Note:
The following came from a retired, but still well connected Navy Captain. His name is redacted at his request. I am certain that everyone will find this extremely informative. This story needs to be heard! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The “real” story you have heard is not exactly the way I heard it, and probably has a few political twists thrown in to stir the pot. Rather than me trying to correct it, I’ll just tell you what I found out from my contacts at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Norfolk and at Special Operations Command (SOCOM) Tampa.
First though, let me familiarize you with the “terrain.”
In Africa from Djibouti at the southern end of the Red Sea eastward through the Gulf of Aden around to Cape Guardafui at the easternmost tip of Africa (also known as “The Horn of Africa”) is about a 600 nm transit before you stand out into the Indian Ocean. That transit is comparable in distance to that from the mouth of the Mississippi at New Orleans to the tip of Florida at Key West, except t he 600 nm over there is infested with Somalia pirates.
Ships turning southward at the Horn of Africa transit the SLOC (Sea Lane of Commerce) along the east coast of Somalia because of the prevailing southerly currents there. It’s about 1,500 nm on to Mombassa, which is just south of the equator in Kenya. Comparably, that’s about the transit distance from Portland, Maine down the east coast of the US to Miami, Florida. In other words, the ocean area being patrolled by our naval forces off the coast of Somalia is comparable to that in the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River east to Miami, then up the eastern seaboard to Maine.
Second, let me globally orient you. From our Naval Operating Base in Norfolk, VA, east across the Atlantic to North Africa, thence across the Med to Suez in Egypt, thence southward down the Red Sea to Djibouti at the Gulf of Aden, thence eastward and around Cape Guardafui at the easternmost tip of Africa, and thence southerly some 300 miles down the east cost of Somali out into the high seas of the Indian Ocean to the position of MV ALABAMA is a little more than 7,000 nm, and nine time-zones ahead of EST.
Hold that thought. A C-17 transport averaging a little better than 400 kts takes the best part of 18 hours to make that trip. In the evening darkness late Thursday night, a team of Navy SEALs from NSWC Norfolk parachuted from such a C-17 into the black waters (no refraction of light) of the Indian Ocean close-aboard to our 40,000 ton amphibious assault ship, USS BOXER
(LHD 4), the flagship of our ESG (Expeditionary Strike Group) in the AOR (Area Of Responsibility, the Gulf of Aden). They not only parachuted in with all of their equipment, they had their own inflatable boats, RHIB’s (Rigid Hull, Inflatable Boats) with them for over-water transport. They went into BOXER’s landing dock, debarked, and were staged for the rescue Thursday night.
And, let me comment on time. The SEAL’s quick response, departing ready-alert in less than 4 hours from Norfolk, supposedly surprised POTUS’s (President of the United States) staff and President Obama who was miffed not to get his “cops” there before the Navy. He reportedly questioned his staff, “Will ‘my’ FBI people get there before the Navy does?”
It took the FBI almost 12 hours to put together a team and get them packed-up for an “at sea” rescue. The FBI was trying to tell him that they are not practiced to do this, the Navy SEALs are. But, the president wanted the FBI there “to help,” that is to carry out the Attorney General’s (Obama’s) orders to negotiate the release of Captain Phillips peacefully . . . because he apparently doesn’t trust George W’s military to carry out his “political guidance.”
The FBI’s passenger jet took a little less than 14 hours at 500+ knots to get to Djibouti. BOXER’S helos picked them up and transported them out to the ship. The Navy SEALs were already there, staged, and ready to act before POTUS’s FBI even arrived on board later that evening. Notably, the first request by the OSC (On Scene Commander) that early Friday morning to take the pirates out and save Captain Phillips was denied, to wit: “No, wait until ‘my FBI people get there.”
Third, please consider a candid assessment of ability. First, the FBI snipers had never practiced shooting from a rolling, pitching, yawing, surging, swaying, heaving platform at a target such as a ship or a lifeboat on the high seas that is also pitching, yawing, surging, swaying, and heaving. However, navies have been doing this since Admiral Nelson trained “Marines” to shoot muskets from the ship’s rigging. Ironically, he was killed at sea in HMS VICTORY at the Battle of Trafalgar by a French Marine rifleman who shot him from the rigging of the French ship that they were grappling alongside.
