Larry Mendte Curtis Sliwa America 250th July 02

Curtis shares the story of John Paul Jones who is known the father of the US Navy and how he helped win the American Revolution.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Curtis and Larry celebrate two fifty stories that made America
on seventen woe but the death of the founder of
the village people. One of his songs in the Navy
right classic. You think of the men and women who
sail in the US Navy all over the world. With

(00:24):
this week the start of the tall ships coming into
New York City from all over the world, you know,
celebrating July fourth. You got to think, when we talked
to the American Revolutionary War, who was the person who
was most synonymous with a very small navy that had

(00:45):
to battle the biggest naval command in the world that
Britain ruled, and with Jean Paul Jones. And the reason
I mentioned him is when my dad, a merchant seaman,
would have to go back out to see we'd have
to drop him off in Staten Island, my mother and
my father and my two sisters. We would stop at

(01:07):
John Paul Jones Park. First, there are cannon balls. There,
there are cannons. It's in the shadow of the arizontal bridge.
It's Writing Bay Ridge. It's a magnificent park with a
huge monument in his honor, and it says he is
the founder of the United States Navy. My father went
on to say, oh, yeah, yeah, he's buried at Annapolis,

(01:30):
you know, right there his remains and it says his
famous words that he said to the Brits, I have
not yet begun to fight. But then I remember when
we got into the fifty four Ford station wagon, Old Betsy,
you know, with the whitewall tires and the wooden panels.
My father was telling my mom I heard a little

(01:52):
bit of well, he was quite the rogue, and I said, Dad,
what do you mean. He said, you'll find out in time,
And I never forgot that. So John Paul Jones, the
founder of the American Navy, was born in Scotland. At
the age of thirteen, he sailed out and he first
sailed on slave boats that were going back and forth

(02:13):
from Africa to the West Indies, and then eventually he
got onto cargo ships going to the West Indies. And
on one of the cargo ships, both the captain and
the first mate died of yellow fever, which was common,
you know, yellow fever. People would die. They'd throw him
over the side and guess the crew had to elect

(02:35):
who was going to be the captain. They elected John
Paul Jones. It was a mistake because soon after they
had a mutiny against It was like Mutiny of the Bounty,
remember that famous movie. They had a mutiny against John
Paul Jones. He was able to stop the mutiny. He
had the crew flogged. One of them died when he
got to port. He was arrested in England and advised

(02:58):
him to change his name, which he did and fleet.
So for eighteen months he was a profiteer or what
we would call a pirate, and he was raiding ships.
It in Matta who ships friendships, Spanish ships, British ships
in the West Indies, in the Caribbean. And then eventually
he hears at the United States brand new country is

(03:21):
going to go to war. The Second Continental Congress builds
fifteen frigates and they hear about John Paul Jones, and
they said, we need you your experience. They forgot the
fact that he was a pirate, and so he gets
on and eventually he is assigned to the USS Ranger
and he does raids because he's a pirate, all along

(03:42):
the Irish coast, the English coast, he's raiding smaller British boats.
And then all of a sudden he is transferred to
the USS Bonham Richard, so seventeen seventy nine. Now this
was an American ship, the pride of the very small
fleet had about forty two guns, could go up against

(04:05):
the Brits. Unfortunately, who followed him, the HMS Therapists, that
was twice as large, with twice as many guns, with
a British admiral. They fired on the ship, the USS
Bonham Richard. It went on fire. It was ready to sink.
The admiral announces, because they had come right next to

(04:27):
his boat, strike your colors or prepared to be boarded.
And so naturally the other members of his ship they say, oh,
come on, Jumbo Jones, captain, we got to wave the
white flag. We gotta strike our colors. Apparently that's when
he said, I have not yet begun to fight. And

(04:48):
as his ship is going down to Davy Jones's locker,
the Americans fight the Brits. They get on board the
HMS Serrapist and take it over. It is the the
first United States naval victory. Now, afterwards he went on
to sail for Russia in their many wars. He raped

(05:10):
the girl who was ten years old in Saint Petersburg
and had to flee from there. That's why my dad
called him a road I found out. But if you
go to the US Naval Academy, Larry, the first thing
you see going in is the founder of United States
Navy or he was quite the rogue and his famous words,

(05:31):
I have not yet begun to fight. And if you
want to honor him at all, the naval personnel who
went out and fought to Britge, I mean the British
Navy was the greatest in the world. Just go down
to Bay Ridge to John Paul Jones Park. You see
the cannonballs, You see the cannon It's a great patriotic
tribune pain