UDT-25 Swim Fins

The swim fin was brand new technology when the world erupted into war in 1939. Invented in the early 1930s by French naval officer Louis de Corlieu, they were later patented in the United States by Owen Churchill in 1940, an Olympic-medal-winning yachtsman who further refined the design and introduced the vulcanized rubber construction. Churchill fins were a commercial alternative to the design developed by the OSS and saw use by UDTs during and after the war. This particular pair also came from the estate of ENS B. Dabbs of UDT-25 and features a post-war box distributed by the SEA-NET Manufacturing Company of California, which produced swimming equipment during the war.