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Updated: July 12, 2025
The second was also beached and deserted by her crew. Meanwhile the Vizcaya ran up the white flag and the Texas stopped firing. She, like the Infanta Maria Teresa, was on fire and her crews could do nothing but take to the shore in the desperate effort to save themselves. The Almirante Oquendo and the Colon were still fleeing for life, with the Iowa, Oregon, Brooklyn and Texas hard after them.
This squadron, which numbered among its vessels the powerful armored cruisers "Vizcaya," "Maria Teresa," "Cristobal Colon," and "Almirante Oquendo," was reported now at the Canaries, then at Cadiz, then dashing through the Suez Canal to overwhelm Dewey at Manila, then off the coast of New England, whereat Boston and Portland were mightily alarmed, then bound South to capture or destroy the "Oregon," which was painfully making the voyage around Cape Horn, then at Martinique, and, in short, at every conceivable point of menace.
The new-comers were the "Huascar," the "Almirante Cochrane" and the "Blanco Encelada," the three armored vessels of the South American Republic. It was the "Huascar" which was now bearing down upon the "Arapiles." Suddenly, the Chilian monitor was seen to slacken her speed and change her course. She no longer meant to ram; the necessity had ceased.
All water and steam pipes should be laid beneath the protective deck and below the water line and fitted with risers at such points as may be considered necessary. The board also found that the ships Infanta Maria Teresa, Almirante Oquendo and Viscaya were destroyed by conflagration, caused by the explosion of shells in the interior, which set fire to the woodwork.
Spain’s finest squadron, consisting of the four first-class armored cruisers Maria Teresa, Vizcaya, Almirante Oquendo, and Cristobal Colon, with two torpedo-boat destroyers, lay in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, blockaded by a powerful American fleet of battle-ships and cruisers under Admiral Sampson. They were held in a close trap. The town was being besieged by land.
It had been made known, too, that Captain Latorre, who had been promoted to the Almirante Cochrane, had also offered a similar reward; and every man aboard the Blanco made up his mind that his ship should have the honour of bringing the Peruvians to action.
The flag-ship went to the wrecks of the Infanta Maria Teresa and the Almirante. The former lies in an easy position on sand, and with almost her normal draught of water. She is, of course, completely burned out inside above her protective deck, but the shell of her hull seems very good, and her machinery is probably not seriously injured. “It looks very much as if she were salvable.
The Spanish fleet, attempting to leave the harbor, was met by the American squadron under command of Commodore Sampson. In less than three hours all the Spanish ships were destroyed, the two torpedo boats being sunk and the Maria Teresa, Almirante Oquendo, Vizcaya, and Cristobal Colon driven ashore. The Spanish admiral and over 1,300 men were taken prisoners.
“While the flag-ship was lying near the Almirante, and her steam cutter was alongside, and a small boat from the press tug Hercules lying on the starboard quarter, a shell exploded in a 15-centimetre gun, and a piece went through the tug’s boat, cutting it in two; the man in the boat was not hurt.
With large volumes of smoke rising from their lower decks aft, these vessels gave up both fight and flight and ran in on the beach-the Infanta Maria Teresa at about 10:15 A. M. at Nima Nima, six and one-half miles from Santiago harbor entrance, and the Almirante Oquendo at about 10:30 A. M. at Juan Gonzales, seven miles from the port.
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