‘He may be Captain Phillips …but I’m the admiral at home’
It was a farewell like any other. The night before her merchant sea captain husband flew to the Middle East for his latest job, Andrea Phillips dined with him at their favourite restaurant, where they ate seafood and drank red wine. The following day she drove him to the airport. ‘The only difference was that I didn’t wait with Richard at the airport, as I normally do,’ says Andrea.
‘I had to work, so I just dropped him off and we said our goodbyes at the kerbside.’
It seems an almost paltry detail. But this unusually brief goodbye has clearly preyed on both their minds since. For within 10 days, Richard would be the hostage of armed Somali pirates, and Andrea’s life would be in turmoil.
Captain Phillips’s ordeal is now the subject of a critically acclaimed Hollywood film. With Tom Hanks playing Phillips, it tells the harrowing true story of the hijacking of the MV Maersk Alabama as it sailed between Oman and Kenya.
The Alabama, a container ship with a crew of 20, was boarded by four Somali pirates on 8 April 2009. The raid was ultimately botched, but the pirates made their getaway in the ship’s covered lifeboat – and they took Captain Phillips with them. What followed was five days of terrifying high-seas drama.
But while the film shines a light on Captain Phillips’s nightmare experience, it doesn’t tell how his wife coped, back home in the quiet suburbs of Vermont. Nor, of course, does it reveal what it’s like, as a down-toearth nurse and mother of two, to have your husband of 22 years played on the big screen by an Oscar-winning Hollywood superstar.
Andrea comes over as immediately likeable, level-headed – and strictly no-nonsense. ‘I have often told Richard that he has his ship, and I have mine,’ she says. ‘He may be the captain, but at home, I’m the admiral.’
But nothing could have prepared her for what was about to unfold. While they had talked about the growing threat of piracy – 36 vessels were boarded in the first quarter of 2009 – it was something Andrea had put out of her mind. ‘I knew the other dangers,’ she says. ‘Richard had been involved in horrible ordeals at sea before. But when it came to pirates, part of me thought, “They would never attack an American ship.” It was the “I’m an American, you can’t hurt me” thing.
‘But then you can’t dwell on whatifs. As an emergency-room nurse I know that things can happen. It’s something you don’t control. You just hope for the best and go from there.’
Besides, Richard’s messages from the Alabama were fairly typical. ‘Although I do remember one email, a few days before the incident,’ she says. ‘He wrote a brief line at the bottom: “The pirates are getting restless.”’
It was a harbinger of things to come.
Andrea was asleep when the Alabama was boarded at 7.30am on 8 April – Richard was eight hours ahead – but found out when she awoke the next morning.
She had been ill with flu and her sister, Lea, was at the house to look after her. ‘It was early when the phone rang,’ Andrea recalls. ‘It was our neighbour, Mike Willard, who lives nearby and is also in merchant marine. I thought it was strange that he was calling so early, but then he asked me the name of Richard’s ship and I knew something had happened.’
Mike went straight over to Andrea’s house and they turned on the television, the only source of news about the hijacking at that time. Andrea also sent an email to Richard: ‘Richard – I am aware of what is going on. I am with you all the way. Keeping the faith… I love you with all my heart. Love, Andrea.’
‘I don’t know if he ever got that email,’ she continues. ‘But soon the media were everywhere. I had never wanted to go on TV, and I hate the question, “How does that make you feel?” I was avoiding having to talk about it as much as I could. At one point there were three or four satellite vans outside the house and we live on a small country road…
‘Sometimes I jokingly say to Richard, “You had four pirates, but I had all the media”. It was very stressful because you think, “you’re in my house; am I supposed to feed you?”’
Andrea didn’t panic, however. She took great solace from the stoicism of their two children, Daniel and Mariah, and knew that the pirates rarely killed their hostages – they want the ransoms, after all.
But things took a turn for the worse when news broke that the pirates had taken Richard on to the lifeboat. The Alabama and the rest of the crew were now safe, but Andrea’s husband was alone with four frantic gunmen.
‘My friend Amber visited and every morning we talked about what I’d do if it didn’t end well. That would be the one time I would cry – and Amber would wipe away the tears. I didn’t want to cry in front of other people.’
