The naval battle of Santiago de Cuba
The orders from the head of the Spanish squadron to the captain of the Infanta María Teresa were clear, they had to be the first to leave port and, as soon as they did, rush directly towards the enemy, to give the rest of the fleet the possibility of escaping towards West. This may have been the sacrifice the admiral had in mind. After the flagship, the Vizcaya would leave the bay, in the vanguard of the fugitives, followed by the Cristóbal Colón, the Admiral Oquendo, the Furor and the Plutón. “As soon as the Teresa left, it opened fire at hours minutes on a battleship that was nearby, but heading at full force towards the Brooklyn,” Cervera indicates again. The idea was not bad, since said cruiser was the westernmost ship of the American squadron.The first Spanish ship to fall was the Infanta María Teresa herself, after ten in the morning, after having bravely faced the enemy squadron. “One of the first projectiles broke an auxiliary steam tube,” says the report written by Cervera, “through which a lot of it was escaping, which made us lose the speed we had expected.” New impacts followed. A pipe in the firefighting network burst, Captain Concas was injured, and the mm B2B Email List projectiles that, according to Cervera's own report, were kept in his chamber exploded, causing a fire that they could not control. Then, again in the words of the admiral himself, who had taken direct command of the ship: “I understood that the ship was lost and I immediately thought about where I would beach it to lose fewer lives, but continuing the combat as long as possible.” At the moment the ship ran aground, the decks full of dead and wounded, the artillery useless and devoured by the fire, the commander ordered the undersigned to lower the flag, but both because of the lack of energy with which he gave the order, and because of the natural hesitation in those who had to execute it, there was no room for the sad order to be carried out. fulfilled; The fire, which at that time was of great proportions, burned the halyard and the flag fell into the flames.”
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Tragic would also be the adventures of the Christopher Columbus , the fastest ship in the squadron but lacking its main armament, which as we will see would be the last to fall, and the Vizcaya; But we are going to focus now on the Almirante Oquendo , the fourth ship in the Spanish line, which has the sad honor of having been the second to be destroyed. “Once the channel was clear, the waters of the bow sucker were followed and fire was opened on the port side, being constantly harassed by enemy ships, especially by the battleship Iowa and the cruiser Brooklyn. –the report is, in this case, from Lieutenant Adolfo Calandria, who was the oldest surviving officer and who participated in the combat from the torpedo observation deck on the stern bridge– […] Sailing continued until leaving to Iowa at a distance. This was the situation of the enemy squadron when it was warned by the acoustic tube that there were fires in the aft torpedo chambers, seeing, upon leaving the deckhouse, that the flames were coming out of the officers' hatch located in the poop. In very poor condition, this ship also ended up heading to the coast to run aground and, although its captain ordered our protagonist to lower the flag.
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