Approaching Guantanamo we saw, hull down ahead of us, a great ship evidently traveling at a high rate of speed. She rapidly grew larger, heading straight for us. Our turrets, those that could bear, were swung around until the heavy guns pointed directly at her. Then, in plain view of us, she mastheaded her flag. It was the Spanish flag, red and gold. She appeared to be training her guns on us; the fire control party in our fighting top commenced sending down ranges and deflections; the gunnery officer, on pins and needles, fidgeted; the bugler, his instrument poised, waited for the word to sound, “Commence firing”. All of us, our fingers crossed, waited for the blast of fire from the black muzzles of the guns frowning across the rapidly narrowing water between the two ships.
Then, just as the tension had become unbearable, Captain Taylor said sharply, “Look at that flag!” As he spoke, the sun, coming from behind a cloud, shone directly on the banner at her masthead. The flag wasn’t red and gold; it was red and WHITE. She wasn’t Spanish; she was Austrian. Luckily for her the flag she flew was a new one and the white in it wasn’t discolored.
She sent a boarding officer to us; he arrived wearing his cocked hat and epaulets and gazed in amazement at the condition of our ship and our half-naked crew. He was told that the Spanish Squadron had been destroyed and showed polite incredulity; he asked permission for his ship to enter Santiago Harbor to remove any Austrians in the city; he was referred to the New York and Admiral Sampson. The moment his boat was clear of our side we headed back to where we could see the Teresa and the Oquendo burning on the beach.
The only ships nearby, apart from the auxiliaries, were the Iowa and the yacht Gloucester and we could see boats busily running back and forth between them and the grounded Spaniards. As quickly as possible we got three of our boats in the water to help in the rescue work. I was in command of one of them.
As we approached we could see that the Spanish ships were burning as fiercely as ever and the men who were still on board and who were still alive were crowded up in the bows where a series of splashes showed that they were jumping overboard and endeavoring to swim ashore through the surf. We passed perhaps twenty bodies floating in the water, some close at hand, others drifting out to sea with the tide which had started to ebb. I remember one body particularly; the chest seemed to be tremendously expanded. It reminded me of a Brady picture of the Civil War called “The High Water Mark of the Confederacy”. It was taken at Gettysburg and showed the body of a Southern soldier who had fallen well in advance of his comrades. His chest was expanded in the same way, as though by a supreme effort.
Some of the bodies were not resting quietly on the water; they were twitching restlessly but would quiet down as our boats approached. They were being attacked by sharks or other fish.
The Spanish boats had a few head of live cattle on board. These poor creatures were being burned alive when a classmate of mine, Charles Freeman, did a very gallant thing. He had charge of one of the rescue boats and, seeing the animals in the midst of the flames, he climbed the side of the burning Teresa and shot the unfortunate things with his revolver, this at imminent peril to himself. [The only recognition he ever received for this gallant and humane act was to be kidded about it by the humorists putting out our Lucky Bag who laughed at him for “running an abattoir on the Maria Teresa”.]
By this time we were quite close to the beach, just outside the surf. We could see a number of bodies lying on the sand but it was impossible to say whether they were living or dead. Then we saw something else. Out of the jungle fringing the shore appeared a group of men. We couldn’t tell whether they were soldiers or guerrillas or just plain bandits. They looked like tramps but they all had rifles and they had bandoleers of cartridges slung across their shoulders. They leisurely formed a ragged line, filled the magazines of their rifles, and then commenced shooting at the naked, half-drowned Spanish sailors who were struggling in the surf. A number of them sought “natural rests” (fallen trees, etc.) for their rifles to make their aim steadier.
There were several American boats in the vicinity. I don’t think anybody gave an order but they all headed for the beach. Apart from the officers’ swords and revolvers these boats seemed to be without arms for, as they grounded and the crews jumped ashore, none of the men had weapons. However, every man had an oar, a boathook or a wooden stretcher.
