
Norfolk, Virginia - August 2011

Norfolk, Virginia - August 2011

Norfolk, Virginia - January 2011

Norfolk, Virginia - January 2011

Norfolk, Virginia - January 2011

Irish Sea - September 2010

Atlantic Ocean - September 2010

Indian Ocean - April 2009

Souda Bay, Crete, Greece - January 2008

Souda Bay, Crete, Greece - January 2008

Souda Bay, Crete, Greece - October 2007

Souda Bay, Crete, Greece - October 2007

Red Sea - October 2007

Victoria, Seychelles - September 2007

Indian Ocean - September 2007

Indian Ocean - September 2007

Indian Ocean - September 2007

Indian Ocean - September 2007

Indian Ocean - September 2007

Indian Ocean - September 2007

Indian Ocean - September 2007

Faslane, Scotland - April 2007

Atlantic Ocean - April 2007

Atlantic Ocean - April 2007

SH-60B Seahawk (HSL-46) - Atlantic Ocean
- April 2007

Tampa Bay, Florida - January 2007

at Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine -
November 2004 (Bath Iron Works photo via NNS)

missile exercise - June 2005

Bath, Maine - November 2004

Bath, Maine - November 2004

Bath, Maine - November 2004
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Commodore William Bainbridge
(May 7, 1774 – July 27, 1833):
William Bainbridge
- born on 7 May 1774 at Princeton, New Jersey - went to sea in a
Philadelphia merchantman at the age of 15. He developed rapidly as a seaman and
leader and attained command of the ship Hope by the end of 1793. During
ensuing years, he took her on trading voyages to European ports - calling
often at Bordeaux - as well as to the islands of the West Indies.
After trouble with Republican France and with the Barbary pirates prompted
the United States to revive its Navy, Bainbridge was commissioned a
lieutenant and given command of Retaliation. While that 14-gun schooner was
protecting American merchantmen in the Caribbean on 20 November 1798, Retaliation
encountered the French frigates L'Insurgente and Volontaire and their
superior firepower forced him to surrender. As a prisoner on board
Volontaire, Bainbridge tricked the senior French officer into recalling
L'Insurgente which had been pursuing Montezuma and Norfolk and thus permitted
these small American warships to escape. During his imprisonment at
Guadaloupe, Bainbridge did everything in his power to protect and to further
the interests of his countrymen who were also held captive, and he was later
permitted to return to home in Retaliation as a cartel ship carrying other
Americans who had been held captive on the island.
Promoted to master commandant and given command of Norfolk, one of the
warships he had saved from capture, Bainbridge joined Commodore Thomas
Tingey's squadron in waters surrounding the Leeward Islands on 24 May 1799.
On 5 June, his brig engaged a 14-gun French privateer and was about to force
the enemy ship to surrender when the wind of a sudden storm carried away
Norfolk's two top masts, allowing her opponent to escape.
Following repairs at St. Kitts, Norfolk cruised with Ganges and assisted that
flagship in capturing the French privateer Vainqueur. At the end of July,
Norfolk and Retaliation - recently recaptured and once more flying American
colors - left St. Kitts escorting a large group of merchant ships. When the
convoy encountered a large French frigate, Bainbridge ordered his charges to
scatter and then lured the enemy warship away from the merchantmen, beginning
a long chase in which the American brig finally escaped. The American convoy
later reassembled and proceeded on to New York where it arrived on 12 August
without having lost a single ship.
In September, Bainbridge got underway in Norfolk for Hispaniola to combat both
picaroons and French privateers. In one instance, the brig acted as a
forerunner of a World War I "Q" ship. On 30 October, off Gonaive
Island, she pretended to be a defenseless merchant ship, keeping her gunports
closed to lure pirates. A barge manned by about 50 men approached her; but,
after coming within cannon range, became suspicious and shied off under
"...a broadside of round and canister which sprinkled all around
them." Unfortunately, the wind failed as the Americans were beginning
the pursuit and allowed the picaroons to row frantically away.
A short while later, Norfolk joined the frigate Boston; and, on 7 November,
they captured a French armed sloop. Norfolk then sailed to Cuba for patrol
duty in the vicinity of Havana. On 20 February 1800, she chased the French
schooner Beauty into shallow water where the American brig could not follow.
Bainbridge then used Norfolk's guns so effectively that he battered the enemy
privateer - which had been a great plague to American commerce - to pieces. Thereafter,
