DGUTS!!

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.