In this, the sixth episode of our Great Sea Fights series, we explore the remarkable events of 19 August 1812 when the powerful frigate USS Constitution fought and destroyed the British frigate HMS Guerriere in one of the greatest shocks to the Royal Navy in its history and one of the most ferocious single-ship actions ever fought. It is an extraordinary story: how did the United States get to a stage where not only could they build and maintain ships but compete with – and in the case of this battle triumph over - ships from the world’s largest navy with centuries of shipbuilding expertise and naval tradition. This episode presents two eyewitness accounts - the dispatches written in the immediate aftermath of the battle by the two ships' captains, Captain Isaac Hull of the USS Constitution who described the events in a letter to Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton; and the After Action Report of Captain James Richard Dacres, HMS Guerriere to Vice Admiral Sawyer. It's fascinating to hear how they choose to describe those events.

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