The bomb ketch was one of several Tripolitan vessels which captured Philadelphia on 31 October 1803 after the American frigate had run fast aground on uncharted Kaliusa reef some five miles (8 km) east of Tripoli.

[2] USS Enterprise, a schooner with Lt. Stephen Decatur in command, captured Mastico on 23 December 1803 as it was sailing from Tripoli to Constantinople under Turkish colors and without passports.

After a time-consuming search for a translator, the ketch's papers and the testimony of an English ship master who had been in Tripoli to witness her role in operations against Philadelphia convinced the commander of the American squadron, Commodore Edward Preble, that Mastico was a legitimate prize.

He appointed Lieutenant Stephen Decatur captain of the ketch on 31 January 1804 and ordered him to prepare her for a month's cruise to Tripoli in company with Syren.

When hailed, they claimed to be traders who had lost their anchor in the late gale, and begged permission to make fast to the frigate till morning.

[3] Leaving a small force commanded by Surgeon Lewis Heermann on board Intrepid, Decatur led 60 of his men to the deck of the frigate.

Decatur, the last man to leave the burning frigate, remained on board Philadelphia until flames blazed from the hatchways and ports of her spar deck.

[6] A week later she began to be fitted out as a "floating volcano" and was to be sent into the harbor and blown up in the midst of the corsair fleet close under the walls of Tripoli.

[7][8] Shortly after Intrepid got underway, Midshipman Joseph Israel arrived with last-minute orders from Commodore Preble and insisted on accompanying the expedition.

Rear Admiral Richard H. Cruzen, veteran of two expeditions to Antarctica, represented the U.S. Navy at the ceremony unveiling the monument to the fallen sailors on 2 April 1949.