USS Bainbridge (DDG-96)

A Flight IIA version Burke-class destroyer of the United States Navy, the USS Bainbridge (DDG-96), is, in April 2009, assigned to Task Force 151 in the waters off Somalia, under Commander Frank X. Castellano. She was the first warship to come to the hijacked SS Maersk Alabama.



She is named for Commodore William Bainbridge, who, in 1800, commanded a U.S. squadron sent against pirates. His first assignment, however, was to buy off the pirates by presenting tribute to the Dey of Algiers. Subsequently, however, he fought pirates in the Mediterranean during the Barbary Wars.