Notably, when I was first training at USNA (US Naval Academy) in 1955, the Navy was doing it with a SATU (Small Arms Training Unit) based at our Little Creek amphibious base. These days Navy SEALs, in particular SEAL Team SIX, the “DevGru” based at NSWC at Little Creek, do that training daily to hone their skills. Shooting small arms from a ship is more of an accomplished “Art Form” than it is a practiced skill. When you are “in the bubble” and “in tune” with the harmonic motion , you find that through practice you are able to put three .308 slugs inside the head of a quarter at 100 meters, in day or at night, or from behind a camouflaged net or a thin enclosure, such as a ship’s superstructure bulkhead. Yes, we have the monocular scopes that can “see” heat and draw a bead on it. SEALs are absolutely expert at it . . . with movie clips to prove it.
Okay, now try to imagine patrolling among the boats fishing everyday out on the Grand Banks off our New England coast and being called upon to respond to a distress call from down around the waters between Florida and the Bahamas. Three points for you to consider here: (1) Time-Distance-Speed relationships for ships on the high seas, for instance, at a 25-knot SOA
(Speed Of Advance), it takes 24 hours to make good 600 nm which is what the BAINBRIDGE did. (2) Fishermen work on the high seas, and (3) the best place to hide as a “fisherman” (pirate) is among other fishermen
Back to early Wednesday morning, 4/8/2009, the MV ALABAMA (Motor Vessel Container Ship) is at sea in the Indian Ocean about 300 miles off the (east) coast of Somalia en route to Mombassa, Kenya. Pirates in small boat start harassing her and threatening her with weapons. MV ALABAMA’s captain sent out a distress call by radio and ordered his Engineer to shut down the engines as well as the ship’s electrical generators, in our lingo, “Go dark and cold.” He informed his crew by radio what was happening and ordered them to go to an out-of-the-way compartment and lock themselves in it, from the inside. He would stay in the pilot house to “negotiate” with the pirates.
The pirates boarded, captured the Captain, and ordered him to start the engines. He said he would order his Engineer to do so, and he called down to Engine Control on the internal communication system but got no answer, of course. The lead pirate ordered two of his four men to go down and find the engineer and get the engines started.
Inside a ship without any lights is like the definition of dark. The advantage goes to the people who work and live there. They jumped the two pirates in a dark passageway. Both pirates lost their weapons, but one managed to scramble away. They tied up the other one, put tape over his mouth and a knife at his throat.
Other members of the crew opened the drain cocks on the pirate’s boat and cast it adrift. It foundered and sunk. The scrambling pirate made it back to the pilot house and told of his plight. The pirates took the Captain at gun point and told him to launch one of his motorized rescue boats (not a life boat which has no propulsion other than oars). As he was lowering the boat for them, the crew appeared with the captured pirate to negotiate a trade. The crew let their hostage go too soon, and the pirates kept the Captain. But, he purposefully had lowered the boat so it would jam.
With the rescue boat jammed, the pirates jumped over to a lifeboat and released it as the captain jumped into the water. They fired at him to make him stop and grabbed him out of the water. Now, as night falls in the vastness of the Indian Ocean, we have a classic “Mexican” standoff, to wit: A life-boat without any means of propulsion except oars; and, a huge Motor Vessel Container Ship adrift with a crew that is not going to leave their captain behind. The pirates are enclosed under the lifeboat’s shelter-covering holding the captain as their hostage. The crew is hunkered down in their huge ship waiting for the “posse” to arrive.
After receiving MV ALABAMA’S distress call, the USS BAINBRIDGE (DDG 96) was dispatched by the Expeditionary Strike Force Group commander to respond to ALABAMA’s distress call. At best sustainable speed, she arrived on scene in the darkness of that early Thursday morning. The arrival of the BAINBRIDGE, a darkened-ship without any lights to give her away as she quietly and slowly arrived on scene, is described in a recorded interview with the Chief Engineer of MV ALABAMA. He said it was something else “. . . to see the Navy slide in there like a greyhound!” He said as she slipped in closer, he could see the “Stars and Stripes” flying from her masthead. He got choked up saying it was the “. . . proudest moment of my life.”
Phew! Let that sink in.