She also prayed. ‘Why am I asking you?’ she would say to God. ‘You know I’m something of a heathen.’
But it seems her prayers were answered. ‘I woke up very early on Easter Sunday. I thought I’d heard Richard’s voice. It was kind of spooky – but it was him telling me he was OK.
‘I asked Alison [one of the representatives Maersk sent to help] to go to our local church and try to get a congregation. I thought maybe we could send some positive energy. I don’t know. It was kind of far-fetched.
‘But later, Jonathan [another of the Maersk staff] came in and said, “You have to listen to this,” and he put his phone on the kitchen table and I could hear our favourite priest chanting “God is good. All the time”. And as I was listening, I looked out of the window and it started snowing. Snow is rare at that time of year so I had this overwhelming feeling that Richard was OK. I just broke down in tears. Not long after, I turned on the TV and there was the ticker-tape reading: “Captain Richard Phillips freed”.
‘That was how I found out. I just think everyone must have been highfiving each other and nobody thought to call the wife.’
Richard had been rescued by a daring Navy SEALs operation, which left three of the pirates dead and one in custody. He was injured and traumatised, but by 3pm US time, he was on the phone to Andrea.
‘Is your husband home?’ he joked.
‘No,’ Andrea replied.
‘Good. I’ll be right over.’
The following Friday he flew home and Andrea and Richard began to put their lives back together. Things would certainly be different. After all, it’s not every day you get to meet the President (who commended Richard for his selflessness and courage) and have Tom Hanks popping round.
‘Tom is a funny guy. He is who he is,’ recalls Andrea. ‘We were all just sitting at the kitchen table, talking daily stuff. We have met some incredible people during the journey we have gone through.’
And what about the film? Was she worried about reliving her husband’s experiences?
‘Well, I thought that it might be quite tough to watch, but then I’ve got the real thing sitting next to me… and he’s OK.’
A Captain’s Duty by Richard Phillips with Stephen Taly (Bantam Press, £6.99).
‘I had to work, so I just dropped him off and we said our goodbyes at the kerbside.’
It seems an almost paltry detail. But this unusually brief goodbye has clearly preyed on both their minds since. For within 10 days, Richard would be the hostage of armed Somali pirates, and Andrea’s life would be in turmoil.
Captain Phillips’s ordeal is now the subject of a critically acclaimed Hollywood film. With Tom Hanks playing Phillips, it tells the harrowing true story of the hijacking of the MV Maersk Alabama as it sailed between Oman and Kenya.
The Alabama, a container ship with a crew of 20, was boarded by four Somali pirates on 8 April 2009. The raid was ultimately botched, but the pirates made their getaway in the ship’s covered lifeboat – and they took Captain Phillips with them. What followed was five days of terrifying high-seas drama.
But while the film shines a light on Captain Phillips’s nightmare experience, it doesn’t tell how his wife coped, back home in the quiet suburbs of Vermont. Nor, of course, does it reveal what it’s like, as a down-toearth nurse and mother of two, to have your husband of 22 years played on the big screen by an Oscar-winning Hollywood superstar.
Andrea comes over as immediately likeable, level-headed – and strictly no-nonsense. ‘I have often told Richard that he has his ship, and I have mine,’ she says. ‘He may be the captain, but at home, I’m the admiral.’
But nothing could have prepared her for what was about to unfold. While they had talked about the growing threat of piracy – 36 vessels were boarded in the first quarter of 2009 – it was something Andrea had put out of her mind. ‘I knew the other dangers,’ she says. ‘Richard had been involved in horrible ordeals at sea before. But when it came to pirates, part of me thought, “They would never attack an American ship.” It was the “I’m an American, you can’t hurt me” thing.
‘But then you can’t dwell on whatifs. As an emergency-room nurse I know that things can happen. It’s something you don’t control. You just hope for the best and go from there.’
Besides, Richard’s messages from the Alabama were fairly typical. ‘Although I do remember one email, a few days before the incident,’ she says. ‘He wrote a brief line at the bottom: “The pirates are getting restless.”’
It was a harbinger of things to come.
Andrea was asleep when the Alabama was boarded at 7.30am on 8 April – Richard was eight hours ahead – but found out when she awoke the next morning.
