At
11 p.m. on this day in 1778, John Paul Jones lead a small detachment
of two boats from his ship, the USS Ranger, to raid Whitehaven, England,
where 400 British merchant ships were anchored. Jones was hoping to
reach the port at midnight, when ebb tide would leave the ships at their
most vulnerable.
Jones
and his 30 volunteers had greater difficulty than anticipated rowing to
the port, which was protected by two forts. They did not arrive until
dawn. Jones' boat successfully took the southern fort, disabling its
cannon, but the other boat returned without attempting an attack on the
northern fort, after the sailors claimed to have been frightened away by
a noise. To compensate, Jones set fire to the southern fort, which
subsequently engulfed the entire town.
Jones,
one of the most daring and successful naval commanders of the American
Revolution, was born in Scotland on July 6, 1747. He was apprenticed to a
merchant at the age of 13 and soon went to sea from Whitehaven, the
very port he returned to attack on this day in 1778. In Virginia at the
onset of the revolution, Jones sided with the Patriots and received a
commission in the Continental Navy.
After
the raid on Whitehaven, Jones continued to his home territory of
Kirkcudbright Bay, where he intended to abduct the earl of Selkirk, then
exchange him for American sailors held captive by Britain. Although he
did not find the earl at home, Jones' crew was able to steal all his
silver, including his wife's teapot, still containing her breakfast tea.
From Scotland, Jones sailed across the Irish Sea to Carboniferous,
where the Ranger captured the HMS Drake after delivering fatal wounds to
the British ship's captain and lieutenant.
In
September 1779, Jones fought one of the fiercest battles in naval
history when he led the Bonhomme Richard, named for Benjamin Franklin,
in an engagement with the 50-gun British warship HMS Serapis. The
Bonhomme Richard was struck; it began taking on water and caught fire.
When the British captain of the Serapis ordered Jones to surrender,
Jones famously replied, "I have not yet begun to fight!" A few hours
later, the captain and crew of the Serapis admitted defeat and Jones
took command of the British ship.
Jones
went on to establish himself as one of the great naval commanders in
history; he is remembered, along with John Barry, as a Father of the
American Navy. He is buried in a crypt in the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel
at Annapolis, Maryland, where a Marine honor guard stands at attention
in his honor whenever the crypt is open to the public.
Live Long and Prosper....
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