Royal Marines Destroy Pirate Action Group

Another pirate mothership has been sent to the bottom by Royal Marines operating off the Somali coast.

WITH acrid black smoke billowing into the sky, the oil from several shattered barrels burns fiercely in the otherwise calm waters of the Indian Ocean. This is not the aftermath of a U-boat attack but all that is left of a ‘Pirate Action Group’, destroyed by the guns of the Royal Marines. In the background is their mothership, RFA Fort Victoria – a Merlin parked on its flight deck.

The combined ship-helicopter-RM force is executing Operation Capri, harrying pirates off the Somali coast. In this instance, Fort Victoria came across a suspicious whaler and sent her Fleet Protection Group boarding team to investigate. The commandos found a ramshackle boat crammed (a) with pirates and (b) piratical paraphernalia – boarding ladders; the crew admitted they had tossed their weapons overboard as the marines bore down on them.

Under interrogation, the pirates claimed to have been at sea for 45 days. The whaler’s engines had failed, food had run out and they had resorted to using a boarding ladder as a mast for a makeshift sail. The Royals confiscated all remaining pirate kit on the boat before blasting the decrepit whaler to kingdom come. The pirates escaped more lightly, being dropped ashore on the Somali coast.

By: Shelldrake