AMERICAN NAVY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4544, 4 March 1942, Page 7

AMERICAN NAVY

HISTORY OF ITS BIRTH EXPLOITS OF PAUL JONES (By “Historian”) The American Navy was born out of the necessities of the Revolutionary War. The British Navy in 1777 totalled 87,000 officers and men. The maritime strength of the forces employed by the United States Government and the individual States was almost the same. In the Atlantic the Americans actually outnumbered the British. The popular impression that the Americans were a fragmentary force fighting infinitely superior numbers needs drastic revision. High in the annals of adventure and romance stands the name of John Paul Jones. The British called him a desperado and a pirate. The Americans claimed him as a hero. He was the first to hoist the flag of independent America to the masthead of a ship and to carry it into an English port. This speaks of dash and daring, and there was plenty in the make-up of Paul Jones. He was born in the vicinity of Solway Firth, the son of a market gardener, in the year 1747. He loved the sea passionately, and joined the merchant service as a boy. In this way he came to America, where he had an older brother, and grew to love his adopted country with great intensity. By the time Congress decided to fit out a naval force Jones was 28. Vigorous and enterprising, he was appointed first lieutenant of the Alfred. It was on this ship that he hoisted the American flag with his own hands. Congress commissioned Ezekiel Hopkins, of Rhode Island, as first High Admiral of the American Fleet in December, 1755. He sailed against Dunmore, on the Virginian Coast, and latei- took the town of New Providence and captured its governor, while Paul Jones harried British shipping on the American coast. DARING RAIDER In 1778, having become a captain Paul Jones commenced one of the most daring exploits of his career. As a reprisal for the raids by British ships on the American coast, he set sail for Europe. A year previously Franklin had offered commissions to naval officers in Europe to fight against Britain. There were many

responses, and expeditions were fitted out in French sea ports.

While this excitement was at its height Captain Paul Jones cruised along the coast of Great Britain from Land’s End to Solway Firth. It was near, here that he had been born, and, tradition averred, had worked in the house of the Earl of Selkirk. He made a sudden descent upon the Scotch coast near Kirkcudbright and plundered the earl’s house. The next night, with 31 volunteers, he rowed in two boats to the coast of Cumberland, landed at Whitehaven, spiked the guns of the fort, and set fire to three vessels. During the rest of the summer he kept the north-western coast of England and the southern coast of Scotland in perpetual alarm. His name ‘became a terror. The Government spent a considerable sum in fortifying the coast. Volunteers were raised for the defence of Northern Ireland. MEMORABLE ACTIONS Next year Paul Jones came again to Britain as commodore of a small squadron. He threatened Edinburgh and Leith, and then, returning, fell in with two British vessels convoying the Baltic merchant fleet. They were the Serapis, of 44 guns, commanded by Captain Pearson, and a smaller vessel. Jones commanded the Bon Homme Richard, of 40 guns. He had with him the Pallas (32 guns) and the Alliance (36 guns), and two smaller vessels. At about 7 o’clock in the evening of September 23, 1779, one of the most desperate encounters in naval history took place. The guns of the ships almost touched. When the fire of the American ship slackened somewhat Captain Pearson called out, “Have you struck?” Jones made his famous reply, “I have not begun to fight.” He attempted to board. The Serapis was fired ten or twelve times. At last, two-thirds of his men killed or wounded, his mainmast gone by the board, Pearson hauled down his colours. Jones’s ship was little better, and, to add to the confusion, the Alliance, coming up in the darkness, fired a broadside into her by mistake. Of his 375 men, 300 were killed or wounded. He abandoned ship next day and she sank immediately. With his shattered remnant he crawled into a Dutch port. Out of such heroic material and deadly encounters the American navy was born.