Adventures of a Sea Hunter (22 page)

In February 1898, Cuba’s three-year struggle for independence from Spain and fears for American lives and property in Cuba convinced President William McKinley to send the battleship
Maine
to “show the flag.” American interest in Cuba—including demands from various quarters for the outright takeover of the island—dated back half a century, and Spanish officials were highly suspicious of the United States government’s motives in sending the
Maine
to Havana. When
Maine
mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor on the evening of February 15, suspicions of Spanish “treachery,” fanned by the U.S. press, swelled public outrage and led Congress to declare war on April n. Volunteers enlisted around the country, and soon camps were filled with troops training and assembling to sail to Cuba with the slogan: “Remember the
Maine
and to hell with Spain!”

The U.S. Navy dispatched a squadron of ships to hit Spain’s fleet in the Philippines, and another to both blockade Cuba and counter the Spanish naval forces assembled there. But the Americans arrived off Cuba to find an enemy who would not come out to fight. The Spanish fleet lay out of reach of the American ships inside the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, protected by a series of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century forts that Spanish marines and sailors had hastily fortified with more modern breech-loading weapons. They also had protected the narrow entrance to the harbor with “torpedoes,” or mines. The Cape Verde Fleet of the Spanish Navy, under the command of Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete, consisted of four battle cruisers and two torpedo boat destroyers. The U.S. Navy’s North Atlantic Squadron was a force of two battleships, five cruisers and more than a dozen other vessels, commanded by Rear Admiral William T Sampson. Sampson’s forces were augmented by a second group of ships, the Flying Squadron (so-called because it was intended to be a fast-response group of ships that would “fly” to wherever needed), commanded by Commodore Winfield Scott Schley. Schley’s squadron of two battleships, three cruisers and the collier
Merrimac
(laden with coal to fuel the other ships) further stacked the odds against Cervera.

The Spanish admiral, a highly respected veteran, knew all too well that he was in a hopeless situation. Cervera had already resigned as Spain’s Minister of the Marine when his inspections found the Spanish Navy was in poor condition, ill-equipped to fight, and ravaged by political machinations and corruption. When Spain prepared for war against the United States, he returned to uniform out of a sense of duty, but his correspondence with his superiors minced no words when he was ordered to sail to Cuba to try and break the American naval blockade. “It is impossible for me to give you an idea of the surprise and consternation experienced by all on the receipt of the order to sail. Indeed, that surprise is well justified, for nothing can be expected of this expedition except the total destruction of the fleet or its hasty and demoralized return.” His concerns rebuffed, Cervera wrote back: “With a clear conscience I go to the sacrifice.”

To forestall that sacrifice, Cervera kept his fleet in the protected anchorage of Santiago Harbor, his guns pointing at the entrance, because the large American force was too powerful to confront. The guns protecting Cervera and the threat of mines kept the Americans out, but to prevent the Spanish fleet from slipping away under cover of darkness, Sampson decided to “bottle them up” in the harbor. To do that, he turned to a young and eager engineering officer and to the most untrustworthy ship in his fleet, the collier
Merrimac.

Merrimac
, a four-year-old, British-built collier, was one of Schley’s Flying Squadron, though the 333-foot vessel had slowed the fleet to a slow crawl across the ocean. Plagued with engine and steering problems,
Merrimac
probably would have been sent home had it not been loaded with coal.
Merrimac’s
crew fueled Schley’s ships by filling bags with coal, hoisting them on deck and then slinging them over to whatever warship was moored alongside. It was hard, dirty work, not only for the stokers in
Merrimac’s
holds but also the receiving ship, as the thick black coal dust clung to everyone and everything.