[Once, many years later, I saw a dog run at a cat. The cat must have been owned by a family who also owned a dog for she showed no alarm, apparently thinking that the dog wanted to play. At the very last moment she sensed something hostile in the rapid approach and, with a wild leap, found sanctuary in a tree. Something like this happened on the Cuban beach.]
The men ashore saw our boats coming but showed no particular interest; they may have thought that our people wanted to join in the fun. However, when our men piled out, each carrying a potentially nasty weapon, a wave of uncertainty went down their ranks; they lowered their rifles and for the first time began to observe our movements.
Then, with a rush, our men were among them. Some vicious blows were struck and the killers seemed, literally, to melt away. One moment they were there, the next, they had vanished and our people found themselves facing each other, their improvised weapons still raised in the air. Not a shot had been fired in this supplement to the Battle of Santiago.
In the course of the afternoon of July 3 I went on board the Maria Teresa and the Oquendo. They were still on fire and burning fiercely. Most of the wood on board had been consumed and much of the metal was so hot that it raised a blister when touched. Her wooden decks had nearly all disappeared, and we made our way aft by stepping from one steel beam to the next.
There were many bodies lying around all burned to a crisp. At one gun an American shell, passing through the gun shield, had exploded killing the entire crew. This was an example of a gun shield proving a menace instead of a protection; had it not been there the shell might not have exploded.
[Several years later I saw this same gun at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, near the gate entrance on Sands Street. I remembered how it had looked on the Maria Teresa with the charred bodies of its crew around it.]
The crew didn’t look like men; they looked like fallen trees, burned absolutely black. One of them had an arm raised in the air; an American sailor tapped it gently with a stick and the arm fell off.
We had been warned before leaving the Indiana not to take anything from the Spanish ships but, as always happens, our men did pocket some small, virtually worthless articles. I found a watch with the crystal melted down on the hands (I still have it); another man found about a hundred silver Spanish pesos that had melted together forming a stick about a foot long, which he carefully stuck down his trouser leg. Somebody found ten thousand dollars in Spanish gold. That, however, he didn’t stick down his trouser leg; he turned it in to the paymaster when he got back to the ship. I never heard what eventually happened to it.
Destruction onboard the Spanish flagship after the battle of Santiago.
About two o’clock we went back to the ship as nobody had had anything to eat since early that morning. Hardly had we sat down in the steerage mess when the word was passed, “Here comes Cervera!” and all hands dashed up on deck again.
It had been intended to send the Spanish admiral to us but at the last moment it was decided to send him to the Iowa instead.
The pulling boat carrying Cervera passed within twenty feet of us; we could look directly down into it. There was water in the bottom of the boat, as though it had been lowered before the plug had been put in. In the water lay the body of a dead Spanish sailor. Admiral Cervera was in civilian clothes loaned him by Captain Wainwright of the Gloucester (Cervera had swum ashore in his underclothing), he had no hat and no collar; his head was lowered in deep dejection. As he approached, our men, lining the rails, gave a tremendous cheer of triumph which was instantly suppressed by the officers a
nd in a dead silence he passed, his head bowed. It made me feel as though I were in church. I was never so sorry for anyone in all my life.
We worked hard transferring the wounded Spaniards to the Indiana’s sick bay. Soon it was full and we had to put the men anywhere we could. I especially remember a Spanish officer we had to carry on board as his right leg had been cut off between the ankle and knee. He had been on board one of the destroyers and, when she blew up, had jumped overboard and been caught in the propeller which had cut off his leg as cleanly as an axe could have done. He was a good-looking young fellow, about my age. Our two surgeons laid him out on an ordinary dining room table, their arms already bloody to the elbows (they didn’t wear rubber gloves in those days). The table and the deck below it were spotted with strips of flesh and little puddles of blood. The end of the stump looked like a bloody sponge. Four of our sailors held him while the surgeons completed the necessary amputation. Every little while the Spaniard would come to and cry out something in Spanish. He had been wounded at nine-thirty that morning and had received no attention since that time. His wound had been soaked in saltwater and then he had dragged himself up on a sandy beach where the stump had become filled with small shells and other foreign matter.
