evidence: Of the 30 Americans killed, 22 were Navy personnel, and 17 were SEALs. These included two bomb specialists and 15 operators in the Gold Squadron of DEVGRU, or Team Six, the highly classified unit that conducted the raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan the previous May. None of the operators killed in the Afghan helicopter crash had been involved in that mission, officials said. In addition to the SEALs, the others killed in the Chinook crash included five other Naval Special Warfare (NSW) personnel, three Air Force forward air controllers and five Army helicopter crewmembers. The attack on August 6 was the most devastating day in SEAL Team Six history, as well as the single largest loss of life for U.S. forces since the war in Afghanistan began in October 2001. More than twice as many NSW personnel died in the Wardak crash than were killed on June 28, 2005, during Operation Redwings. That day, eight SEALs and eight members of the Army’s 160th Special Forces Operations Regiment (SOAR) were killed when insurgents shot down their Chinook helicopter in Kunar province, near Asadabad. Three SEALs involved in a firefight on the ground were also killed, in what would stand as the deadliest day in NSW history since the Normandy landings on D-Day, June 6, 1944.