Sampson picked the unreliable
Merrimac
to trap the Spanish fleet in the harbor by sinking herself to block the narrow entrance. On May 30, as the American fleet assembled off Santiago, Sampson ordered

Inside El Castillo del Morro de San Pedro de la Roca, also known as El Morro, built in the early seventeenth century to defend Santiago de Cuba. Below these ramparts steamed the collier
Merrimac
in a brave but failed attempt to block the harbor entrance. James P. Delgado

Commodore Schley to prepare
Merrimac
for the mission. Schley disagreed with Sampson. He argued that if the Spanish were trapped inside Santiago Harbor, their guns would help to defend the city against the American troops preparing to march overland to seize Santiago. Schley thought it would be better to lure Cervera out of the protected harbor and destroy him, but Sampson reiterated his orders to use “the promptest and most efficient use of every means” and sent a bright but untested twenty-seven-year-old lieutenant, naval constructor Richmond Pearson Hobson, to ready
Merrimac
for the suicide mission.

Hobson, who was attached to Sampson’s staff to make observations on how well the ships performed after recent work in the Navy Yard (that’s what a naval constructor did), was vain, stubborn and eager to prove himself. He was also very unpopular with his fellow officers.
But he was brilliant, and his enthusiasm made him a perfect choice for Sampson. Hobson’s plan was to strip
Merrimac
of “useful gear” and to rig her to sink quickly with charges once she was in position immediately inside the harbor entrance. There, if the charts were accurate, the 333-foot length of the ship would block much of the narrow channel.

Hobson set ten charges along
Merrimac’s
hull and connected them to electric batteries linked by wire to a central station on the bridge. Crews worked in the hot Cuban sun to grease the seacocks (valves in the engine room) so that they would open quickly to help flood the ship, and “all openings, hatches, manhole covers, etc. were opened.” Hobson had the anchors rigged at the bow and stern, near the waterline, to swing the ship hard to starboard at the last moment to position her across the channel. As Hobson later explained: “The general plan contemplated a minimum crew of volunteers … with the simplest form of duty for each… The anchors were to be slung over the sides and held by simple lashings, ready to be cut with an ax, a man stationed at each anchor.” Only two men were to stay below, one in the engine room and one in the boiler room. One man was to take the wheel and one was to assist with the torpedoes, making in all a crew of six. That was not enough, and another man was added.

Hobson selected his crew from hundreds of volunteers from the fleet. Seven men—Randolph Clausen, George Charette, Osborn Deignan, Francis Kelly, Daniel Montague, John Murphy and George Phillips—joined
Merrimac
as final preparations were made for an early morning run into the harbor on June 3, 1898.

Merrimac’s
last trip started at 3 a.m. Fortunately for Hobson, darkness cloaked the collier and the Spanish sentries at El Morro did not spot the ship until she was just 2,000 yards from the harbor entrance. The forts and batteries opened fire. Associated Press reporter “Chappie” Goode, watching from
USS
New York
, reported: “In a few seconds the mouth of Santiago Harbor was livid with flames that shot viciously from both banks … the dull sound of the carronade and its fiery light were unmistakable evidences of the fierce attack that was being waged on Hobson’s gallant crew.” Captain Robley “Fighting Bob”
Evans, observing from the bridge of the battleship
Iowa
, said, “It looks like Hell with the lid off!”

Hobson and his crew, stripped to their underwear to make it easier to swim away when the ship sank, crouched down as shell after shell hit
Merrimac.
Hobson later wrote: “The striking of projectiles and flying fragments produced a grinding sound, with the fine ring in it of steel on steel. The deck vibrated heavily, and we felt the full effect, lying, as it were, full-length on our faces. At each instant it seemed that certainly the next would bring a projectile among us … I looked for my own body to be cut in two diagonally, from the hip upward, and wondered for a moment what the sensation would be.”

As
Merrimac
entered the channel, Hobson found that he could not steer the ship. “Our steering gear was gone, shot away at the last moment, and we were charging straight down the channel.” Then, as they neared their planned position to scuttle the ship, most of the explosive charges failed to detonate. Only two out of the ten exploded. Damaged but still afloat, and now ablaze,
Merrimac
drifted deeper into the harbor and directly into the line of fire of Cervera’s ships and a gun battery on the shore. More shells tore into the collier’s hull. Then came “a blasting shock, a lift, a pull, a series of vibrations, and a mine exploded directly beneath.”

