FORT PIERCE, Fla. -- It sounded like a single gunshot. From the stern of the USS Bainbridge, three rifles spat simultaneously. On a small boat 30 metres away, three Somali pirates died.
The drama off the east coast of Africa is recalled vividly in a museum here. It began on April 9, 2009, when the pirates tried to hijack the cargo ship Maersk Alabama. They were repulsed but as they fled in the ship's lifeboat they took the captain, Richard Phillips, as a hostage.
U.S. warships sped to the scene but there was little they could do as long as Phillips was a captive. Most of the time they couldn't even see the pirates inside the covered lifeboat.
Then, on April 12, for one brief moment the three pirates came in view. But that moment was enough. Three U.S. Navy SEAL snipers on the stern of the Bainbridge instantly had them in their sights and three shots rang out as one.
Tom Juliano points to a 762 mm Mark 11 sniper rifle on a rack in the Navy SEALS museum here.
"Three rifles just like that took down the pirates," he says.
Then he takes visitors to an orange-painted lifeboat nearby.
"That's the actual lifeboat where the pirates held Captain Phillips," he says. "The Maersk shipping company donated it to the museum."
The Maersk Alabama rescue was the SEALS' most spectacular mission this century, up until the slaying of Osama Bin Laden by SEAL Team 6 last May.
The museum's full name is the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum. UDT stands for Underwater Demolition Teams (the "frogmen"); SEAL is an acronym for Sea, Air and Land units). And while both branches get their fair share of notice, it's the SEAL commandos' exploits that fascinate visitors most.
Juliano, a volunteer guide and former Navy landing craft officer in Vietnam, explains the location of the museum, on the Atlantic shore of North Hutchinson Island, off Fort Pierce.
"This was where men were trained for amphibious operations, beginning in 1943," he says. "We had to train to get men on to the beaches in France and dozens of Pacific Islands in World War II.
"The SEALS really came into their own in Vietnam, with operations in the rivers and jungles. That's where they made a name for themselves."
(Amphibious warfare training moved away from Fort Pierce after the war; it is now centred in San Diego, Calif.)
To anyone who asks why the Maersk Alabama drama hasn't been turned into a movie, guide Juliano has the answer: "We've been told filming will begin in May. Tom Hanks will play Captain Phillips. The Hollywood people have been here to look over the lifeboat."
The museum explains the evolution of naval specialist warfare over nearly 70 years. There are displays of firearms, knives, scuba gear and watercraft, and dioramas, photos and story-boards.
An idea of the units' attitude is written on a photograph of an oil platform destroyed by a SEAL team in the first Persian Gulf war: "To err is human. To forgive is not our policy."
Actress Jane Fonda is pictured, sheet by sheet, on a roll of toilet paper on display, hinting broadly at how she was viewed by the military because of her Vietnam War activities.
Around the grounds, visitors wander among mini-submarines, a helicopter, training craft and speedboats.
MORE INFORMATION
Visit the website navysealmuseum.com. Tourist information on Florida is available at visitflorida.com.
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