America's First Frogman: The Draper Kauffman Story (Hardcover)

~ Elizabeth Kauffman Bush (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Although bad eyesight kept him from receiving a commission in the U.S. Navy when he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1933, Draper Kauffman became a hero of underwater demolition in World War II and went on to a distinguished naval career. Today Admiral Kauffman is remembered as the nation’s first frogman and the father of the Navy SEALs. His spectacular wartime service disarming enemy bombs, establishing bomb disposal schools, and organizing and leading the Navy’s first demolition units is the focus of this biography written by Kauffman’s sister. Elizabeth Kauffman Bush, who also is the aunt of President George W. Bush, draws on family papers as well as Navy documents to tell Kauffman’s story for the first time.

Determined to defend the cause of freedom long before the U.S. ever entered the war, Kauffman was taken prisoner by the Germans as an ambulance driver in France, and after his release joined the Royal Navy to defuse delayed-action bombs during the London blitz. After Pearl Harbor his eyes were deemed adequate and he was given a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve. With his experience, he was asked to establish an underwater demolition school in Fort Pierce, Florida, where he personally trained men to defuse bombs and neutralize other submerged dangers. His men were sent to demolish the obstacles installed by the Nazis at Normandy, and Kauffman himself led underwater demolition teams at Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. His men remember him as an exceptional leader who led by example. He trained and fought alongside them, impervious to danger. Because of the high standards he set for those who became "frogmen," thousands of American lives were saved in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Draper Kauffman’s early established UDT traditions of perseverance, teamwork, and a lasting brotherhood of men of extraordinary courage is carried on by Navy SEALS. This is his legacy to the U.S. Navy and his country. Kauffman's life is recorded with a historian's attention to detail and a novelist's flair for storytelling.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 221 pages
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press; illustrated edition edition (October 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591140986
• ISBN-13: 978-1591140986
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #640,381 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The biography of the father of the American Navy SEALs, January 11, 2005

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Written by Draper Kauffman's sister Elizabeth Kauffman Bush, and featuring a foreword by President George H. W. Bush, America's First Frogman: The Draper Kauffman Story is the biography of the father of the American Navy SEALs. From surviving his time as a prisoner of the Germans, to his acclaimed wartime service disarming enemy bombs and establishing bomb disposal schools, to the underwater demolition teams he led at Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, America's First Frogman is an amazing true story of skill, courage, dedication, high standards, and excellence under extreme pressure. A handful of black-and-white photographs illustrate this fascinating story of a great man's life and resolute determination.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hero of our time, December 13, 2004

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Draper Kauffman is one of the heros of the modern navy. 'Thrown out' of the US Navy shortly after graduating from the Naval Academy for bad eyesight, he first joined the French fighting the Nazi invasion, and then the British Royal Navy as a bomb disposal officer.

After Pearl Harbour the Navy decides that maybe his eyes weren't so bad after all. (It helps of course if your father is an admiral and Chester Nimitz drops by for a drink one evening.) Then too there was the unexploded Japanese 500 pound bomb just outside the door of the ammo depot at Fort Scofield.

From unexploded bombs Kauffman moved to Underwater Demolition where he set up the first UDT school. This was, of course, the forerunner of today's Navy SEALs.

Note the name of the author, she is Draper Kauffman's sister, and President George H.W. Bush's sister-in-law. Ex-president Bush wrote the introduction for the book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Modern Hero for all, August 13, 2005

By	Stamford Counseling, Terryann Reed "Terryann ... (Sarasota, Florida) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

BOOK REVIEW OF: America's First Frogman, a biography of Admiral Draper Laurence Kauffman by his sister Elizabeth Kauffman Bush. Released by Naval Institute Press 2004

America's First Frogman is an exciting war story of one of America's great heroes, Rear Admiral Draper Laurence Kauffman, the flamboyant young "father" of America's famous Underwater Demolition Units, now called the Navy Seals or frogmen.

As told by his sister, the aunt of Jeb and George Bush and God Daughter of the former Duchess of Windsor, the biography spans the "heroic age...of individual prowess and fantastic risks" through several World War II battlefields and back home in the US. It is the colorful Homeric odyssey of a young Annapolis graduate who persists, despite bad eyesight, to prove his courage and ability to serve his country and follow his father, Vice Admiral James Laurence Kauffman, into the US Navy.

Vividly the author reports how her brother, after initially failing the Navy's eye test, continues to successfully "test his nerve... from one nasty job to another" (from ambulance driving in northern France and bomb disposing in London's blitz) to return to the US and slowly prove his genius at pioneering and implementing new ideas and strategies. Quoting from his own letters, as well as those of other contemporaries, the author reports how Kauffman gains the respect from all for his contagious courage and leadership, especially in attracting and training volunteer "frogmen" to join him in their exceedingly demanding work preparing battlefields, often by swimming miles at night under enemy fire, supporting enormous backpacks full of ammunition.

Although the book focuses on Kaufman's founding of the first US Naval Bomb Disposal and Combat Demolition schools, it also follows him through his very significant post war period acting as captain of several ships and chief of many pivotal naval offices including the Defense and Protection Section of the Atomic Warfare Division and Aide to Secretary of the Navy Thomas S. Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington DC. Ironically, in 1965 he also became Superintendent of the place where he first began his naval career, Annapolis.

The well researched and colorfully depicted battle scenes are taken from his own letters to his father whom he sensitively cautions to hide from his worried mother and sister back home. This stateside backdrop of glamour and courage in the lives of both the Kauffman and Bush families adds to the dramatic scope of the book. Photographs portray both Admiral Kauffmans, as well as many other famous military, political and family personalities. The forward is written by the author's brother in law, former President George H.W.Bush.

The reader will grow to admire the mischievous and bold, but sensitive, hero even as his sister does. Watch for this newly released biography to become a very exciting movie all of us can enjoy. Young and old can learn self disciplined focus, wisdom, wit and service from reading America's First Frogman.

TerryAnn Reed, former history teacher, Sarasota, Florida, January 30, 2005