A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy (14 page)

From his station as quarter-gunner at one of
Richard
's 18-pounder cannons on the lower deck, Kilby peered out through the gun port at the British frigate across the water, who grew larger every minute as the two ships closed upon one another.
Serapis
's sails glowed faintly red in the gathering darkness as they caught the last vestiges of light from the sun now vanished over the horizon. Kilby recorded no emotion except perhaps a hint of pride as he recounted what he saw: “In order to protect that valuable convoy, as it was his duty, he (the enemy) hove to, hauled up his canvas and prepared for action. Side lanterns, of course, were up throughout the enemy's ship and every man at quarters was plain to be seen. We were then but a very small distance from them and you may be sure that our ship was as well prepared for action as it was in the power of man to have a ship.”

Kilby's assessment of his ship's readiness was no doubt accurate, but the American Sailors were not going to have an easy time of it. In his monumental biography of John Paul Jones, Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison described the two ships about to do battle.

Despite these circumstances, Jones never flinched; Kilby and his mates were likewise committed to following their intrepid captain into battle. The moon was rising and the weather clear as the two ships moved across the now blackened waters, ever closer for the impending fight. The creaking of the rigging and an occasional luff in one of the sails were the only sounds to be heard until a voice drifted across the water from
Serapis,
demanding, “Tell me what ship that is directly or I will sink you.” Kilby recalled his captain's response: “Jones then answered: ‘Sink and be damned!' Both ships were within fifty yards of each other and at the words ‘sink and be damned,' I fully believe no man living could tell which ship fired first, but so it was that each ship fired a broadside.”

Jones himself later wrote in his official report that “the battle thus begun was continued with unremitting fury.” And furious it was. Round shot and grapeshot poured into both vessels, smashing into masts and bulkheads, splintering wood into deadly shards, crushing bones, and tearing flesh. Suddenly, two of
Richard
's 18-pounders exploded, killing most of their crews, blowing a gaping hole in the deck above, and reducing the ship's weight of fire to a mere 195 pounds compared to
Serapis
's 300. The smell of burning flesh spread about the deck as flames erupted from the explosions.

Bonhomme Richard
and
Serapis
fighting one of the most famous sea battles in history. John Kilby and the other American Sailors were inspired to fight with “unremitting fury” when they saw the American colors flying at the top of the after mast.
U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

Undaunted by the setback, Kilby and the others continued to serve the remaining weapons, firing at a rapid rate. Kilby noted how Jones's leadership strengthened the crew's commitment to fight on despite all the chaos and carnage around them: “At this time, Jones ordered the helm to be put hard up and to run the enemy on board. It was done. In doing this, her jib-boom ran between our mizzen-shrouds and mizzen mast. Her jib-boom carried away our ensign staff and colors. At this, they gave three cheers. We answered them with one cheer. Jones at the same time cried out: ‘Look at my mizzen-peak!' at which place was run up the glory of America, I mean the most handsome suit of colors that I ever saw. They were about thirty-six feet in the fly.”

The inspiring sight of the large national ensign flying from the after mast was further strengthened when Jones personally seized
Serapis
's jib stay, which had fallen across
Richard
's quarterdeck, and “belayed it to our mizzen cleats,” lashing the two ships together in a deadly embrace. Kilby heard Jones say, “Now we'll hold her fast by this until one or the other sinks.” When the British commander ordered his men to board
Richard,
Jones, standing at the gangway with a long pike in his hands, shouted: “Come on. I am ready to receive you.” Kilby and some of the others joined Jones, and together, in fierce hand-to-hand fighting, they repulsed the British sailors and marines trying to come across.

The fighting continued for some time, with both ships firing into one another at point-blank range. Men fired muskets down from the rigging above, fire raged in both ships, and water rose fast in
Bonhomme Richard.
The ship's carpenter, who functioned in those days much as the damage control assistant does today, reported to Captain Jones within Kilby's hearing that “the ship then had six feet six inches of water in the hold and that she was sinking fast.”

Alliance
at last made an appearance, but instead of coming to the aid of her American ally, she inexplicably fired on
Richard,
killing a number of men and adding further damage to the already decimated ship.

As noted earlier in this chapter, it takes a special person to be a Sailor, to remain committed to one's personal sense of honor, one's shipmates, one's ship, one's Navy, even one's nation in the face of such adversity. But John Kilby, Richard Dale, William Hamilton, John Paul Jones, and scores of other Sailors of this newly formed U.S. Navy never faltered despite the raging fires, exploding ordnance, rising water, flying shrapnel, flowing blood, and screams of agony. They fought on and on, loading and firing time and again, swinging pikes and cutlasses with all their strength, shoring up damaged bulkheads, slipping in the blood that ran across the decks, manning the pumps in a losing battle with the sea, fighting back fires, choking on great
clouds of smoke, ignoring the crushing fatigue that strained their laboring muscles, and suppressing the terrible fear that clutched at their hearts.

