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Insane and Inspiring Enterprising Stories from History

Khalid Elhassan March 30, 2021 35 min

German soldiers of the 6th Army in Stalingrad. Encyclopedia Britannica

Stephen Decatur leading a party of American sailors to board a Barbary vessel. Naval Historical Center

18. A Daring Sneak Attack in the Heart of an Enemy’s Harbor

The mission to recapture or destroy the USS Philadelphia was given to an enterprising US Navy Lieutenant named Stephen Decatur. Earlier in the war, American seamen had captured a Tripolitanian ketch and renamed her the Intrepid. The captured ketch was restored to its original condition to look like a local ship. On the night of February 16^th, 1804, with the captured vessel disguised as a Maltese ship flying a British flag, Decatur and a contingent of volunteers sailed into Tripoli’s harbor.

Burning of the USS Philadelphia. Naval History and Heritage Command

The American sailors feigned distress, claiming to have lost all anchors in a storm. The pilot asked and was granted permission to tie up next to the Philadelphia. Once tied up to the captured frigate, Decatur and his men overwhelmed her guards, using only cold steel without firing a shot so as not to alert the authorities. Upon confirming that the ship was repairable and seaworthy, but unable to sail her away themselves, Decatur and his men destroyed the Philadelphia by setting her on fire, then made their escape.

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.