The Jewish Home | OCTOBER 29, 2015 TheJewish JewishHome Home||OCTOBER FEBRUARY29, 7, 2019 The 2015
of Tripoli. When this olive branch of peace was rebuffed, other American ships sailed to the region along with Swedish ships. Over the next four years, several battles ensued, and a peace treaty finally ended the hostilities in June 1805. Many early American naval commanders made a name for themselves in this war including Dale, Bainbridge and Stephan Decatur Jr. Ten years later, the Second Barbary War took place with Decatur capturing the Algerian flagship. Another treaty followed, and from then on, the Americans no longer paid tributes to the pirates. Piracy slowly ended in the Mediterranean Sea which had been plagued by pirates for two hundred years. The American Navy was now a force to be reckoned with, and although French ships continued to be the subject of piracy for the next twenty years, American ships were left alone. While American ships were now safe off the Barbary Coast, merchant ships were still being attacked by pirates in the early decades of the 19th century. From 1817-1825 the U.S. Navy fought a series of anti-piracy operations in the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico. Jewish French pirate Jean Lafitte was operating in the Gulf of Mexico when the USS Enterprise was dispatched to chase him out of the gulf. They were successful, and in May 1821, Lafitte left. However, he continued pirating merchant ships and was captured off the coast of Cuba. Lafitte was eventually released but was killed in a subsequent battle with Spanish ships. In November 1822, the USS Alligator fought a large band of pirates off the coast of Cuba. The American sailors recovered three ships that had been seized but the pirates escaped. Thousands of miles away, in the Aegean Sea, Greek pirates were plundering American merchant ships. In 1825, President James Monroe sent several ships under Commodore John Rodgers to lead convoys of ships safely through the troubled waters. They had no engagements until October 1827, when the USS Warren captured a sixteen-gun brig and captured over
Operation Ocean Shield was implemented to combat maritime piracy
a dozen pirates. A couple of weeks later the USS Porpoise saw a British ship attacked by 250 pirates in five ships. The Americans gave chase, and a boarding party headed for the captured ship, the Comet. In the ensuing battle over 80 pirates were killed including eleven singlehandedly by a steward. The pirate leader was killed, and the British ship was saved without a single American casualty. In early 1828, the pirates’ home base was attacked by French and British ships, but by the end of the year piracy was no longer a threat in the Aegean Sea. Chinese pirates off of Hong Kong had been harassing Western ships for many years. In 1855, the U.S. and the British navies sent warships to rescue several merchant vessels taken by pirates. The Battle of Ty-ho Bay ended in a success as seven merchant ships were liberated during the battle. For the next 150 years, pirates, privateers and buccaneers posed little threat to American merchant ships. Piracy off the coast of North Africa has been well-documented. Starting around the year 2000, international merchant ships have been attacked in and around the Gulf of Aden. Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa’s Operation Ocean Shield – was NATO’s response to piracy in the Indian Ocean, Guardafui Channel, Gulf of Aden, and Arabian Sea. The U.S.
Navy was a major participant and in April 2009 initiated the rescue effort on the hijacked Maersk Alabama. This was the first time in close to two centuries that an American flagged merchant vessel had been pirated. Navy SEALs op-
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erating from the USS Bainbridge (named after the same officer who countered pirates some 200 years earlier) successfully killed three Somali pirates and rescued the captain of the Maersk Alabama. In at least four other incidents, Somali pirates tried to attack U.S. Navy ships and, needless to say, were beaten quite badly in each case. Piracy still exists today but attacks have decreased since the early 1800s. Modern ships, technology, and updated operation tactics have made it extremely difficult for pirates to operate and receive ransom money. The U.S. military has been closely monitoring pirates since the navy’s inception, and in many respects its anti-piracy operation helped the U.S. Navy gain world recognition. Avi Heiligman is a weekly contributor to The Jewish Home. He welcomes your comments and suggestions for future columns and can be reached at aviheiligman@gmail.com.
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