PUT-IN-BAY, Ohio (AP) – Two hundred years later, Americans didn’t give up the ships and again won on the waters of Lake Erie.
A fleet of tall ships on Monday re-enacted the Battle of Lake Erie, two centuries after the U.S.-British clash considered a turning point in the War of 1812.
Perry’s victorious message — “We have met the enemy and he is ours” — is one of the most famous quotes in US military history.
Fifteen ships took part in the celebration of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s capture of a British fleet near Put-In-Bay.
Technology, however, changed things a little bit on Monday. The Port Clinton News-Herald reports Perry’s re-enactor didn’t switch ships using a longboat, he used a motorboat, while helicopters and airplanes circled overhead and law enforcement and U.S. Coast Guard vessels patrolled the waters.
This time around, people took pictures of the battle — many with cellphone cameras.