John Paul Jones

John Paul Jones was born in Scotland and made himself an American naval officer. He took the war into British waters when the Continental Navy was a collection of converted merchants and borrowed French ships. On September 23, 1779, commanding Bonhomme Richard, he fought HMS Serapis off Flamborough Head. His own ship was sinking. He refused the British demand to strike.

The traditional reply — that he had not yet begun to fight — was written down later and may be polished. The fact is not: he boarded, he won, and he transferred his flag as Richard went down. Britain learned that the rebellion had a captain who would fight in the North Sea.

After the war he served Russia for a time, a restless man without a fleet of his own. He died in Paris on July 18, 1792. More than a century later the United States brought his remains to Annapolis. The Naval Academy keeps the crypt.

He is on this American roll because he held a Continental commission and spent it on the only navy the country then had.