attack Sicily in July 1943 and then advance up the spine of Italy as they prepared for the Normandy landings and the invasion of France. Throughout the remainderof the war Churchill remained obsessed with the Mediterranean. With limited men and shipping to spare, Eisenhower and Roosevelt agreed to only a small increase in guerrilla activity in the area. British General Henry Maitland “Jumbo” Wilson proposed occupying some of the Greek islands by “means of a piratical war,” using small bands of commandos and other specially trained troops to raid German and Italian garrisons. One of the first such raids was on the Greek island of Kos. Swept up in these island buccaneering efforts was the OSS, which provided intelligence services independent of the British and took part in special ops and intelligence operations.
    In the summer of 1943, the Allies went to great lengths to inflate the size and strength of their forces in the eastern Aegean. Through deception operations they attempted to convince the Germans that they planned to land in Greece. One elaborate disinformation operation, code-named “Mincemeat,” involved a dead body from a London morgue dressed in a high-ranking officer’s uniform and handcuffed to a suitcase full of “top secret” plans for a fake invasion of Greece and Sardinia. They cast the body into the sea so it would wash up on an Axis shore. The Germans fell for the canard and bought the fake invasion plans. Double agents working for the