Pirates Attack French Warship TWICE | October 2009 - April 2010

um in June of 2009 the French Navy's replenishment shoop the Somme set out from Toulon naval base in southern France for a deployment to the Indian Ocean passing through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal the some arrived in theater a few weeks later and in mid-july she took over responsibility as the command ship for all French naval forces stationed in the Indian Ocean within this role she was tasked with not only coordinating the employment of French warships but also liaising with Allied navies to counter the grown threat of piracy off the coast of East Africa for the next three months the song carried out her duties in the region largely without incident and it was on the 6th of October 2009 whilst 460 kilometers of Northern Somalia that she was routed to resupply nearby frigid that was conducting a counterparty patrol unfortunately the name and nationality of this frigate haven't been this close to the public nonetheless the song moved off to link up with the Allied warship and it was part way through this Voyage at around 0-100 on the 7th of October at the French vessel suddenly began to receive Small Arms fire close by a small pirate task group comprising of two Skiffs each carrying around five smiley Pirates had spotted the soms slowly moving through the night with her Silhouettes given the appearance of a civilian Merchant vessel believing that they were about to attack an easy target the Pirates maneuvered into position and opened fire on the Somme they then began preparations to throw their ladders up the side of the vessel and start boarding at which point they came to the realization that what they were attacking wasn't an unarmed tanker but in fact a warship Admiral Christophe praso could a french navy later explained that they rapidly realized that the psalm was not behaving like a commercial ship she was not trying to run away but on the contrary the song was heading towards the Pirates and so at that time the Pirates turned away and tried to escape it's not clear as to whether the crew of the song returned fire at any point during this incident but it's known that as soon as the Pirates realized their mistake they broke off their attack and tried to escape from the area with one skiff heading in One Direction and the second skiff in another close behind the song gave Chase to one of the enemy bows and just over an hour later at around 0-200 the skiff came to a stop and his crew of five Pirates threw their arms up into the air to surrender to the French warship a Detachment of French Marines on board original Inflatable Boats were then deployed to apprehend the Pirates and seized control over the skiff a search of which found no weapons boarding equipment food or water on board as the Pirates had discarded them into the sea moments before they surrendered with the five smiley Pirates detained they were transferred to the Somme where they remained until the 12th of October 2009 when they were handed over to local authorities at the Porta pasasso in Northern Somalia unfortunately a multinational search from the 7th to the 8th of October failed to locate the second skiff which disappeared into the nines following the attack on the Somme just over six months after this incident the song was still operating in the Indian Ocean on counter piracy operations when she again came under attack from Pirates on the night the 19th of April 2010. this time the French vessel was approximately 700 kilometers off the coast of Somalia and route to Seychelles and again her silhouette against the moonlit night sky convinced the pirate task group that they're about to engage a civilian merchant ship launching two skills from a Dao the Pirates got into position and opened their attack by sporadically firing at the Somme which immediately responded with her own machine gun fire and a Tony stunned the approaching enemy but completely disorganized their attack realizing that they're up against the warship the Pirates quickly broke contact and in what was a repeat of the October incident the two Skiffs split off into different directions thus forcing the Somme to focus on only one of the boats in spite of this the French warship went off in Pursuit and it was during this period that she intercepted the Pirates as thou which had been held back during the assault to act as a supply vessel for the two Skiffs like before a team of French Marines moved in captured the Dow detained its crew of two Pirates and seized the last quantity of weaponry and boarding equipment after the vessel had been evacuated the Dow was sunk and destroyed the song then resumed the hunt for the two Skiffs and it was a couple of hours later in the early morning of the 20th of April 2010 that she stumbled upon and captured one of the pirate boats not far from where the initial attack had taken place on board the skiff an additional four Pirates surrendered to French Marines without hesitation whilst more weapons and boarding equipment including ladders and grappling hooks were seized the four Pirates together with the two arrested earlier that night were then moved to be temporarily held on board the Somme although what eventually came of these six Pirates isn't known that said it is almost certain that they were handed over to authorities in one of the East African countries either Seychelles Kenya or Somalia [Music] thank you for watching this video If you enjoyed it please be sure to leave a like And subscribe so that you never miss one of my future videos

Channel: Liveth For Evermore

Views: 706,262

Keywords: British, Military, History, Education, Army, Air Force, Navy, Soldier, Sailor, Airmen, Liveth For Evermore, LFE, Special Forces, French Navy, Somme, Replenishment ship, When Pirates Mistook a Warship for a Cargo Ship, pirates board warship, pirates, pirates attack warship, Operation Atalanta, European Union, somali pirates mess with the wrong ship, French Marines, Foreign Legion, Cargo ship, Pirates Attack French Warship TWICE | October 2009 - April 2010

Id: HmdZVhIjXHY

Length: 5min 45sec (345 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 28 2023