Teaching the Americans a Thing or Two

In Great Britain we tend not to celebrate the anniversary of the United States’ Declaration of Independence, but over this weekend of the 250th anniversary celebrations, I will celebrate a largely-forgotten American WW2 hero, one Lieutenant Draper L Kauffman RNVR. Kauffman joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in September 1940 and volunteered for training for hazardous service as a Rendering Mines Safe (RMS) officer. So, what has this to do with the US? He was later the man to found the United States Navy SEALS.

An American citizen, Kauffman graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1933, but was not offered a commission on the grounds of his poor eyesight and need to wear glasses. Instead, he joined the US Merchant Marine and found himself in Europe in the late 1930s. His experiences in Europe enabled him to see at close quarters the dangers of Nazism and in February 1940, he drove an ambulance in France with the American Volunteer Ambulance Corps. Four months later, he was captured by the Germans and held prisoner for two months prior to his release as a neutral. The US wasn’t at war with Germany at that time, so his next step was to join the RNVR.

He spent the height of the London Blitz working for a Land Incidents Section, defuzing bombs and magnetic mines, an activity requiring almost suicidal courage and certainly, nerves of steel. I provide a fictionalised account typical of his training and experiences in my novel, They Have No Graves as Yet. In it one of my hero’s two best friends is an American officer I have called, Johnny ‘Red’ Johnson. Johnson’s character was inspired by my research on Draper Kauffman.

Kauffman learned much from his Royal Navy RMS colleagues and his proficiency was recognised by the USN when they offered him a commission in their reserves – and just in time. Just a month after he returned to the US, he was defuzing a bomb following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, for which he was awarded the Navy Star. He was then asked to found the USN’s Bomb Disposal School. Nearly 18 months later, he organised the first USN Combat Demolition Units, the forerunner of the SEALs and was promoted to Lieutenant Commander (just three years earlier he had been a lowly Sub Lieutenant (Ensign) in the Royal Navy). Kauffman served the rest of the war in the Pacific commanding or directing the Combat Demolition Units and earned another Navy Star for gallant service.

Following the war, Kauffman had demonstrated his worth to the USN and was not only retained on a regular commission, but promoted and awarded command of a series of ships, divisions and flotillas, and he reached the rank of rear admiral. One of his appointments as an admiral was as the Superintendent of the US Naval Academy. Clearly, his poor eyesight never held him back from reaching the highest echelons of the US Navy!