**Robert Black, John C. MacMahon, and Howard “Red” Roeder**.
Robert Black, John C. MacMahon, and Howard “Red” Roeder. The historical record is unusually detailed about their mission, but their final fate remains partly inferential.
The three men
The three were members of the UDT/OSS maritime-swimmer community that was developing in Hawaii in 1944.
- Chief Gunners Mate Howard L. “Red” Roeder — UDT training staff at Maui and the senior swimmer leading the mission.
- Quartermaster First Class Robert A. Black Jr. — associated with the OSS Maritime Unit/UDT 10.
- Specialist (Amphibious) First Class John C. MacMahon — also associated with the OSS Maritime Unit/UDT 10.
A 1987 Submarine Review account is especially significant: it states that five of the UDT 10 personnel selected for the Burrfish operation had previously received advanced swimming, diving, rubber-boat and reconnaissance training through the clandestine OSS Maritime Unit. (NSL Archive)
So these weren't ordinary sailors who happened to know how to swim. They belonged to an emerging specialized reconnaissance capability that combined OSS clandestine techniques with Navy UDT training.
The final mission
On the night of August 18, 1944, Burrfish surfaced near Gagil Tomil Island, Yap.
The five-man team was:
Roeder — Black — MacMahon — Carpenter — Ball
They wore extremely minimal equipment: swimming trunks, camouflage paint, knives, fins and surveying equipment. The objective was to determine whether the reef and beach could support an amphibious landing. (National Archives)
They paddled toward the island and discovered that the reef was dangerously shallow.
The team anchored the rubber boat roughly 500 yards offshore.
Roeder, Black, MacMahon and Carpenter went toward the beach while Ball remained with the boat.
Then the situation deteriorated.
Carpenter became exhausted in the rough surf. Black brought Carpenter back to the boat, then voluntarily returned toward the beach to continue the reconnaissance with Roeder and MacMahon. (National Archives)
That decision is an important detail in understanding what happened.
Black wasn't simply left behind. He deliberately went back.
They became separated from the submarine
The three men failed to appear at the rendezvous.
Ball and Carpenter searched for them but couldn't locate them.
The Burrfish also searched.
But dawn was approaching, and Japanese radar activity made remaining on the surface increasingly dangerous. The commanding officers decided they couldn't risk the submarine and the remaining men by staying indefinitely. (National Archives)
The plan was to return the following night.
But weather and sea conditions prevented that.
And by then, the Japanese knew American swimmers had been operating around the island.
They were actually captured
This is where the story becomes particularly interesting.
For years, the exact fate of the three was uncertain.
But Japanese records established that they survived the initial mission and became POWs.
Japanese forces captured them around August 20, 1944.
They were initially held and interrogated on Yap.
On August 23, they were transferred aboard Subchaser No. 27 (Kise Maru) and transported to Koror in the Palau Islands. From there they were transferred to Babeldaob for further interrogation by Japanese military police and intelligence personnel. (National Archives)
This is an important correction to some simplified accounts:
They were not simply presumed drowned when they disappeared from the Burrfish.
They survived the swim, were captured, interrogated, transported and held as prisoners.
What did the Japanese learn?
The Japanese interrogators determined that the Americans were there to measure the reefs and conduct reconnaissance.
The men apparently disclosed some information about their unit and equipment.
But there is no strong evidence that they gave the Japanese information about a forthcoming American invasion.
This distinction matters.
Their captors knew:
“These are American underwater demolition/reconnaissance personnel.”
They apparently did not obtain a detailed picture of American operational plans from them. (National Archives)
Then the historical mystery begins
After the men reached Palau, there are two competing accounts.
Japanese postwar account
Japanese Lt. Gen. Inoue Sadaei claimed that American POWs had been transported from Palau toward the Philippines in September 1944.
According to that story, Black, MacMahon and Roeder were among prisoners transferred away from Palau.
But there is a major problem:
They never appeared among liberated American prisoners at the end of the war.
Neither did a number of other American POWs supposedly sent away from Palau. (National Archives)
The alternative evidence
Postwar investigations uncovered evidence suggesting that prisoners remaining in Palau were killed as American forces advanced toward the islands.
The National Archives concludes that the evidence strongly points toward the three UDT men being among those executed in the Palau area, probably around September 4, 1944. (National Archives)
The most disturbing evidence
The investigation encountered testimony and Japanese records indicating that other American prisoners in Palau were executed.
One particularly important piece of evidence involved the Japanese response to the anticipated American advance.
There was discussion among Japanese personnel about disposing of prisoners rather than allowing them to be liberated.
The National Archives article ultimately concludes:
the evidence makes it appear that Black, MacMahon and Roeder were probably executed on Babeldaob.
But their individual executions were never witnessed by an American survivor, and their bodies were never definitively identified. (National Archives)
That's why they remain MIA rather than having recovered remains.
Their remains have still not been found
This is where the story reaches into the present.
The National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum and organizations including Project Recover have supported efforts to locate the three men. A 2019 Navy SEAL Museum announcement specifically described a planned Project Recover mission to Palau to search for Roeder, MacMahon and Black. (National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum)
The search is difficult because:
- Japanese wartime records are incomplete.
- Witness testimony conflicts.
- The location of the executions isn't certain.
- The Japanese claimed some prisoners were transferred elsewhere.
- A known mass grave containing other American airmen did not contain the three UDT men. (Arlington National Cemetery)
Consequently, investigators have had to combine Japanese military records, interrogation reports, eyewitness accounts, U.S. intelligence records and archaeological searches.
Why these three men are historically important
Their story represents a very early version of what would eventually become modern Naval Special Warfare.
They were operating with:
submarine insertion
↓
rubber-boat approach
↓
covert swimming
↓
underwater reconnaissance
↓
beach intelligence
↓
specialized small-team operations
And the personnel themselves represented the convergence of:
OSS Maritime Unit
Navy UDT
submarine operations
That combination would become enormously important in the postwar evolution of American special operations.
The Navy SEALs weren't formally created until 1962, but men like Roeder, Black and MacMahon were already experimenting with many of the fundamental concepts decades earlier.
One especially remarkable detail
The National Archives' account makes clear that the Burrfish mission was the only WWII UDT submarine-launched reconnaissance operation in which UDT personnel were lost and never recovered. (NSL Archive)
That makes the three men unusual even within the already extraordinary history of the WWII frogmen.
And their story also illustrates one of the fundamental principles that later became almost sacred within Naval Special Warfare:
Never leave a man behind.
In this case, the circumstances of 1944 made that principle impossible to fulfill. The submarine had to submerge before dawn to avoid Japanese detection, and the subsequent weather prevented the planned recovery attempt.
Yet more than 80 years later, people are still looking for them.