She had been ill with flu and her sister, Lea, was at the house to look after her. ‘It was early when the phone rang,’ Andrea recalls. ‘It was our neighbour, Mike Willard, who lives nearby and is also in merchant marine. I thought it was strange that he was calling so early, but then he asked me the name of Richard’s ship and I knew something had happened.’
Mike went straight over to Andrea’s house and they turned on the television, the only source of news about the hijacking at that time. Andrea also sent an email to Richard: ‘Richard – I am aware of what is going on. I am with you all the way. Keeping the faith… I love you with all my heart. Love, Andrea.’
‘I don’t know if he ever got that email,’ she continues. ‘But soon the media were everywhere. I had never wanted to go on TV, and I hate the question, “How does that make you feel?” I was avoiding having to talk about it as much as I could. At one point there were three or four satellite vans outside the house and we live on a small country road…
‘Sometimes I jokingly say to Richard, “You had four pirates, but I had all the media”. It was very stressful because you think, “you’re in my house; am I supposed to feed you?”’
Andrea didn’t panic, however. She took great solace from the stoicism of their two children, Daniel and Mariah, and knew that the pirates rarely killed their hostages – they want the ransoms, after all.
But things took a turn for the worse when news broke that the pirates had taken Richard on to the lifeboat. The Alabama and the rest of the crew were now safe, but Andrea’s husband was alone with four frantic gunmen.
‘My friend Amber visited and every morning we talked about what I’d do if it didn’t end well. That would be the one time I would cry – and Amber would wipe away the tears. I didn’t want to cry in front of other people.’
She also prayed. ‘Why am I asking you?’ she would say to God. ‘You know I’m something of a heathen.’
But it seems her prayers were answered. ‘I woke up very early on Easter Sunday. I thought I’d heard Richard’s voice. It was kind of spooky – but it was him telling me he was OK.
‘I asked Alison [one of the representatives Maersk sent to help] to go to our local church and try to get a congregation. I thought maybe we could send some positive energy. I don’t know. It was kind of far-fetched.
‘But later, Jonathan [another of the Maersk staff] came in and said, “You have to listen to this,” and he put his phone on the kitchen table and I could hear our favourite priest chanting “God is good. All the time”. And as I was listening, I looked out of the window and it started snowing. Snow is rare at that time of year so I had this overwhelming feeling that Richard was OK. I just broke down in tears. Not long after, I turned on the TV and there was the ticker-tape reading: “Captain Richard Phillips freed”.
‘That was how I found out. I just think everyone must have been highfiving each other and nobody thought to call the wife.’
Richard had been rescued by a daring Navy SEALs operation, which left three of the pirates dead and one in custody. He was injured and traumatised, but by 3pm US time, he was on the phone to Andrea.
‘Is your husband home?’ he joked.
‘No,’ Andrea replied.
‘Good. I’ll be right over.’
The following Friday he flew home and Andrea and Richard began to put their lives back together. Things would certainly be different. After all, it’s not every day you get to meet the President (who commended Richard for his selflessness and courage) and have Tom Hanks popping round.
‘Tom is a funny guy. He is who he is,’ recalls Andrea. ‘We were all just sitting at the kitchen table, talking daily stuff. We have met some incredible people during the journey we have gone through.’
And what about the film? Was she worried about reliving her husband’s experiences?
‘Well, I thought that it might be quite tough to watch, but then I’ve got the real thing sitting next to me… and he’s OK.’
A Captain’s Duty by Richard Phillips with Stephen Taly (Bantam Press, £6.99).
Story of a hijacking
- 28 March 2009 Captain Phillips says goodbye to his wife and flies to Oman to join his ship, the MV Maersk Alabama.
- 1 April The Alabama leaves Salalah, Oman, bound for Mombasa, Kenya.
- 5 April The Alabama evades an initial pirate assault.
- 8 April Four pirates successfully board the vessel, but they fail to take control of the ship and escape in a lifeboat with Captain Phillips as a hostage.
- 9 April US warship USS Bainbridge intercepts the lifeboat. A stand-off develops.
- 12 April One pirate goes aboard the Bainbridge to negotiate an end to the hostage crisis. US Navy SEAL snipers successfully kill the three remaining pirates in the lifeboat, rescuing Captain Phillips. The fourth is arrested aboard the Bainbridge.