Written by SEAL Captain Michael Slattery
 

Immortalized in a frame on the wall at SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team ONE.......


Up the stone staircase* from the rotunda at the center of the Naval Academy’s massive Bancroft Hall lies Memorial Hall*. This hallowed place honors the memory of Academy graduates who gave their lives defending the Nation against its enemies.
Qualification for this honor is demanding- as it should be.
But one name nevertheless is missing from Memorial Hall’s honored dead… that of:
If the Navy was ever going to select a SEAL admiral from the class of ‘68, it would have been Spence Dry, hands down. At the Naval Academy he had a superior academic record, a great sense of humor, and was well liked by his classmates.
He was smart, articulate and a natural combat leader.
Spence* had demonstrated those very traits throughout basic SEAL training and
subsequent combat deployments to Vietnam with Underwater Demolition Team-13 and SEAL Team One.

So as we stood at attention at “officer’s call” on a bright Coronado morning in SEAL Team One's compound during early June, 1972, the news that Lt Spence Dry had been killed during a “training accident” somewhere off the coast of Vietnam felt like a cold shot of winter surf.

We had heard from Spence in a letter not more than a few weeks before his death. In it he told us that he was finally getting to do some “really neat stuff.” Spence and I frequently competed to get assigned and deployed for any kind of SEAL Team’s “neat stuff,”
… and I envied his good fortune.

Such opportunities were becoming rare as the Vietnam War appeared to wind down. Nixon’s Vietnamization program had ended all the routine SEAL platoon deployments. All that was left in Vietnam for us relatively new guys were one year tours as
*SEAL advisors,
and on exceptional occasions, a tailored mission deployment for a specific purpose or classified contingency. Spence was leading such a deployment when he was killed.
Although Spence and I were classmates at the Naval Academy we really didn’t get to know each other well until the shared struggle* of surviving BUD/S…
Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training.

Training that included (among other things) a cold winter Hell Week*, seemingly endless formation runs in soft sand, long cold ocean swims, and small rubber boat
(or IBS) rock portages * at night through plunging surf … during Pacific winter storms.
Getting to know your future teammates well was a very big part of that experience. Starting in December ’69 we began as a winter class of 12 officers and well over 100 enlisted. *By graduation in June’70 we were down to a hard core of 5 officers & 22

Part 2
 

enlisted. By then we all knew each others’ strengths and weaknesses as we knew our own.
Following graduation from BUD/S four of us officers rented an old rambling house on 4th street in Coronado. We would often take our meals together at a favorite local restaurant - the Chart House*… where Spence invariably ordered his favorite: teriyaki shrimp.
(I never saw him order anything else.)

Times were good then and all too short. We were young, well trained, and eager to test our mettle in combat.

Four of us were assigned to UDT-13 and within a few months we deployed to the Philippines.* Spence deployed almost immediately from there to Vietnam as OIC of Detachment Hotel near Da Nang. There he led his detachment on river reconnaissance, combat demolitions,* and search & destroy operations* along the Key Lam river.
When Jim Hoover was seriously wounded at Dong Tam, Spence relieved him and I relieved Spence. Upon return from Vietnam Jerry, Spence, and I transferred to
SEAL Team One.
The time at SEAL One * was spent training hard, lining up to volunteer and compete for combat deployments, as well as making a general nuisance of ourselves at the local “watering holes” of San Diego. There SEALs and the Naval Aviators would compete for attention during off duty hours and in between deployments to the Western Pacific.

We trained hard and we played hard, and did the things young men do when they think they’ll live forever.

So it was a terrible shock to learn that Spence had been killed … and as it started to sink in… we wanted to know the specific details.

Officially the word from on high was he had died in a “training accident,” the location and purpose of which were highly classified and disclosed only on a need to know basis.
We needed to know more.

Gradually as the surviving members of his team returned to Coronado, we uncovered the bits & fragments that enabled us to piece together key parts of how the “training accident” occurred.

Spence and his teammates had been forced to abort a highly classified clandestine reconnaissance and attempted rendezvous under extremely hazardous combat conditions.
They had launched at midnight from a submerged submarine* on 3-4 June 1972. After several hours of fighting too strong a tidal current, they had been compelled to scuttle their only mode of clandestine transportation, a SEAL Delivery Vehicle (SDV)* whose battery power had ran out fighting the current.
They had launched at midnight from a submerged submarine* on 3-4 June 1972. After several hours of fighting too strong a tidal current, they had been compelled to scuttle their only mode of clandestine transportation, a SEAL Delivery Vehicle (SDV)* whose battery power had ran out fighting the current.

Part 3
 

Waiting all night in enemy waters for daylight, they then executed an emergency Helo extraction and returned to the command ship – the USS Long Beach, for debrief.

But Spence* knew he and his Team had to return to the submarine as soon as possible. They had information vital for a back-up team preparing to launch a second attempt, and Spence was determined to see that they got it.

That night the SEALs attempted a midnight link-up with the submarine somewhere off the coast of North Vietnam.*
They were riding a Helo that was trying to locate this submarine operating in the
Tonkin Gulf under strict radio silence… during limited visibility on a very dark night.

