Prison ship ships at sea, claiming legal authority to do so. In 2009 the US Navy converted the main deck aboard the supply ship into a brig to hold pirates captured off the coast of Somalia until they could be transferred to Kenya for prosecution. The brig was capable of holding up to twenty-six prisoners and was operated by a detachment of Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Charles Dickens' novel "Great Expectations" opens in 1812 with the escape of the convict Abel Magwitch from a hulk moored in the Thames Estuary. In fact, the prison ships were largely moored off
Cedric Charles Dickens the Caribbean by banana boat, Dickens joined the British Tabulating Machine Company in 1937. Dickens joined the RNVR on the outbreak of World War II in 1939, leaving the Royal Navy in 1946 as a First Lieutenant. While serving in Portsmouth he met his wife Elizabeth Mary Blake (1913–2008), who was serving as a WREN, and whom he married in 1948. After leaving the Royal Navy, Dickens returned to his old firm, which eventually became ICL, and where he became Director of Communication. He was a lifelong supporter of the Charles Dickens Museum in Holborn. He was twice President of