First Crabs, now 85 years in the rearview
Some 85 years ago this week, on 22 August 1941, at the Navy Gun Factory (now the Washington Navy Yard), Mine Recovery School Class No. 1 graduated, minting 10 officers (three of them Coasties), five chiefs, and eight ratings in the art of Navy EOD.
Note the distinctive broad eagle cloth cap insignias on the three USCG officers in the front row, standing out from the smaller eagle devices on the USN officers
These men, who all certainly went on to risk life and limb around moody, explosive-filled devices so that others may keep theirs, were the Navy’s first “Crabs.”
Over 340 American EOD techs have lost their lives since 1942.
The first U.S. casualty in mine disposal was Navy Ensign John M. Howard (who graduated in Class No. 2) when the washed-up German TMA-1 magnetic influence mine he was attempting to defuse on 11 June 1942 exploded on Corton sands at Garton, near Lowestoft in England.
Today, the Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal community numbers roughly 2,290 active and about 140 reserve personnel, but has been very well seasoned, especially during the Sandbox years, in counter-IED and UXO disposal, while keeping their gratefully lesser-used skills of underwater de-mining and WMD disposal at more of an academic level.
Plus, the Crabs of today benefit from investments in unmanned underwater vehicles, advanced sensors, and a “fusion of machine learning and artificial intelligence to extend the reach and lethality of operators.”
Their unofficial motto is a very understandable, “Initial success or total failure.”