Their attempted rendezvous was further complicated by the highly classified nature of their mission, an operation so secret that the submarine* had to remain submerged and undetected even from the US Navy’s own Fleet sailing above on the water’s surface.
Its ships patrolled throughout the area and were completely unaware of any friendly submarines or swimmers operating in their midst. It was reported that a Navy destroyer had already fired on the submarine– the USS Grayback, earlier during snorkeling operations. Fortunately it had missed.

When the Helo pilot thought he had finally spotted the signal light from Grayback, Spence and his men prepared to conduct a night Helo cast * to link-up & lock-in to the sub. When told they were over their objective and it was time to “go”, Spence stepped out of the Helo and the rest of the SEALs rapidly followed…The Helo was too high and too fast for safe entry and the jumpers hit the water hard. Spence was killed and the others injured - two seriously.

There was no submarine – at least in the immediate vicinity for the Team to link up with. So the survivors treaded water until daylight when they were finally spotted and picked up. During the course of the night they found Spence’s body and held it for recovery.
We all knew that given similar circumstances every one of us would have jumped once told the sub had been located and it was time to “go.”

We learned several years later what the “really neat stuff” was that Spence had alluded to in his letter.

Many of the details were later described by Moki Martin* in his on scene account of Operation Thunderhead and published in Orr Kelly’s Book: Never Fight Fair.
Other participants in the operation also revealed additional details.



To sum them up:
Spence and his team had deployed in an attempt to rescue American POWs who were planning to escape from a North Vietnam prison. Spence had died during the course of that attempt. He* would be the last SEAL to die in Vietnam.

Part 4
 

The Navy and “another government agency” involved had decided that his death was “accidental.” It was not specifically caused by enemy fire, and according to the cover story, simply a training mishap.

Besides…, the highly classified nature of the operation at the time made disclosing the surrounding circumstances of his death particularly difficult …(if not politically awkward).

Not only would it potentially complicate any future rescue attempt, but could also create political problems for an Administration trying hard to convince a divided Nation that direct American involvement in Vietnam’s ground combat ops had all but ceased.
But the risk to Spence and to that of his fellow SEALs on that particularly dangerous operation was from more than just the threat of hostile fire. Several potentially treacherous operational hazards were also closely and inherently linked throughout the operation’s full mission profile.
And although certain aspects of his mission still remain classified, these risks most certainly included:
• the night underwater lock out and launch from Grayback,
• the long cold hours of submerged transit to the target area in a confined & unproven free flooding Mark VII SDV,
• the strong tidal current that made mission success all but impossible and forced the team to abort, and…
• the high risk of detection by aggressive enemy patrol boats probing throughout the several hours that the SEALs where forced to surface in the Tonkin Gulf and await emergency recovery by Helo.

To these mission components that “go with the territory” must be added the one that killed him. In a desperate attempt to brief the back-up SDV team about the strong tidal current prior to their launch from Grayback, Spence had leaped into the night from a Helo too high and fast in an attempt to link-up and lock-in to a submarine - that wasn’t there.

Throughout the entire POW rescue attempt his team needed to remain undetected - even by friendly forces.

But if the enemy did detect the SEALs and forced them to return fire, it would have been merely one more challenge to overcome...one of many in a long sequence of high risk mission profile events of one very difficult and ultimately tragic operation.

* * *
We didn’t know those details back then… All we knew was that a close friend and good teammate, an outstanding officer with tremendous potential, had been killed.

So on the night that we learned of his death four of us gathered once more at the
Chart House and asked for a table for five by the window.*

Part 5 (last)
 

It was a nice spot – one that Spence surely would have approved of – overlooking Glorietta Bay and the lights of the Coronado Bridge and San Diego’s beautiful skyline.*

We each retold stories about Spence and raised our glasses to the separate place that we had made the waiter set … with teriyaki shrimp.
* * *
 v So… as the saying goes, Freedom has a meaning

If you like this story, I encourage you to visit this website to re-read w/ pictures and maps:

[url]http://www.campbell.edu/faculty/Slattery/mh_freedom.htm[/url]
:cool:

Outstanding post.

Trident:

Absolutely outstanding!

Thanks!

Excellent post.

A very moving post! Thanks for sharing!

Post
 

Not my words, but something that really moved me when I took the time to read through it! We can't forget guys like Spence Dry.

Great Read..RIP Sailor

Lest we Forget!

Thanks t86. Awesome story.

RIP...God Bless

Here's to Spence Dry... "see you at the rally point"

Oustanding!

I'll tip one for Lt. Dry tonight...

I hate to bring up an old thread, but for some reason I just now decided to look up Captain Slattery on here.

I have the distinct honor to have him as my Professor for my Military History class here at UNC-Pembroke (he teaches it for all 4 universities in the Battalion).

This write up is an outstanding tribute and just reinforces that I'm looking forward to what I stand to learn from him this coming semester. Might have to invite him on over here.

HANO
 

I first heard this story from one of the training chiefs at SDV-1. He was 2nd out of the helo, got pretty jacked up.

fred, same here master chief E

Thank you.

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