April 12, 2009
Captain Richard Phillips paid tribute to the Navy and the SEAL snipers who shot and killed three pirates during rescue operations today.
Here’s a video clip from a recent documentary on Navy SEAL snipers. God bless ‘em:
The Navy SEALs page is here.
Details from Bloomberg News:
Sharpshooters firing from the fantail of a U.S. Navy destroyer killed three pirates holding an American cargo-ship captain in a lifeboat, ending a five-day ordeal that unfolded amid a surge in piracy off Somalia’s coast.
Richard Phillips, 53, captain of the Maersk Alabama, was untied, pulled from the lifeboat and brought unharmed aboard the USS Bainbridge, said Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.
The Navy acted because Phillips’s life was threatened by pirates who were aiming weapons at him, Gourtney said. The on- scene commander “had seconds” to make a decision, he said.
…The Bainbridge had the lifeboat under tow shortly after 7 p.m. local time, roughly an hour after sunset, according to Gortney and a Navy press release. The vessel was 25 to 30 meters away when special forces commandos opened fire, Gortney said.
“We pay a lot for their training,” Gortney said of the snipers. “We got a good return on their investment tonight.”
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