In the midst of all this, though Kilby did not witness it, First Lieutenant Dale later told of a moment that would define the new Navy forever. Noting early on that the odds were in his favor and that
Richard
was taking a terrible beating, the British captain called across to Jones, asking if he wished to surrender. Jones's defiant reply echoes across the ages and serves as a battle cry of commitment that has made the United States Navy the greatest in the history of the world. Surrounded by terrible devastation and chaos, John Paul Jones defiantly replied, “I have not yet
begun
to fight!”

And he was right. The battle raged on, both sides fighting fiercely. But the advantage in firepower that
Serapis
had enjoyed had been diminished when the two ships became grappled together. And the top men and Marines in
Richard
were delivering a withering fire down upon
Serapis
's exposed decks, slowly but surely diminishing the size of the opposing crew and wearing away both their ability and their resolve to fight.

To add to
Serapis
's misery, Hamilton climbed into the rigging with a basket of hand grenades and a live match. Shinnying out along one of
Richard
's yardarms that stretched over
Serapis,
he reached a point directly above an open hatch on the enemy ship. With musket balls flying about him, Hamilton coolly lit the fuze on one of the grenades and with great precision dropped it through the gaping maw of the hatchway. The grenade exploded among some powder bags that were scattered about. The magnified detonation killed at least twenty men and seriously injured many others.

Jones had been concentrating fire on the enemy's mainmast to make sure she could not escape should the two ships become disentangled. When that great spar began to topple, the British captain at last lost his will to fight and personally tore down his national ensign as a signal of surrender. It was 2230, and the great struggle was over.

Once the formalities of surrender were concluded, other matters became paramount. Though victorious in her struggle with a superior British frigate, poor
Bonhomme Richard
was fighting for her life. John Kilby described the aftermath:

Jones, too, later described the last moments of
Richard
in his journal: “As she plunged down by the head at the last, her taffrail rose momentarily in the air; so the very last vestige mortal eyes ever saw of the
Bonhomme Richard
was the defiant waving of her unconquered and unstricken flag.”

As we have seen, Sailors must develop within themselves several kinds of commitment. They must remain committed to their shipmates and to their nation when their living conditions are practically unbearable, or when demands are made upon them that most other citizens will never face. They must remain committed even knowing that the odds dictate they are preparing for a test that may never come. And they must be committed to giving their all when and if the day comes that they must meet the kinds of challenges that John Kilby faced and conquered.

As the hapless
Richard
went to rest on the ocean floor, Kilby and the other Sailors who watched her go had no idea that their commitment to fight on, even when defeat seemed inevitable, was just the
beginning
of a tradition—a
standard
—that would guide those who followed through times of violent war and arduous peace, taking the new Navy to heights unimaginable to those iron men fighting in wooden ships. As these Sailors said farewell to their gallant little ship, it probably did not occur to any of them—not even to Jones himself—that their Navy had just begun to fight!

In the more than two hundred years that Sailors of the U.S. Navy have been defending their nation, they have created certain consistencies in the way they do things, and these consistencies have become traditions. Sometimes these traditions manifest themselves in language used, in inspirational sayings, in special customs and ceremonies, or simply in the unique way things are done. Sometimes traditions are merely quaint or colorful, and sometimes they seem to serve no purpose. But some traditions are born of core values and have the power to inspire noble deeds, to overcome hardship and fear, to set standards that ensure greatness. The chapters that follow are about the traditions that make the Navy stronger, that give Sailors an extra measure of confidence, and that help them to achieve victory at sea.

It has long been a tradition in the U.S. Navy that when a ship is lost in battle or dies of old age, her name is sometimes given to a newly built ship to carry on the legacy.

The USS
Enterprise
moved effortlessly across the black surface of the Arabian Sea, displacing nearly one hundred thousand tons of seawater as she cut a trough through the dark waters. Her great bulk disturbed millions of the tiny bioluminescent sea creatures, causing them to glow and leave an eerie green swath of light to mark her passage. A more sophisticated enemy with satellites or reconnaissance aircraft might have used that glowing wake to locate and attack the ship, but her enemy was neither the Soviet Union nor the Empire of Japan. This latest enemy had no great fleet to oppose her, nor a powerful air force to challenge her mastery of the skies. Yet, an insidious new threat had emerged from the back alleys of the Middle East and the foreboding mountains of Central Asia to strike at the very heart of American power. With hijacked airliners and a fanaticism born of misguided religious fervor, long-festering envy, and irrational hatred, terrorists had destroyed the World Trade Center towers and seriously damaged the Pentagon, killing thousands of Americans and other innocent bystanders. Now, less than a month later, USS
Enterprise
was poised to strike back.