Adventures of a Sea Hunter: In Search of Famous Shipwrecks

by James Delgado

  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.

  With the war over, many of its combatants were acclaimed as heroes, among them Theodore Roosevelt, Admiral William Sampson, Richmond Hobson and the crew ofMerrimac. Hobson gained fame for his exploits and his good looks, earning the sobriquet of the “most kiss-able officer in the Navy.” He, like Roosevelt, rode his fame into political office. His crew also fared well. On November 2, 1899, the seven sailors of Merrimac were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Hobson did not receive the medal because of a provision barring its award to naval and marine officers. It was not until April 29, 1933, that then Congressman Richmond Hobson finally received his Medal of Honor from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

  Our plane drops from the clouds and banks along the line of cliffs that define the shores of Cuba’s southeast coast. As we approach Santiago, I look out the window and see the walls of El Morro flash below me, then the lighthouse, and then we’re down, bouncing on the airstrip that stretches out next to the ancient fortress. The Sea Hunters team is here to explore waters rarely dived in search of a doomed fleet and one forgotten American collier that a century ago had been the talk of a nation.

  We’re in Fidel Castro’s Cuba, with his permission, to dive all of the wrecks from the Spanish-Cuban-American War of 1898. We have toured Havana and the site of the destruction of USS Maine, visited the U.S. memorial monument to Maine’s dead on the city’s oceanfront drive, the Malecon, and interviewed Cuba’s top historians and curators about that war. Now The Sea Hunters team heads to Santiago to see the sites: Daiquiri and Siboney, where the American troops landed; San Juan Hill, where the Rough Riders stormed up to victory; Santa Iphigenia Cemetery, where the dead of the battles are buried, and El Morro. Standing on its parapets with Mike Fletcher and John Davis, I look down into the narrow harbor mouth at the scene of Merrimac’s last mission. The collier would have steamed just a few yards away from El Morro’s closest guns and into the mouth of more guns that doubtless rained fire into Merrimac’s hull. “It’s a miracle the ship made it through with no one killed,” Mike says, and John and I nod in agreement. “It will be a miracle if anything has survived in that channel,” John says. Looking out at the active shipping, we agree.

  After touring the battlefields and memorials on land, with their manicured lawns, statues and bronze plaques offering a distant, cleaned-up and sanctified image of that hundred-year-old war, we head out to sea to search for Cervera’s sunken fleet. Mike and his son Warren start by diving to find the wrecks of the torpedo boat destroyers Pluton and Furor. Their shattered and scattered remains litter the steep slope of the seabed, 100 to 120 feet down. From there, we head to the cruiser Almirante Oquendo. Dozens of shells ripped through the cruiser during her final flight and fight, and at the end, burning fiercely with more than half of the crew dead, the wounded ship hit the rocks near shore and broke in two. Very few men made it off Oquendo. Today, the cruiser’s grave is marked by one of its large u-inch guns sticking up out of the sea. We follow it down into a broken field of debris that only after a careful survey reveals the outlines of the ship.

  The wreck of the Spanish cruiser Almirante Oquendo, a turret and gun sticking up out of the water. She was sunk off Cuba during the Spanish-American-Cuban War at the Battle of Santiago in 1898. James P. Delgado

  We travel farther down the coast to look at Oquendo’s sister ship, the cruiser Vizcaya. Running flat out, Vizcaya slugged it out at near point-blank range with Schley’s flagship, USS Brooklyn. The fight ended when Vizcaya’s bow exploded as she lined up to either ram Brooklyn or fire a torpedo from the tube set into its bow. An American shell detonated the torpedo before the Spaniards could fire it. Sinking and ablaze, Vizcaya could no longer fight. Wounded and “faint from the loss of blood,” the cruiser’s commander, Captain Juan Antonio Eulate, was in the sick bay where he met one of his junior officers, Ensign Luis Fajardo. An American shell had torn off one o
f Fajardo’s arms, but he told his captain “he still had one left for his country.”

  Captain Eulate, in his official report of the battle, said: “I immediately convened the officers who were nearest… and asked them whether there was anyone among them who thought we could do anything more in the defense of our country and our honor, and the unanimous reply was that nothing more could be done.” As Spaniards, some with their uniforms ablaze, leapt screaming from their burning ship into the sea, some men on Texas started to cheer their victory until Captain John Philip yelled out, “Don’t cheer, boys! These poor devils are dying!” USS Iowa, commanded by Robley Evans, approached next. Evans, incensed that Cuban sharpshooters were gunning down Spanish survivors struggling in the surf, sent a boat ashore and told the Cubans to stop firing or he would shell them.

  With Mike Fletcher and his son Warren, I drop down into the sea, swimming past twisted armor plate and the broken engines of Vizcaya. We swim along the hull, punctured here and there by shellfire and the rocks where the burning hulk settled. Looming up in the milky sea, washed by the surging of the surf that breaks overhead, is the bulk of one of the cruiser’s turrets, its u-inch Hontoria cannon still in place but resting on its side in the sand. With Mike, I drop down to the narrow gap that the gun passes through. The men at these guns died at their posts, heavy shells raining down and setting off the powder inside as they raced to load and fire. Oquendo’s survivors said that a 350-pound charge of powder exploded from a hit on a turret and flashed through it, killing the gun crew laboring inside before erupting in a sheet of flame that ripped off the head of a nearby officer. Similar scenes of horror played out on Vizcaya.