Written by Michael J. Perullo
Improvise! Adapt! Overcome! These three words are an unofficial slogan of the United States Marine Corps. These admonitions drive Marines to handle unexpected challenges, and underpin the core characteristic of America’s most capable fighting force on land, in the air and at sea. It was at sea in 1779 when a different type of Marines under the command of Captain John Paul Jones, widely known as the Father of the American Navy, fought to victory and saved this naval hero from hanging in Holland! This is the story of Scottish-born Captain John Paul Jones, his ‘Irish Marines’, and the improvised creation of the storied Serapis Flag—one of the first symbols of the new United States.
Above: The Bonhomme Richard battles the Serapis
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, FOUGHT AT SEA
American colonists declared their independence from the British on July 4, 1776 after years of the Crown’s intolerable treatment following the French and Indian War in 1763. The revenue acts of the 1760s, the Boston Massacre (1770), the Boston Tea Party (1773), and the Battles of Lexington and Concord (1775) were all major events leading to war with the world’s only superpower. By the Summer of 1779, the Continental Navy, with the support of France, had reached Britain, and was led by Naval Officer John Paul Jones aboard his ship, the Bonhomme Richard. The Bonhomme Richard was named after Benjamin Franklin’s ‘Poor Richard’s Almanac’ for good luck.
Originally built in 1765 as a merchant ship, it was refitted with 42 guns, and outfitted as a ship of war. Incredibly, American Commissioner to France and future US President John Adams reviewed the troops assigned to the ship on May 13, 1779 after a dinner for Adams hosted by the Captain. Some 137 Marines from the Irish Brigade of France were given sea duty on the Bonhomme Richard. These Marines were known as “Wild Geese,” members of a French brigade that had existed for nearly 100 years.
Above: Captain John Paul Jones; John Adams reviews the troops
JONES BATTLES THE SERAPIS AND LOSES HIS FLAG
On August 14, 1779, the Bonhomme Richard set sail in the North Sea with a ship squadron including the USS Alliance, USS Pallas, USS Vengeance, Le Cerf and two privateers, and would be engaged in its famous battle on September 23, 1779; this was known as the Battle of Flamborough Head. The opposing British ships were the Serapis and the Countess of Scarborough. Captain Jones realized that he could not win a big gun battle given his ship’s position and damage sustained. So he adapted his tactics, bringing his ship in close to the Serapis and eventually lashing both ships together, and then engaged in an hours long hand to hand fight on the decks. During this time, as the Alliance became closer and was raking the Serapis with close fire, it simultaneously inflicted additional damage to the Bonhomme Richard.
Now, the Bonhomme Richard was on fire, burning with her flag shot away. It is not affirmatively known which flag the Bonhomme Richard flew; it was likely the Continental Union Flag, which was in use from December 3, 1775 through June 14, 1777. On June 14, 1777, the First Flag of the United States was made official; this is known as the ”Betsy Ross Flag”; it is also unknown which Philadelphia seamstress made the first official US Flag. Even though outfitted in 1779, it was unlikely Captain Jones and the Bonhomme Richard would have been in possession of a Betsy Ross ensign.
With her flag shot away, and his ship on fire, and the two battling ships lashed together, there was a lot of confusion with the British wondering if Captain Jones was dead or if he had struck his colors (lowered his ensign) as a sign of surrender. Realizing Captain Jones was not dead, the British demanded surrender; Captain Jones replied yelling with the now immortal words, “I have not yet begun to fight!”
Just then, a Marine dropped a grenade from his placement in the rigging into his own ship igniting a massive blast from gun powder stored in the burning ship’s hold, which by then had accumulated five feet of seawater. Crew members heard Captain Jones yell to the British, “I am determined to make you strike!” (“Strike” meant to lower the ship’s flag or ensign, and to surrender.) He also said, “I may sink, but I’ll be damned if I strike!”. The British were prevented from boarding the Bonhomme Richard from the Serapis, but not vice versa. The USS Alliance fired broadsides at the Serapis which damaged both lashed battling ships nearly equally. British Captain Pearson realized that he was outmaneuvered and overcome, and could not effectively use his big guns., and he finally surrendered. The Bonhomme Richard was cut away, with her Irish Marines boarding the Serapis for a voyage to Holland. At the time, the Serapis had no ensign, as it too was shot away in battle.
Arriving in Holland on a commandeered ship without a flag, Captain Jones was mistaken for a pirate by the British Admiralty! Because he did not fly the flag of any nation, the Admiralty issued orders to have Captain Jones hung for piracy. He was captured, and immediately jailed to await his fate.
