33 Annapolis

From the water it looks like one of those historical prints: the spire of the church and the domes of the State House and the Naval Academy stick up above the town’s sky line. It is the boatyist place. Out in the bay, the tankers wait for a berth in Baltimore. Grey navy training ships and coastguard runabouts plow around amongst racing sailboats and little optimists. Boats are on the move everywhere.

Those young men and women in crisp whites that stroll around town are from the Naval Academy. They are training to be officers. They are learning how to aim missiles by computer; how to control the reactors of nuclear submarines; and how to live with the layers of rote that have become navy tradition. In barracks thy have to make 90 degree turns at corridor corners and shout “Go Navy! Beat Army!”

The dome with the gold crown that you see from the water is the Navy Academy Chapel. Under the chapel, in the crypt, a uniform guard of honor stands at all times. Behind the guard, in a gloomy black marble sarcophagus, are the bones of the American Navy’s first and most revered hero.

What makes a hero? What sort of a sea dog was he?
John Paul was born in Scotland. At twelve he went to sea as a cabin boy. By nineteen he was first mate on a slaver, by 21 the commander of a merchant boat. He must have been a bit pugnacious. He flogged one crewmember to death. He killed the leader of a mutiny. To avoid prison, he changed his name to John Paul Jones and fled to the British colonies in America. He arrived at the outbreak of the war for independence (1775) and joined the confederation navy. He served them well burning British ships around North America and even across the Atlantic.

His defining moment came in 1779. He confronted the British warship “Serapis.’ At first he got the worse of it. The British captain shouted at him to surrender. He shouted back, (I guess they were that close) the phrase that is now revered:

“I have not yet begun to fight.”

The ships resumed bombarding each other. In the end they both sank. But the British ship sank first.

When independence made him redundant he joined the Russian Navy. This did not work out. He died in obscurity in Paris. But his reputation in the American Navy kept growing. He became an idol. In 1905 they searched for his grave, found it, and brought his bones back from France with an escort of battleships.

So here he is, the pit bull of the sea, for the emulation of midshipmen.