while Norfolk neither captured nor sank any enemy ships, she kept the coast
of Cuba free of enemy warships until sailing for home escorting 23
merchantmen.
The convoy reached Philadelphia on 12 April 1800; and, a bit more than a
month later, the 25-year-old Bainbridge received his commission as a captain.
The Treaty of Mortfontaine soon ended hostilities with France obviating
another voyage to the West Indies for the successful young officer, but a
task far less to his liking awaited.
The Barbary Powers - city states along the coast of North Africa - had long
claimed hegemony in the Mediterranean Sea and were demanding tribute from all
nations whose ships traded in its waters. Placed in command of George
Washington, a merchantman converted to a 32-gun warship, Bainbridge was
charged with carrying the American payment for the year 1800 to the Dey of
Algiers. After delivering the tribute, a cargo of stores and timber, to
Algiers and while preparing to sail for home, Bainbridge was surprised to receive
instructions from the Dey to carry a special mission to the Sultan in
Constantinople. Although he did so under protest, Bainbridge took the
opportunity to make friends there and received a letter of protection from
the Capudan Pasha which enabled him to free several enslaved Americans and to
sail for home with them unmolested. Upon returning to the United States,
Bainbridge took command of the frigate Essex and sailed back to the
Mediterranean with Commodore Richard Dale's squadron. He arrived at Gibraltar
on 1 July 1801 and cruised the "middle sea" protecting American
trade until the summer of 1802 when he returned home.
Following leave and shore duty, Bainbridge assumed command of the frigate
Philadelphia and set out for the Mediterranean to join Commodore Preble's
squadron in operations against Tripoli. Soon after reaching Gibraltar on 24
August 1803, the frigate began to hunt two corsairs reportedly preying upon
American shipping near Cape de Gata, Spain. Two days later, Bainbridge
captured the Moroccan ship Mirboka - operating under a commission of Tangier
- and freed the privateer's prize, the American merchant brig Celia.
Philadelphia - accompanied by schooner Vixen - next escorted American
merchantmen along the southeastern coast of Spain and then visited Malta en
route to Tripoli where they established a blockade. Soon after, Bainbridge
sent Vixen to sea to hunt for two Tripolitan warships which had been reported
to be preying on merchantmen in the Mediterranean. While the schooner was
away, Philadelphia ran aground off Tripoli harbor on 31 October while chasing
a corsair vessel. Efforts to refloat the frigate failed and, to make matters
worse, Philadelphia's guns could not bear on the attacking Tripolitan
gunboats, who began firing on the frigate with impunity. Able neither to
defend his ship nor to escape, Bainbridge surrendered.
Freed some 19 months later, Bainbridge came home late in 1805 and received
assignment to the New York Navy Yard. Financial embarrassment as a result of
his extended captivity, however, forced him to request release from active
duty in order to enter merchant service. He continued so engaged until the
spring of 1808 when he received orders to command frigate President. Not only
did he take command of that 44-gun frigate but also, in her, broke the broad
pennant of a commodore for the first time, taking command of the station
comprising the waters along the southern Atlantic coast. That duty lasted
until 1810 at which time Bainbridge took up merchant service once again.
Yet, by 1811, it seemed unlikely that circumstances would permit him his
commercial ventures for long. For years, the Wars of the French Revolution
and the Napoleonic Wars had resulted in friction between the United States
and the warring powers. Since the Royal Navy generally controlled the oceans,
Great Britain abraded American sensibilities much more than did France; and
war with the old mother country became increasingly more probable with each
succeeding provocation. When Bainbridge heard of the incident between his
former command, President, and HMS Little Belt just 50 miles off Cape Henry,
Va., he made haste to get home and offer his services in Washington.
He performed his first important deed for the country in the War of 1812 when
he joined Commodore Charles Stewart at the outset in opposing the Madison
administration's overly cautious and purely defensive naval policy and to
convince influential members of Congress to champion an aggressive approach
to the sea war. This campaign not only succeeded in altering the policy but
