US captain Richard Phillips gave up hope of escaping pirates alive

Captain Richard Phillips is reunited with his family upon returning to Burlington, Vermont (Herb Swanson/Reuters)

The U.S. ship captain who was taken hostage by gun-toting Somali pirates said in excerpts of a TV interview released on Friday he did not think he would live through his captivity on a lifeboat set adrift.

Richard Phillips, captain of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama, in an interview on NBC's "Today" credited the U.S. Navy, which shot dead three of the pirates, for saving him.

"I didn't think I'd ever get out of that boat," Phillips said. "These SEALs and the Navy did an impossible job. They're unbelievable people. We really owe it to the military for what they do day-in and day-out that we never even hear about."

Phillips, 53, was held in a lifeboat on the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia for five days earlier this month after pirates boarded the Maersk Alabama in a takeover bid.

The captain volunteered to go with the pirates in exchange for saving the lives of his crew, and he and his captors set off toward Somalia in a lifeboat before running out of fuel.

Snipers who were members of the Navy SEALs - sea, air, land specialists trained in unconventional warfare - were placed on a Navy ship tracking the lifeboat. They later shot the pirates dead, saving Phillips from his ordeal.

Phillips was asked if, while he was held captive, he had thought about his wife and family back home in Vermont and whether thinking about them was comforting or painful.

"It was just settling everything," Phillips said. "Getting ready to die and just settling everything. You know, saying my last thoughts. Andrea (his wife), the kids."

Phillips at one point tried to escape by jumping overboard and swimming, but he was hauled back onto the lifeboat. After that, he said, the pirates grew far more wary.

"I was in deep trouble from day one, so it didn't change for me. The atmosphere, the body language, yes, things changed from that point on," he said. "There was always a gun on me."

The interview is to air on Tuesday.

Reporting by Bob Tourtellotte and Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES, April 24 (Reuters) -