Above: An early painting of the Serapis Flag
FREEING JONES BY CREATING A NEW FLAG
Serendipitously, Germany’s Ambassador to Holland reached out to the American Ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin, who was in France at the time. Franklin was unfamiliar with the “new” (1777) Betsy Ross Flag as the Flag of the United States, but did describe his idea for a United States Flag in 1778 in a letter to the Ambassador of Naples in 1778 written while in Paris. The race was now on to fabricate a flag acceptable to the Dutch (and the British) to be recognized as the United States Flag, the flag of a new nation!
Again, Franklin did not know that on June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed a Flag Resolution with the following legal description, which legitimized the Betsy Ross, and many similar flags,
“That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a field of blue, representing a new constellation.”
In Franklin’s 1778 letter, he described that,
“…the flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen stripes, alternately red, white, and blue; a small square in the upper angle, next the flagstaff, is a blue field, with thirteen white stars, denoting a new constellation.”
Similar–but not the same.
To resolve the diplomatic crisis and save Captain Jones’ life, the Dutch made a sketch of the ‘Franklin Flag’ and entered it into official records. Captain Jones was freed, and his men commenced fabricating this new American Flag, the Franklin Flag, the Serapis Flag. This was an American Flag born in emergency and confusion, and the elements of battle that fomented it more than 39 months after the Declaration of Independence.
THE UNIQUE DESIGN OF THE SERAPIS FLAG
When you first see a Serapis Flag, it is strikingly unusual because of the four irregularly placed blue stripes in the first, sixth, tenth and twelfth positions, and the eight-pointed stars. Imagine the Irish Marines in Holland interpreting Franklin’s year-old description as sent to the Ambassador of Naples while our Ambassador to France was out of touch with the latest Congressional actions across the Atlantic Ocean in this new country, this “new constellation” called the United States of America!
While recognized by the Dutch, the Serapis Flag did not meet the requirements of the 1777 Flag Resolution, and thus was never adopted by the United States as official. Importantly though, it was recognized overseas as one of the first symbols of the United States before our true national flag was embraced at home and globally. Does anyone really know the meaning of the eight-point Stars? It does not seem so, as they have been used on only one other Revolutionary Period Flag in 1781, the Guilford County Courthouse Flag, which had blue eight-points in a field of white.
SERAPIS FLAG—or FRANKLIN FLAG?
There is a debate as to what constitutes the best name for this flag; is it truly the "Franklin Flag" which flew from the commandeered Serapis? In truth, the vessel Serapis flew two national ensigns: the British First Union Jack, and the American Franklin Flag, as described by an American in France to the Dutch via a German liaison, and quickly sewed and stitched by French Irishman moored in the Dutch harbor aboard a commandeered British war ship in the Fall of 1779. While the Serapis Flag fits Benjamin Franklin's description of an American flag, we'll never how closely it matched the image he had in his mind.
THE SERAPIS FLAG IN TODAY'S MILITARY
Today, only one regiment in the US Army is allowed to officially carry the Serapis Flag: the 111th Infantry Regiment, founded in 1747 by Benjamin Franklin himself. The 111th, nicknamed “The Associators” by Franklin, carried the Serapis Flag into battle during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2009. Along with the First Navy Jack (flown on every US Navy vessel since September 11, 2001), the Serapis Flag is also featured in the crest of the USS John Paul Jones, a guided missile destroyer (DDG-53).
Above: USS John Paul Jones and its crest featuring the Serapis Flag
THE FATE OF JOHN PAUL JONES
What about Captain John Paul Jones, also known as the “Father of the American Navy”? After his most famous Battle of Flamborough Head, Captain Jones was recalled to the United States. He was to take command of America’s first sailing battleship, the USS America. While under construction, hostilities with the British dwindled as the eight-year Revolutionary War came to an end with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Our navy was essentially disbanded, and Captain Jones went back to sea, even serving as an Admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy. Shortly after his 45th birthday in 1792, he died from illness in Paris, and was buried in the Paris St. Louis Cemetery for Foreign Protestants in a well-sealed lead casket inside of which he was wrapped in cloth and embalmed in rum. In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt sent a special naval squadron to Cherbourg, France, where Captain Jones’ remains were brought home to “his country of fond selection” aboard the USS Brooklyn. On April 17, 1912, the John Paul Jones Memorial was dedicated in New York City by President Taft and Admiral Dewey two days after the Titanic sunk.
THE LEGACY OF THE SERAPIS FLAG
Today, the flag that Jones helped make famous—the Serapis Flag—represents extreme resilience in the face of difficulties. It deserves a spot in your flag collection as a symbol of American courage, military honor and our nation’s fight for independence.
