Origins Underwater Demolition Unit (UDU) was officially established in 1954. Its parent organization was formed in September, 1948 when the
U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps set up a secret spy unit in Korea. In 1955 the unit was renamed UDU, short for Underwater Demolitions Unit. Its primary missions were infiltrating into
North Korea, kidnapping or assassinating key officials, destroying key structures, resupplying agents, demolishing transportation infrastructures, reconnaissance, wiretapping communications of the North Korean army and attacking military targets in the North.
Underwater Demolition Unit (UDU) The SWF (also known in popular culture as the ROKN UDT/SEALs) were involved in
reconnaissance missions in North Korea until 1980 when a number of operators were broken away to form the UDU intelligence unit. The UDU (Underwater Demolition Unit) evolved into
black ops clandestine unit under the cover name of a Navy unit. More than 300 UDU personnel were killed in over 200 missions into North Korea from 1948 until 1971, including missions with allies that included the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency. However, only a list of about 150 names has been obtained by UDU, because of a fire at the unit in 1961 which burned all the data.
Special Warfare Flotilla In 1968, the Explosives Disposal Unit (EOD) was established and in 1993 the SWF were tasked with standing up a maritime counter-terrorism unit, which up until that point was the responsibility of the
Army's 707th Special Mission Group. In the late 1990s, the main focus was on defense of the coast from frequent attempts by the North to infiltrate agents into the South using
midget submarines. As of January 1, 2009, the Special Forces were reorganized again, and the
Ship Salvage Unit (SSU) was subordinated to the 5th Battalion.
June 23, 1968 incident Fifteen South Korean secret agents, a team of three and two teams of six, were sent to the North on a mission to seize a North Korean naval vessel and to kidnap a key officer. But the mission failed because of miscommunication among the South Korean vessels and the commander's misjudgment. It was about 2a.m. when the three South Korean vessels approached the bay from the Yellow Sea and met wired obstacles on the water, which made navigating harder. Without warning, the North Korean Navy started an attack that apparently killed six agents. The other nine South Korean agents returned safely to the South. The submarine sank as it was being towed into port, it was unclear if this was as a result of damage or a deliberate scuttling by the crew.
Anti-piracy operations Since 2009, the SWF have formed the core of the
Cheonghae anti-piracy task group deployed to the coast of
Somalia. In the early morning of January 22, 2011, as part of
Operation Dawn of Gulf of Aden, 15 SWF operators boarded the 11,000-ton chemical freighter
Samho Jewelry which was taken by 13 pirates 6 days prior; 21 sailors had been held hostages. ROKS
Choi-Young, a 4600-ton destroyer, dispatched its SWF team at 4:58am along with a
Lynx helicopter which then circled the ship and fired machine guns to distract the pirates. The boarding party of 15 SWF killed 8 pirates and captured 5 without taking any casualties after 3 hours of intense firefighting. All 21 hostages were secured, with one hostage suffering a non-fatal gunshot wound to the abdomen.
Sinking of the MV Sewol SWF provided 114 men that took part in the recovery operation during the
sinking of the MV Sewol, during which 304, mostly high school students, perished. ==Cultural depictions==