Cedrun recounts his crew’s role in Captain Phillips’ rescue

An informative and entertaining account of the real story behind the 2009 rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips was presented by one of the operation’s key leaders in Rancho Bernardo on Tuesday.

Retired Navy Capt. Mark Cedrun commanded the U.S.S. Boxer during the rescue operation and subsequent events spanning April 8 to 16, 2009. Phillips’ rescue from Somali pirates was featured in the 2013 film “Captain Phillips” that featured Tom Hanks in the title role. It was based on the 2010 book “A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs and Dangerous Days at Sea” by Phillips and Stephan Talty.

Cedrun spoke at the Conservative Order for Good Government luncheon, which had many military veterans in the audience on Veterans Day.

Cedrun, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who recently retired after a 30-year military career, explained the rescue operation and events immediately following, the latter not shown in the movie, he said.

The U.S.S. Boxer, which Cedrun commanded, was part of a West Coast-based amphibious ready group that left in January 2009 on what was supposed to be a routine six-month deployment. The mission included deterring and disrupting piracy in the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Red Sea, something at least 46 countries were trying to do in the region. The United States was part of a task force that included the United Kingdom, Denmark and Turkey.

At that time Somali pirates — many of whom were teenagers — were trying to capture merchant and cargo vessels in order to hold the crews for ransom. The teens were recruited from coastal Somali villages by crime lords because of the extreme poverty in the region, Cedrun said. The crime lords provided the pirates with a boat, fuel, food, weapons, ammunition, tools, communications equipment and narcotics and promised that, if successful, they would also receive part of the ransom money obtained from cargo companies wanting their crews safely returned.

On April 8, 2009, the civilian container ship Maersk Alabama, sailing in the Indian Ocean and 240 miles off the coast of Somalia, came under attack. It became the first successful pirate seizure of a ship registered under the American flag since the early 1800s, Cedrun said. It was also the sixth vessel in a week to be attacked by pirates who had previously extorted ransoms in the tens of millions of dollars.

As the attack unfolded, Cedrun said Phillips ordered his crew members below and to shut down the Maersk Alabama in an attempt to save them. When the pirates boarded they lost their vessel in the process. The U.S.S. Bainbridge was the closest to the Maersk Alabama for the rescue attempt. With the assistance of various agencies, the Bainbridge’s commanding officer began negotiations with the pirates to free the crew.

Once the pirates agreed to leave the ship via a Maersk Alabama lifeboat, Phillips had to show them how to use it and in the process ended up stuck on board. The Bainbridge had to then do many maneuvers to keep the lifeboat from getting within 12 nautical miles of the Somali coast since that was sovereign area and would mean safe haven for the pirates, Cedrun said.

In the meantime, the Boxer was more than 500 miles away in the Gulf of Aden and it was tasked with getting 200 Navy SEALs and their equipment on board after they parachuted out of a C-17, which could not land due to the size of the Boxer’s flight deck. As the Boxer neared the lifeboat, Cedrun said it had to stay out of sight lest the pirates notice the ship and the SEALs’ mission would be compromised.

Cedrun said many deserve credit for the successful rescue of Phillips, including the Boxer’s boatswain mates, many of whom were 19- and 20-year-olds who had to be creative in rigging up a crane to get the SEALs’ equipment on board.

“They were a great crew,” he said.

During the rescue mission the pirates almost killed Phillips, but he was saved when the SEALs killed three of the pirates. The fourth, Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, had a hand injury that occurred aboard the Maersk Alabama and was captured.

Phillips and Muse were taken aboard the Boxer for medical treatment and Cedrun said Phillips was “a very gracious man. It was a pleasure having him on board.”

While the movie stops with Phillips’ rescue, Cedrun said there were many other incidents that followed the five-day hostage situation.

The lifeboat was placed on the Boxer in order for evidence to be collected. Three Marines were assigned to guard Muse in detention until he could be flown to New York where he would go to trial.

While Cedrun said he was prepared to bury the three dead pirates at sea, he was told not to, which created an almost comical set of circumstances over the next few days. The pirates were put in the ship’s morgue as the Boxer headed into port. But then word came that it would not be allowed to pull into port because it had foreign nationals aboard — even though they were dead — so the delay meant the morgue had to be made into a freezer. Then it was learned the pirates’ families wanted the bodies back so Cedrun had to get his crew to put them into caskets so they could be taken off via helicopter.

On April 16, Phillips was reunited with his crew in Mombasa, Kenya, and a few days later the Maersk Alabama departed for the United States. When it left, it rendered honors for the U.S.S. Boxer, the first time Cedrun said he had seen a civilian vessel do that.