re: "Pirates as plunder"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") opines on options for anti-piracy operations.

Money quote(s):

"We have been letting the pirates run the ocean for too damn long. Our occasional feats of brilliance, like when the SEALs wished the Maersk hijackers a Happy Easter, are brutally overshadowed by episodes like the recent slaughter of four Americans while we motored along behind them, and the more recent capture of seven Danes. We have had a few successes trying these wankers either in African courts or bringing them to the US, but both of those plans are full of holes. Kenya decided they didn't want to be our trash disposal service and for most of these Somalis, US prison would be a Shangri La."

This is a real problem. Naturally enough, Americans assume that sending someone to prison is a bad thing for them. However, in the Somalian paradigm, it's an improvement.

(Ironically, the same often holds true for female suicide bombers. But I digress.)

"I am not holding my breath that our government is going to unleash the SEALs of War against these parasites, it goes against too many diplomatic and international niceties for our timid leaders. You would think this is the simplest of problems and custom-built for one of these trans-national collections of tea-sippping, petit-four nibbling, meddlers telling formal lies in formal wear. I mean if we can't agree that piracy is a scourge and all necessary means should be employed to stop it, then WTF good are these groups? I answer my own question." (Typeface not bolded in original. - CAA.)

&

"We have quite a few well informed, experienced folks around here who think that Congress ought to be cranking out a few Letters of Marque for pirate hunting."

I recommend to (both) my readers Tom Kratman's new military adventure "Countdown: The Liberators." The (good) colonel's fictionalized account of how to effect a hostage rescue permits considerable insight into the conditions and mentalities of our pirate adversaries.

re: "Bert Bank, R.I.P."

George Smiley at In From the Cold ("Musings on Life, Love, Politics, Military Affairs, the Media, the Intelligence Community and Just About Anything Else that Captures Our Interest") had some important news.

Important quote(s):

"We were saddened to learn of the recent passing of Major Bert Bank, U.S. Army (Retired). Bank, a World War II veteran, died last month in his hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama at the age of 94."

"(H)e survived the Bataan Death March and nearly three years of hellish captivity in a Japanese POW camp. Many of his comrades weren't as fortunate; thousands perished during the march to the camp, or during their years as "guests" of the Emperor."

"Bank joined the Army ROTC program at the University of Alabama. After graduation and commissioning, he spent a brief stint with a coastal artillery unit before transferring to the Air Corps, with an assignment as a B-17 bombardier at Clark Field in the Phillippines. He arrived in the fall of November 1941, just a few weeks before the Japanese attack.

Mr. Bank's flying career was cut short on December 8, 1941, when Japanese aircraft destroyed most of the B-17s at Clark and other airfields in the Philippines. The few surviving bombers--and trained crew members--were dispersed to other bases and eventually moved to Australia. Other personnel (including Bert Bank) were reassigned to the infantry for the defense of Bataan, the narrow peninsula where General Douglas MacArthur planned to fight a holding action against superior Japanese forces.

Working as a G-2 (intelligence officer), then-Lieutenant Bank was given the task of determining the enemy's location. "But that wasn't hard to figure out," Bank later told Hampton Sides, "The enemy was everywhere."

As the battle raged, the situation on Bataan went from bad to desperate. U.S. and Filipino troops were desperately short of food, ammunition and medical supplies--with no hope of resupply from the United States or Australia. Despite exhortations from Washington to "hang on," General Edward King, the senior commander on Bataan, surrendered his forces on April 9, 1942. It was the largest capitulation in U.S. military history.

Mr. Bank was among those Americans who passed into captivity with General King's surrender. A few days later, he became one of the thousands of sick, emaciated men who were force-marched to prison by their enemy."

"Mr. Bank's eyewitness account of the march and the camps affirms all of the atrocities associated with those events. Walking towards Camp O'Donnell--the former U.S. military post that Japan converted into a POW camp--Bank saw the worst of it. A Lieutenant Colonel he had been holding up slipped from his grasp and fell into the road; instantly, a Japanese solider ran him through with his bayonet. He was later forced at gunpoint to bury several Filipino prisoners who were severely wounded, but still alive.

Conditions in the camp were equally grim. Thousands of prisoners died from beatings, illness, malnutrition or a combination of those factors."

&

"Mr. Bank and his fellow POWs were finally liberated in early 1945 during a daring raid by the U.S. Army's 6th Ranger Battalion. The story of that mission--and the men who carried it out--form the other half of Ghost Soldiers, and it's a compelling read. The Rangers, led by their charismatic leader, Lt Col Henry Mucci, marched 30 miles into Japanese territory, freed more than 500 Allied POWs, and escorted them back to American lines."

Read the whole post here.

FN - U.S. Navy Arrives at Scene of Hijacked American Ship

Fox News



U.S. Navy Arrives at Scene of Hijacked American Ship

Thursday, April 09, 2009


File: A Maersk cargo ship like the one hijacked off Somalia carrying 20 Americans.

The U.S. is gearing up for a standoff with the band of pirates who hijacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship off the coast of Somalia as a Navy warship reportedly arrived at the scene early Thursday.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"The crew of the Maersk Alabama were able to regain control of the vessel Wednesday, but the pirates escaped with the captain as a captive."

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Wednesday for world action to "end the scourge of piracy" as U.S. warships raced to confront the pirates."

"Wednesday's incident was the first such hostage-taking involving U.S. citizens in 200 years. In December 2008, Somali pirates chased and shot at a U.S. cruise ship with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel.

The top two commanders of the ship graduated from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, the Cape Cod Times reported Wednesday."

&

"Robert A. Wood, Deputy State Department Spokesman, told reporters the ship was carrying "vegetable oil, corn soy blend and other basic food commodities bound for Africa.""

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.