Avast and beware, me hearties, Bainbridge be once again on the open seas.<\/p>\n
William Bainbridge was born in Princeton in 1774, and entered the merchant marine when he turned 15. \u00a0In 1798, he joined the Navy and was sent to the Caribbean. \u00a0His first mission was a failure, when his schooner RETALIATION was captured by two larger French frigates. \u00a0\u00a0But he was promoted to captain, and in 1800, he was sent to protect American shipping in the Mediterranean. \u00a0He commanded the US war ships GEORGE WASHINGTON and ESSEX. \u00a0In 1803, his third ship, the PHILADELPHIA, ran aground off Tripoli, and he and his crew were taken captive by pirates. \u00a0He would be held hostage until 1805.<\/p>\n
But his fortunes turned in the War of 1812. \u00a0Commanding America\u2019s greatest military vessel, CONSTITUTION, Bainbridge encountered and engaged HMS JAVA. \u00a0JAVA\u2019s fire shattered CONSTITUTION\u2019s helm, killed most of the helmsmen, and wounded Bainbridge. \u00a0But Bainbridge would not surrender. \u00a0He set up a block and tackle to control his rudder, brought CONSTITUTION about and destroyed JAVA. \u00a0Before JAVA went to the bottom, Bainbridge boarded her, salvaged the helm, and used it to sail \u201cOld Ironsides\u201d back to Boston. \u00a0(This helm remains aboard CONSTITUTION to this day.) Following this battle, the British admiralty ordered the British Navy to never again engage Americans in one-on-one actions.<\/p>\n
Bainbridge then had his revenge on pirates. \u00a0He oversaw the construction of INDEPENDENCE, the largest ship America had built to that time, and in 1815 sailed it into the Mediterranean. Throughout most of the next decade, Bainbridge cleared the region of pirate ships. \u00a0He went on to become Commandant of the Boston and Philadelphia Naval Yards, and Commissioner of the Navy. \u00a0Before his death in 1833, he had secured safe passage for American naval and commercial ships around the world.<\/p>\n
But this past week, the threat of pirates brought him back. His namesake, destroyer USS BAINBRIDGE, was sent to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia. \u00a0On April 5, BAINBRIDGE performed a daring raid and rescued Richard Phillips, captain of the MAERSK ALABAMA, who had recently been taken captive by pirates. \u00a0Three days later, while bringing Phillips to Kenya, the BAINBRIDGE assisted another US ship, MV LIBERTY SUN, to successfully repel another pirate attack. \u00a0BAINBRIDGE arrived safely in Mombasa yesterday, the ship\u2019s loudspeaker blaring, \u201cSweet Home Alabama.\u201d<\/p>\n
Somalia remains unsafe, and the threat of piracy continues. \u00a0But be warned, bilge rats, BAINBRIDGE will be there. \u00a0Argh!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Avast and beware, me hearties, Bainbridge be once again on the open seas. William Bainbridge was born in Princeton in 1774, and entered the merchant marine when he turned 15. \u00a0In 1798, he joined the Navy and was sent to the Caribbean. \u00a0His first mission was a failure, when his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[777,949,1029,1034,1141,1283,1284,1285,1312,1339],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4","tag-maersk-alabama","tag-pirate","tag-retaliation","tag-richard-phillips","tag-somalia","tag-uss-constitution","tag-uss-essex","tag-uss-independence","tag-war-of-1812","tag-william-bainbridge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}