Coog
10-30-2012, 23:11
On 31 October 1803 USS Philadelphia, under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, ran aground on an uncharted reef off Tripoli Harbor. All efforts to refloat her under five hours of cannon fire from Tripolitan gunboats and shore batteries failed, and Bainbridge decided to surrender. Before doing so he ordered all small arms thrown overboard, the powder magazine flooded and the naval signal book destroyed. Soon afterward, the ship floated free after high tide and was captured by the Bashaw of Tripoli. Bainbridge and his crewmen were imprisoned in Tripoli for nineteen months.
The Philadelphia was too great a prize to be allowed to remain in the hands of the Tripolitans, so a decision was made to recapture or destroy her. Under the guise of a ship in distress in need of a place to tie up after having lost all anchors in a storm, on February 16, 1804 a volunteer assaulting party of officers and men under Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, Jr. boarded her from the ketch Intrepid and burned her where she lay in Tripoli Harbor. Horatio Nelson, known as a man of action and bravery, is said to have called this "the most bold and daring act of the age."
The Philadelphia was too great a prize to be allowed to remain in the hands of the Tripolitans, so a decision was made to recapture or destroy her. Under the guise of a ship in distress in need of a place to tie up after having lost all anchors in a storm, on February 16, 1804 a volunteer assaulting party of officers and men under Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, Jr. boarded her from the ketch Intrepid and burned her where she lay in Tripoli Harbor. Horatio Nelson, known as a man of action and bravery, is said to have called this "the most bold and daring act of the age."