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A Memorable History of Deception and Spy Capers

Khalid Elhassan June 7, 2020 34 min

Operation Mincemeat - World War II — Items recovered from Major Martin and his briefcase. BBC

18. Recovering a Warship

USS Philadelphia sailing past Gibraltar. History Net

From 1801 to 1805, a fledgling America fought The First Barbary War against the Barbary states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli. At issue was the Barbary states’ predation on – or piracy of – American merchant shipping, and America’s refusal to pay tribute to halt the attacks. A US Navy squadron sailed into the Mediterranean to confront the Barbary pirates and to protect American shipping. The squadron included the USS Philadelphia, a 1240-ton sailing frigate with 36 guns, which was quite powerful for its day.

On October 31^st, 1803, while chasing a pirate ship, the Philadelphia ran aground on an uncharted reef two miles from Tripoli’s harbor. All attempts to refloat her failed, so her captain ordered her bottom holed, guns thrown overboard, and gunpowder spoiled before surrendering the ship and crew. Notwithstanding her captain’s efforts, the Tripolitanians managed to refloat the Philadelphia, and towed her into harbor for salvage and restoration. The ship was too powerful a prize to allow it to remain in the pirates’ hands, so the US Navy decided to recapture or destroy it. The result was one of the US Navy’s earliest deception operations.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.