A few days later, he was transferred to the Harvard, which served as a hospital ship. He had been provided with a pair of improvised crutches and appeared on deck pale as a sheet but perfectly composed. As though making his adieux after an enjoyable evening, he thanked us for our “hospitality” (no, he wasn’t being sarcastic) and expressed his profound regret for the annoyance that his unfortunate arrival had caused. He was sure we would understand he would not willingly have intruded on us in that condition, but matters had reached a state where he was no longer master of his own movements. He spoke in French, exquisitely pronounced, and very slowly, so we would be sure to understand without being put to too much effort.
I have met men of all nationalities during my years in the Navy; in “good breeding” none of them could equal the upper-class Spaniards.
All that afternoon we were busy transferring the fifteen hundred prisoners to the Harvard. On one of the last trips my boat came close to the Brooklyn, Commodore Schley’s flagship. The officer of the deck hailed and told us to come alongside. When I climbed the sea ladder to the quarterdeck I was told to go to the commodore’s cabin as he had some urgent mail to go to the New York, Admiral Sampson’s flagship.
After the orderly announced me I entered the cabin. The commodore, who was seated at his desk, rose, walked across the room and greeted me with the same courtesy that he would have shown a visiting flag officer.
Mind you, I was an Annapolis undergraduate, something less than a worm. Ever since entering the Academy I had been kicked around and, what is worse, frequently made the subject of sarcastic and biting comment to which I could not possibly reply, like the jokes sometimes indulged in by judges having the Jeffreys’ complex. But here a national character, a hero to thousands of people, was treating me with the same courtesy I am sure he showed to the humblest person in his squadron. At that moment I would gladly have died for him.
Many years later when I was to reach command rank, I always tried to model myself on Commodore Schley rather than Admiral Meade, the commandant of the Washington Navy Yard. Only the men who have served under me can say how well I have succeeded.
[Later, when the Sampson-Schley controversy was started largely by the adherents of the two men rather than by the men themselves, the pro-Sampson clique did everything possible to smear Schley. The basis of the dispute was who deserved credit for the victory at Santiago. According to naval usage, as Admiral Sampson was in command he deserved the credit, just as if the battle had gone against us, his would have been the blame whether or not it was his fault. The pro-Schley group insisted that as Admiral Sampson wasn’t even there during the fighting, the credit should go to Commodore Schley who had commanded the fleet. The Navy Department took the first view and although both men were promoted, Schley was kept junior to Sampson. During the long sittings of the Court of Inquiry in Washington, every phase of the engagement was discussed and re-discussed a hundred times and a number of criticisms were made of Schley’s tactics. Even today historians are debating what should have been done.
I’m afraid that I can contribute little to the controversial features of the battle. The reason is that I didn’t see them. There was so much noise and excitement, to say nothing of the smoke which made it virtually impossible to see anything. (My feeling is that most historians don’t realize the battle was fought in a fog.) Besides, there was so much happening in our immediate vicinity that we had no time to bother about something that was taking place a mile or two away.
There were two things that were fought over (verbally) for months and years. The first and most important was the turn made by the Brooklyn, Schley’s flagship, at the beginning of the battle. The Brooklyn was rushing at full speed toward the Teresa as she emerged from the harbor entrance and when the Spanish vessel swung to the westward, the Brooklyn, instead of putting her helm hard-a-starboard in order to come on the same course as the enemy, put it hard-a-port and made the turn AWAY from the Spaniards instead of TOWARD them, thereby increasing her distance by the length of her tactical diameter and also running across the bow of the Texas, barely missing a collision. The Texas, who like the rest of us, was making a desperate effort to close the range, was obliged at this critical moment to stop and to back full speed to avoid striking the Brooklyn. The smoke was so thick it was only by a miracle she ever saw the Brooklyn at all.
