Wikipedia Commons 28 May 2021 Two hundred and forty-five years ago, precursors to America’s nascent special operations forces got off to a rough start. In August 1776, in the warm air of a summer night, two American ships glided silently toward their prey: the British twenty-gun HMS Rose and the forty-four-gun HMS Phoenix, the battleship of its time . Under the cloak of darkness, the unsuspecting British warships lay anchored in the Hudson River north of New York City. “The night was dark and favorable to our design, and the enemy did not perceive our vessels until they were near aboard them,” recalled one Patriot.