The last blast stopped the ship, and she began “steadily sinking two thirds athwart.”
Merrimac
, stuck at one side of the channel, burned fiercely as the wind whipped through the torn hull and decks to fan the coal in the hold into a blast furnace. The steel decks began to soften and twist in the heat. “The
Merrimac
gave a premonitory lurch, then staggered to port in a death-throe,” said Hobson. “The bow almost fell, it sank so rapidly… the stricken vessel now reeled to port… and plunged forward. The stern rose and heeled heavily; it stood for a moment, shuddering, and then started downward, righting as it went.”

Incredibly, not one member of Hobson’s crew was killed or even seriously injured. Two men were cut by shrapnel, but not badly. As
Merrimac
slipped away beneath them, the eight Americans found themselves in the water. A raft from the wreck washed by, and they
grabbed its ropes and clung alongside, hiding from the bullets of Spanish soldiers and marines until the gunfire died away. At daybreak, a steam launch approached, searching for survivors. It was the personal craft of Admiral Cervera, who had insisted on an inspection of the sunken ship. Hobson and his seven men were pulled from the water at Cervera’s order. The Spanish admiral turned to Hobson and spoke one word:
“Valiente!”

It was a valiant but a failed mission. Hobson was disheartened, admitting
Merrimac
“did not completely block the channel,” because at the end the current had swung the ship from its sideways position and straightened her out. Ships could steam past the wreck. But while Hobson and his crew had not succeeded, their bravery inspired more than Admiral Cervera. That afternoon, Cervera sent a launch out to the American fleet, under a flag of truce, to inform Sampson that his men had survived. The news cheered the American sailors, while correspondents filed reports for the papers back home praising the “gallant Hobson” and
Merrimac’s
crew.

The eight Americans, meanwhile, remained prisoners of Spain, lodged in cells in the imposing fortress of El Morro. From his cell, Hobson could look out each day and see the masts
of Merrimac
sticking up in the water. He and the crew also watched from their cells when the U.S. fleet bombarded El Morro to weaken Spanish defenses while American troops waded ashore several miles south at Daiquiri and Siboney. Since the Spanish Navy had not been neutralized or defeated, the key to American victory was to seize Santiago by land. Troops pushed inland, joining Cuban rebels as they advanced towards the old city. Tropical disease, heat and tough Spanish resistance slowed the American advance, but finally, the outer defenses of Santiago were breached.

The breakthrough occurred on the city’s outskirts at two small forts atop Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill, where the volunteer regiment of Rough Riders fought their way to victory. They were led into battle by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt after the regiment’s commanding officer, Leonard Wood, was wounded. This was the beginning of a new phase of Roosevelt’s life that would catapult him into the White House within
a few years. It was also the death knell for Spain’s empire in the Americas, which had been whittled down to just Cuba and Puerto Rico.

That death knell also resounded on the sea. On July 3, Cervera ordered his fleet to leave Santiago and make for the high seas. He hoped to outrun the Americans, whom he could not outgun, but the waiting U.S. fleet opened fire. Over the next few hours, one by one, the Spanish ships died. All were sunk, some dying in massive explosions as their magazines erupted, while others, torn by shot and shell and on fire, steamed for the rocky shore where their crews beached them rather than go down in deeper water where the sailors had less of a chance of surviving. Cuban rebels on the shore fired on Spanish sailors struggling in the surf, as sharks circled and ripped into the wounded men.

The victorious Americans treated the Spanish wounded, including Admiral Cervera, and accorded them the same chivalry that the Spaniards had granted to Hobson and his men. The war ended with the Spanish surrender outside of Santiago. Surprisingly, the victorious Americans did not invite their Cuban allies—in a war ostensibly fought for Cuban independence—to attend the negotiations or the surrender. Instead, the United States assumed control of Cuba, governing the island until 1903 and leaving only after writing a Cuban constitution that granted the U.S. the right to militarily intervene in Cuban affairs and a perpetual lease to Guantanamo Bay for a naval base. The seeds of Cuban discontent and a future revolution were thus sown.