Sampson’s supporters in their efforts to discredit Schley said he turned away from the Teresa in “craven flight” which I am sure is nonsense. No one thought of personal danger at that moment; everyone had only one idea — to close with the enemy as quickly as possible.
The Brooklyn’s explanation was that had she swung in the other direction, she would have interfered with the fire of the American ships. I don’t know the answer but I do know that if she had gone hard-a-starboard and as a result been hit by our fire, then Schley would have been denounced as a fool instead of a coward. In other words, he couldn’t win.
I might add that the Brooklyn was struck more than thirty times by shells from the enemy squadron, far more than any other American ship. My ship, the Indiana, was struck three times. I am not sure about the others.
The other point of contention was the handling of the Brooklyn during the chase of the Cristobal Colon. The Colon was the only Spanish vessel that managed to slip away under cover of the smoke and general confusion. She raced westward along the coast, hotly pursued by the Oregon, and shortly afterward by the Brooklyn. The Oregon followed directly after the fleeing Colon while the Brooklyn kept her bow a point or two to seaward, thereby remaining considerably outboard of the other two ships.
The Brooklyn’s explanation of this was as follows: “Look at the map of Cuba and you will see that the southwestern point sticks out considerably beyond the general coast line. The Colon, had she continued the course she was on, would not have cleared this point. She would have had to have come about and put out to sea. We headed for the point, instead of directly at her, in order to be sure of cutting her off.”
The Oregon slowly began to overhaul the Spanish and finally tried a ranging shot with her bow chasers. When the captain of the Colon saw the splashes ahead of him, he knew the battleship was within range and surrendered. It is ironic that this, the last of the Spanish Squadron, should have borne the name of the man who first won for Spain her great empire, the last remnant of which was now slipping from her grasp.
Some time after the battle a Board of Experts was appointed to visit the Spanish wrecks. This Board reported that the American gunners had aimed so badly they had made only one and a half percent of hits. This statement has been frequently repeated. Well, to return to the Oriental habit of speech of my childhood, this insign
ificant individual offers the worthless opinion that no human being could possibly have told how many or what percentage of hits had been made on those Spanish ships. If that one and a half percent referred to marks on the HULLS it is perhaps correct, but the UPPERWORKS had been, literally, torn to pieces and the ships had been gutted by fire. Also, another point has, I think, been overlooked. The Indiana fired 1,876 shots during that battle and the other ships probably did about the same. BUT the vast majority of our shots came from small caliber guns, 6-pounders, 1,744 shots; 1-pounders (top guns), 25 shots. These small shells might, and probably did, slaughter the Spanish crews without leaving a mark that could later be identified. The one American killed in that battle, Chief Yeoman George Ellis of the Brooklyn, was decapitated by a small caliber shell from a Spanish gun that passed over the Brooklyn’s deck from starboard to port and never touched the ship.
There was at least one thing about the Battle of Santiago that no one could criticize and that was the “timing”. No Hollywood director could have done better. The army commander, General Shafter, had sent a message to Washington that, owing to heavy losses, he would have to withdraw his troops and give up the attempt to capture Santiago. Back home, a rumor was circulating that our soldiers were in danger of being driven into the sea and all through that long, hot Sunday the entire country was tense with apprehension. Then, in the early morning hours of the Fourth of July, came the news of the smashing naval victory. No work of fiction was ever as theatrical or as thrilling as what actually took place at Santiago de Cuba during the first week of that July of so long ago.
JULY 4
The evening of that Independence Day is one that none of us on the Indiana is likely to forget. Only a miracle of luck kept us from being casualties. At five minutes before midnight a gun went off and almost simultaneously our alarm gongs began to ring and the bugles to sound General Quarters.
The Old Navy Page 8
