Re: Letters of marque

On 12-Jan-02 at 11:01, Glenn M Wilson (triphibious@juno.com) wrote:

> Much as I hate to make the guys in DC look good - the maritime safety
> guys in NIMA (National Imagery and Mapping Agency aka known as "Not
> Interested in Maps Anymore) issue warnings about piracy regularly as
part
> of their maritime safety mission.  Wonder how difficult it would be to
> get that information to determine frequency, severity, etc.?	In the
last
> few months in the South Asia and, much more, in the SE Asia parts of
the
> BBC online there have been articles about piracy events (in port raids
> has been popular recently IIRC.)

When I was in the Navy there was a story running around about a 
group of Korean pirtates on a craft the size of  a utility boat.
They eased up beside a fat merchant in the middle of the night
and fired off 30 or 40 shots with small arms.  At which point
the watch officer of the destroyer they were ordering to surrender
aimed all the searchlights at them and set them off.  Apparently
most of the pirates bailed in complete panic and swam back to shore.
Those that didn't were turned over to the Korean authorities.

Roger Books