Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Hey, My Memory Yet Lives”

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November 12, 2008

Hey, My Memory Yet Lives

Hatched by Dafydd

We all know what's right with this picture -- but what's wrong with it?

Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire on two Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machineguns and SA80 rifles.

In the ensuing gunfight, two Somali pirates in a Yemeni-registered fishing dhow were killed, and a third pirate, believed to be a Yemeni, suffered injuries and subsequently died. It was the first time the Royal Navy had been engaged in a fatal shoot-out on the high seas in living memory.

We'll get back to what's wrong with this picture in a moment. First, a little more of what's right. The HMS Cumberland noticed a dhow towing a skiff (cool maritime words whose meaning is lost on me, except they're both types of boats); they realized they'd detected some pirates that attacked a Danish ship yesterday, so they dispatched some Royal Marines in the Brit equivalent of a couple of Zodiacs. The pirates decided the best response would be to open fire on the Marines ("Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time"), and the rest is predictable:

Moslem pirates surrender

It sure was a vast improvement over this:

The gun battle was in stark contrast to the Royal Navy’s last encounter with a boatful of armed men - when crew members of HMS Cornwall, also a Type 22 frigate, patrolling in the Gulf in rigid raiders, were surrounded by heavily armed Iranian Revolutionary Guards in March last year. Eight sailors, including a woman, Leading Seaman Faye Turney, and seven Marines were taken hostage without a shot being fired, and detained for 13 days. The Commons Defence Committee described the incident as “a national embarrassment”.

The Times (of London) dryly remarks that the Marines evidently have "a new policy of maximum robustness," which nowadays includes fighting back when attacked. Jolly good!

Oh, back to what's wrong with the last sentence of the second paragraph quoted at the very beginning of this post: "It was the first time the Royal Navy had been engaged in a fatal shoot-out on the high seas in living memory." I note for the record that some of us have "living memories" that stretch all the way back to 1982 (and even earlier!)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 12, 2008, at the time of 11:46 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: BarbaraS

If Argentina's idea that their ownership of the Falkland Islands is viable because these islands lie off their coasts then our ownership of Cuba, and all islands in the carribean would also be viable.

Also the situation with the Iranians was entirely different than this attack on the pirates. The Brits were under the command of the UN and probably with orders not to resist so spineless is the UN. And even if the Brits had been under the command of GB firing on the Iranians would have been a different kettle of fish. Defeating pirates is another thing entirely. Pirates don't declare war on countries at least with any appreciative results. Apples and oranges.

The above hissed in response by: BarbaraS at November 13, 2008 5:54 AM

The following hissed in response by: Robert

Three wasn't much, if any, ship to ship combat in the Falklands, and none involving exchanges of small arms fire. Mostly, each fleet's aircraft attacked the other fleet without the ships ever coming within firing distance of each other, so 'not within living memory' is technically accurate, though misleading.

The above hissed in response by: Robert at November 13, 2008 2:59 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Robert:

Well technically, this wasn't "ship to ship combat" either; the vessels involved were boats, not ships.

But in any event, what they wrote was that, "It was the first time the Royal Navy had been engaged in a fatal shoot-out on the high seas in living memory." The survivors of the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano (by torpedo) and the HMS Sheffield (by Exocet missile fired from a P-2 patrol plane in the Argentine Navy) could testify that the Royal Navy was indeed engaged in more than one fatal shoot-out on the high seas in 1982.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at November 13, 2008 3:12 PM

The following hissed in response by: Mr. Michael

...and here I thought the problem was that there were some Pirates left to surrender.

The above hissed in response by: Mr. Michael at November 13, 2008 8:01 PM

The following hissed in response by: eliXelx

Please STOP using terms like "BRITISH" and "BRIT" and "BRITAIN"--words which fall upon Welsh, Scottish and Irish ears like "NEGRO" falls upon African-American ears!
Don't believe me?!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1084738/Council-ranks-term-British-negroes-bans-case-upsets-Scots-Welsh-minorities.html

The above hissed in response by: eliXelx at November 19, 2008 5:58 AM

The following hissed in response by: eliXelx

The above hissed in response by: eliXelx at November 19, 2008 5:59 AM

The following hissed in response by: Xpressions

The left-wing illuminati wouldn't be able to take on these pirates, so hopefully they don't have to.

The above hissed in response by: Xpressions at November 27, 2008 8:57 AM