![]() Soon, the training was expanded to include submerged aircraft escape. Since the ability to swim was an essential survival skill for Navy pilots, training programs were developed to ensure pilot trainees could swim (requiring cadets to swim one mile and dive 50 feet underwater to be able to escape bullets and suction from sinking aircraft). Navy discovered that 75% of its pilots who had been shot or forced down came down alive, yet barely 5% of them survived because they could not swim or find sustenance in the water or on remote islands. In 1945, a consolidated survival training center was initiated at Fort Carson, Colorado, under the 3904th Training Squadron, and, in 1947, the Arctic Indoctrination Survival School (colloquially known as "the Cool School") opened at Marks Air Force Base in Nome, Alaska.ĭuring WWII, the U.S. Thus, he supported the establishment of formal SERE training at several bases/locations (from July 1942 to May 1944) hosting the 336th Bombardment Group (now the 336th Training Group), including a small program for Cold Weather Survival at RCAF Station Namao in Edmonton, Alberta where American, British, and Canadian B29 aircrews received basic survival training. USAAF General Curtis LeMay realized that it was cheaper and more effective to train aircrews in Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape techniques than to have them lost in the arctic (or ocean) or languishing (or lost) in enemy hands. This strictly nonmilitary club had a flying boot which was worn under the left collar of a uniform as its identifying symbol. ![]() One such club was the "Late Arrivals' Club". ![]() There were also several unofficial private "clubs" created during World War II by British and American pilots who had escaped from German forces during the war and returned to friendly lines. As a result, the United States initiated their own Evasion and Escape organization, known as MIS-X, based at Fort Hunt, Virginia. Once the United States entered the war in 1941, MI9 staff traveled to Washington, D.C., to discuss their now mature E&E training, devices, and proven results with the United States Army Air Forces ("USAAF"). MI9 went on to devise a multitude of evasion and escape tools These tools included overt items to aid immediate evasion after bailing out and covert items for use to aid escape following capture which were hidden within uniforms and personal items (concealed compasses, silk and tissue maps, etc.). A training school was established in London, and officers and instructors from MI9 also began visiting operational air bases, providing local training to air crews unable to be detached from their duties to attend formal courses. Led by World War I veteran Colonel (later Brigadier) Norman Crockatt, MI9 were formed to train air crew and Special Forces in evading enemy troops following bail-out, forced landings, or being cut off behind enemy lines. The origins of SERE are rooted in the leadership of Britain's MI9 Evasion and Escape ("E&E") organization, formed at the onset of World War II (1939–1945). Today, SERE is taught to a variety of personnel based upon risk of capture and exploitation value with a high emphasis on aircrew, special operations, and foreign diplomatic and intelligence personnel. Army became more involved with SERE as special forces and "spec ops" grew. military expanded SERE programs and training sites. Air Force at the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War, it was extended to the Navy and United States Marine Corps and consolidated within the Air Force during the Korean War with greater focus on "resistance training".ĭuring the Vietnam War (1959–1975), there was clear need for "jungle" survival training and greater public focus on American POWs. ![]() The curriculum includes survival skills, evading capture, application of the military code of conduct, and techniques for escape from captivity. Department of Defense civilians, and private military contractors to survive and "return with honor" in survival scenarios. Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape ( SERE) is a training program, best known by its military acronym, that prepares U.S. ![]() Survival handbook of the USAAF from 1944. ![]()
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