America had a a very small navy during the Revolutionary War, so it had very few naval hero's. One naval hero it did have, however, was John Paul Jones. Jones has become known as "The Father of the American Navy" and is reported to have uttered the famous words, "I have not yet begun to fight." Although he enjoyed many successes over his career, one of his most daring exploits was his raid of the British town of Whitehaven.

After receiving command of a small 18 gun frigate called the Ranger, Jones led his crew in a series of attacks on British shipping near the coast of Ireland. When these attacks proved successful, Jones his men to agree to an attack on a British port city. It was in the city of Whitehaven that Jones had enlisted in the British navy as a young teenager, so he was familiar with the town and chose it as his target. The first attempt at a raid had to be abandoned because of contrary winds, but Jones returned on April 23, 1778.

This time, conditions favored an attack so he personally led a raid on the Whitehaven with fifteen men in two boats. The raid began shortly after midnight. Jones hoped to burn all of Whitehaven's 200 to 400 ships as they sat in port. He also wanted to set fires around the city to terrify the local population. Unfortunately, the boats took met difficult winds which prevented the boats from making it to shore as quickly as anticipated.

The plan had to change when the Americans could not set fires because their lanterns had run out of fuel. It was determined that some of the men should go raid a local pub for fuel while another group disabled the town's defensive guns. The guns were rendered inoperable, but the group sent to procure fuel for the fires stopped to have a drink and wasted valuable time. By this time, dawn was approaching, so the raiding party decided to concentrate on setting fire to a single vessel, the coal ship Thompson. The Americans hoped that setting this ship on fire would create a large enough fire that it would catch some of the other ships alight as well.

The raid had to come to an early close, however, when a member of the crew managed to get away from the raiding party and warn the town. Someone rang the towns fire alarm and the Americans were forced to retreat. They made it back to the Ranger safely, however, thanks to their success at neutralizing the town's defensive guns.

Although the raid was not a success, it proved a significant blow to the morale of the British people. Fearing that more raids were in the future, they poured precious resources in defending their coast. Without the raid, they might have put those resources somewhere else, like America. If those troops had made a difference, American history might have been very different.