also quickly brought enduring fame to the Navy in the form of some of its
most spectacular single-ship victories.
Moreover, Bainbridge later contributed one of those brilliant victories
himself. After serving ashore initially at the Charlestown (Boston) Navy Yard
in 1812, he relieved Isaac Hull as captain of Constitution when Hull asked
for and received a leave of absence after his own great triumph over HMS
Guerrière. Sailing in command of a small squadron made up of Constitution,
Essex and Hornet, Bainbridge took his unit south to hunt British shipping and
to protect American shipping in the waters off Brazil. On 29 December 1812,
he encountered the 38-gun British frigate, HMS Java, near Bahia, Brazil.
Bainbridge cleared his ship for action and attacked straightaway. There
followed a lively action of maneuver and cannonade, each frigate striving to
cross the other's "T" without being overtaken by that fate herself.
Bainbridge suffered two wounds during the fight. Early on a sniper's ball
struck him in the hip; and, later, he sustained grievous splinter wounds when
a cannonball shattered Constitution's wheel. Nevertheless, Bainbridge
retained command and fought his ship superbly. Steering by means of tackles
below decks, he succeeded in raking Java time and again until his battered
adversary could do nothing but strike her colors. So badly damaged was the
British ship that Bainbridge took off her surviving crewmen and burned her.
In February 1813, he returned to Boston where he spent the rest of the war
supervising the construction of the 74-gun ship-of-the-line Independence.
When that ship-of-the-line finally put to sea from Boston on 3 July 1815, she
wore the pennant of Commodore Bainbridge and led a squadron headed for the
Mediterranean to chastise the Algerine pirates. By the time that Bainbridge's
squadron arrived, however, Commodore Stephen Decatur had already accomplished
the mission for which both his and Bainbridge's squadrons had been
dispatched. Though his squadron had arrived too late to help impress upon the
Barbary pirates the virtues of restraint, Bainbridge took over as commander
of the American naval forces in the Mediterranean when he arrived and
Decatur, his junior, went home. In that role, he performed a service just as
important as, if less glamorous than, Decatur's by keeping the pressure on
the Barbary states to adhere to their newly learned behavior.
Bainbridge himself returned to the United States late in 1815, sailing
Independence into Boston in November. There, he remained, still flying his
commodore's flag in Independence, for a little over four years. In April
1820, he put to sea in the ship-of-the-line Columbus and embarked on his last
duty afloat. Once again, he cruised the waters of the Mediterranean Sea in
command of the squadron that maintained respect for the commerce that
travelled under the American flag. Bainbridge came back to the United States
in 1821 and, after failing to supplant Isaac Hull at the Charlestown (Boston)
Navy Yard, served as the president of the Board of Naval Commissioners in
Washington during the mid-1820s. After that assignment, Bainbridge became
commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, a post he held until 1831 and again
briefly in 1833. Commodore Bainbridge died of pneumonia at Philadelphia on 27
July 1833 and was buried there at Christ Church.
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USS Bainbridge (DDG 96):
Bainbridge assumed flagship for Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG-1) from USS
Normandy (SNMG-1 April 2007 - August 2007) and remained flagship from August
2007 until February 2008. While on deployment under SNMG-1, they visited
various ports across the Mediterranean such as Valetta, Malta, Coruna, Spain,
Istanbul, Turkey, Crete, Athens, Greece, and Port Victoria, Seychelles.
On April 8, 2009, Bainbridge was dispatched in response to a hostage
situation in which Somali pirates had seized control of an American-flagged
cargo vessel, the Maersk Alabama. The crew of the Alabama were able to get to
safety, after their captain offered to be taken hostage by the pirates in
exchange for the safety of his crew. He was taken to and held on a lifeboat.
The destroyer shadowed and later encircled the Somali pirates during the
standoff, at which time the pirates and Bainbridge began negotiating for the
safe release of the captive captain. On April 12, 2009 Captain Phillips was
freed - reportedly in good condition - during a US Navy SEAL team assault.
Three of the Somali pirates were killed by US Navy SEAL sharpshooters aboard
Bainbridge, and one was captured.
source: wikipedia
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