Granted, it's about 2 weeks late, but I finally finished David's birthday present! Here is the Lake Erie battle flag proudly displayed on our lanai! No, I didn't sew it or anything, it just took me that long to find the right pole and get it mounted!
Here is the story of the Battle of Lake Erie (the ships namesake) and DGUTS:
The Battle of Lake Erie
Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's Lake Erie squadron anchored at Put-in-Bay,
Ohio, severed the British supply lines to their sailors, troops and allies
on the Detroit frontier. The commander of the British squadron on Lake
Erie, Commander Robert Heriot Barclay, having been effectively blockaded by
Perry's squadron for five weeks was forced to seek battle.
At daybreak on September 10, Perry's lookout sighted Barclay's
squadron of six vessels northwest of Put-in-Bay, Ohio. Both commanders had
two critical factors to consider: guns and wind. The British squadron
consisted of six ships with sixty-three cannons, while the American flotilla
comprised nine vessels and fifty-four guns. The British were armed with
long guns that could throw a cannonball approximately one mile, accurately
to about one-half mile. The American ships were primarily armed with
carronades. The carronades needed few men, could be loaded and fired
faster, could inflict much more damage at close range but had less than half
the range of the long guns. Perry needed the wind to his back to close
within carronade range.
When the nine American ships sailed from Put-in-Bay at 7:00 a.m.,
the wind advantage was with the British. Perry maneuvered his fleet, but was
unable to gain the weather gauge. Just before 10:00, as he decided to engage
the enemy, the wind suddenly shifted in his favor. The British furled sails,
hove to, and prepared to fight. Just before the battle opened, Perry
hoisted his battle flag to the topmast. It was a large blue banner with the
crudely inscribed words "DONT GIVE UP THE SHIP" - the dying words of his
friend, Captain James Lawrence, killed in battle in June, and for whom
Perry's flagship was named.
Barclay's flagship, DETROIT, fired the first shot at LAWRENCE at
11:45. At 12:30, when Perry opened fire, he thought he had the advantage,
but the Commanding Officer of the U.S. brig NIAGARA mysteriously kept his
ship out of the battle. The now unchallenged QUEEN CHARLOTTE pounded the
LAWRENCE. By 2:30, four of every five men on the LAWRENCE were killed or
wounded; all of her guns on the engaged side were out of action. Collecting
four unwounded men, Perry and his boat crew rowed through a hail of shot to
the undamaged NIAGARA and sailed NIAGRA toward the British line. DETROIT
and QUEEN CHARLOTTE attempting to maneuver into better firing positions,
collided, becoming hopelessly entangled. Perry broke through the British
line, raking the ships on both sides with NIAGARA's heavy guns. The battle
was over in minutes; the British struck their colors.
The victory in one of the biggest naval battles of the War of 1812,
and captured in Perry's famous words penned to Major General William Henry
Harrison, "We have met the enemy and they are ours." gave the American's
control of Lake Erie - control which would not be relinquished for the rest
of the war; control which would enable the American recapture of the
northwest frontier.