Earlier in the day, one of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Patrol Aircraft, a fixed wing P3C, flew over to recon the scene. They dropped a buoy with a radio to the pirates so that the Navy’s interpreter could talk with the pirates. When BAINBRIDGE arrived, the pirates thought the radio was a homing beacon device and threw it overboard. They wanted a satellite telephone, not a radio, so that they could call home for help. Remember now, they are fishermen, not “Rocket Scientists,” so they don’t know that we can intercept satellite phone transmissions also.
The MV ALABAMA provided them with a satellite phone and they immediately called back to “somebody” in Eyl, Somalia (now we know where you live) to come out and get them. The “somebody” in Eyl said they would be out right away “with 54 hostages from other countries”, and that they would be coming out in two of their pirated ships. Right, and the tooth fairy will let you have sex with her. The “somebody” in Eyl considered these pirates as just four more expendables, part of the overhead and cost of operation.”
Anyway, the ESG will watch Eyl for any ships coming out.
The Navy SEAL team, SEAL TEAM SIX, from NSWC briefed the On Scene Commander (40 year-old Naval Academy graduate, Commander Frank Castellano, the Commanding Officer of the BAINBRIDGE) on how they could rescue the Captain from the life boat with “Combat Swimmers”. That plan was denied by the president because it put the Captain in danger and it meant killing the pirates.
After the FBI negotiators arrived on scene, they talked the pirates into sending their wounded man over for treatment Saturday morning. Later that afternoon, the SEALs sent over their RHIB with food and water, to recon the life boat, but the pirates shot at it. The SEALs could have taken them out then (for being fired upon), but the president denied the request again because the captain was not in “imminent danger.” The FBI negotiators calmed the situation by informing the pirates of threatening weather as they could see storm clouds coming in from the horizon and offered to tow the life boat to shore. The pirates agreed as darkness approached and the BAINBRIDGE took them under tow in their wake at 30 meters . . . exactly 30 meters which is the precise distance the SEALs practice their shooting skills.
With the lifeboat under tow, riding comfortably bow-down in BAINBRIDGE’s wake-wave (“rooster tail”), it had a 17-second period of harmonic motion. At the end of every half-period (8.5 seconds), it was “steady on” as it changed direction. The light-enhanced (infra-red heat) monocular scopes on the SEALs’ .308 caliber Mark 11 Mod 0 H&K suppressor fitted sniper rifles easily imaged their target very clearly. Pirates in a life boat at 30-meters could be compared to fish in a barrel. All that would be necessary was to take out the plexiglass window so that it would not deflect the trajectory of the high velocity .308 rounds. So, one sniper with a wad-cutter round (a flaxen sabot) would take out the window a split second before the other three fired their kill shots with no change in the sight-picture, just the window being blown out, clean.
Now, the president’s “whiz kids” knew as well as the Navy hierarchy, including the CO of the BAINBRIDGE and the CO of SEAL TEAM SIX, that it is the law under Article 19 of Appendix L in the “Convention of the High Seas” that the Commanding Officer of a US Ship on the high seas is obligated to respond to distress signals from any flagged ship (US or otherwise) and to protect the life and property thereof when it is deemed to be in IMMINENT DANGER. So, in the final analysis, it would be Cmdr Castellano’s call as to “Imminent Danger,” and that he alone was obligated (duty bound) to act accordingly.
Got the picture?
At first light (from the east) on Easter Sunday morning, the pirates saw they were being towed further out to sea (instead of westward toward land), and the wounded pirate demanded to be returned to the lifeboat. There would be NO more negotiations, and the four Navy SEAL snipers “in the bubble” went “unlock.” The pirate holding Captain Philips raised his gun to his head, and IMMINENT DANGER was observed and noted in the Log as Cmdr. Castellano gave the classic order: WEAPONS RELEASED! I can hear the echo in my earpiece now, “On my count (from 8.5 seconds), 3, 2, 1, !” POP, BANG! Out went the window, followed by three simultaneous shots. The scoreboard flashed: “GAME OVER, GAME OVER– NAVY 3, PIRATES 0!”
I hope you found the above informative as it is best account I know. And please excuse me in that after more than 50 years, the Navy is still in me. I submit that AMERICA is going to make a comeback, and more than likely it’ll be on the back of our cherished youth serving with honor in our military. So, let’s Look Up, Get Up, and Never Give Up!
God Bless Our Troops, and GOD SAVE AMERICA!
XXXXX, USNA Class of 1959, Dickinson, Texas.