Effort under way to bring back U.S. sailors buried in Libya

More than 200 years ago, they were hailed as heroes.

Navy Master Commandant Richard Somers and a dozen volunteer crewmen sailed an explosives-laden Intrepid toward an anchored pirate fleet in the harbor of Tripoli, Libya.

The ship blew up before completing its 1804 mission, killing all aboard, and the sailors' remains were recovered and buried there.

They were never brought home.

But the death last week of ousted Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi has given fresh impetus to local efforts to repatriate Somers, a Somers Point, N.J., native and former University of Pennsylvania student, along with his crew.

An amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act calling on the defense secretary to "take whatever steps may be necessary" to return the remains overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives in June. It's now before the Senate, and if passed could help speed the process.

The effort follows two 2004 New Jersey Assembly resolutions that sought the same outcome.

"We have members of our military lying in a faraway country," said Jack Glasser, the mayor of Somers Point, who is a veteran and retired police captain. "We just want to bring the crew home; it's time."

Glasser has been working on the return with U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R., N.J.), who cosponsored the congressional measure, and Dean Somers, a distant relative of Richard Somers' who lives in Galloway Township.

Generations of the Somers family have tried, along with state and federal legislators and officials, to gain Libya's permission for the repatriation - with no success.

"I think we have an opportunity," said Dean Somers, 66. "I am hoping [the Libyans] get a better leader than they had before, someone more friendly to the U.S. This is the closest we've been in 200 years."

That feeling may be strongest in Somers Point. The Atlantic County town was named after the naval hero's great-grandfather, and residents there hold a Richard Somers Day celebration every September.

The daring attempt to destroy the pirate fleet by Somers and his crew - like early Navy SEALs on a secret mission - captured the imagination of Americans. The explosion, the cause of which is unknown, foiled the mission.

Six Navy ships have been successively named the Somers.