Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1898-04-25
ABOUT NAVAL FIGHTS.
Stories About Fights Against 0dds-valor Of
American Sea Fighters.


into action spoke with full under |
standing of the probabilities attending
the first engagement between the war
ships of the United States and Spain. |
He might have included the heroes
who will form the crews of the torpe-
do boats, the torpedo boat destroyers,
. and even the armored cruisers and
battleships. Their chances of life Will
be but a trifie better than those of the
men on the Nesuvius. One well direc-
ted shell aimed at this floating magazine
of dynamite means instant annihila-
ton. One round from a rapid fire gun
has but to strike torpedo boat in the
right place to send her to the bottom.
One torpedo, as has been demonstrated
in the harbor of Havana. can tear into
fragments the most formidable battle
ship atloat.
In the days when iron and steel had
not supplanted oak in the construction
Of fighting ships, when long toms, car
ronades and ten-pounders We're the
equivalents of breech-loading rifles and
machine guns, when a full broadside
at close quarters lacked the destruc-
tiveness of single projectie from
high-power rifle over a range of four
his ship floated he had as good
chance of reaching dry land as his
enemy He had an abiding faith in
the specific gravity Of wood, and count
ed on finding a piece of his ship for a
life-preserver if the fight went the
wrong way. Today he is in much the
same fix as the man who went sailing
in a sieve before he learned to swim.
There n n,l1
however, that a leader was lacking
and no leader ever failed to find those
who would follow him. Today the navy
is being recruited as rapidly as pos
sible with men who are of too high an
order of intelligence not to know the
perls before them. A certain proper
ton of these men will be assigned to
the torpedo boats, Il branch of the ser
vice which has been recognized as the
most hazardous of all, making an ex-
ception in favor of any actual work
that may be attempted with such new
tangled ideas as the Holland and Rad
datZ submarine torpedo boats. Moral
courage of the highest order will be re-
quircd of every officer and enlisted
man when the call of duty takes him
into an engagement with any of these
deadly engines as his weapon of at
tack.
Experience has demonstrated that
the torpedo boat. whether operated
above or below the water. is as much
of a menace to the life of its crew as it
is to the ship it attacks. 1t may run
the gauntlet of the machine guns I'M
der cover of darkness and deliver q
fatal blow against the armored side of
the battcship. but the chances are as
one in d hundred that the explosion
which sinks the big ship Will destroy
thu frail little boat and its crew. The
submarine torpedo boat is an unknown
quantity in actual warfare. unless its
worth is estimated by the results at
tending repeated trials of similar boats
during the civil war.
Recent trials of the Holland sub
marine boat seem to have proved her
an easily managed craft, capable of
diving and coming to the surface at
the will Of the operator. Whether this
fish-likc machine will behave so nicely
in time of war remains to be seen. 1t
is to be hoped that she Will establish
better record than the submarine boat
constructed by the confederates in
1868. Naval officers have expressed
grave doubts whether the Holland will
ever accomplish anything but the de
struction of her crew, just as the con-
fedcrate boat did repeatedly in the at
tcmpts to use her against union ships.
And thereby hangs a story of heroic
daring equal to any recorded in the
history of the American navy.
In the fall of 1869 tiny, half-sub-
merged torpedo boat attacked the fine
new union war vessel, New Ironsides.
rs she lay at anchor in the Charleston
harbor. The attack was successful, in
that the torpedo exploded three feet
under the water against the side of the
New IronsidcS. but the force of the eX-
plosion was not great enough to do any
other damage than partially sink the
little boat and make possible the cap
ture of her commanding officer. En-
couraG ed by this trial the confederates
constructed another torpedo boat at
Mobile the same year after plans pro-
Viding for her use beneath the water
She was constructed of boiler iron. hel
lines approaching those of the Holland
boat very closely. She was 50 feet long
and carried a crew of nine men. Eight
of these worked a hand propeller, while
the other steered the boat and regu-
lated her movements below the surface
of the water. She could be sub
merged to any depth desired or pro-
PEELED on the surface, and in still water
could easily attain q speed of four
knots an hour.
several successful experiments We're
conducted in the harbor at Mobile. and
then enc day the beat failed to come
to the top of the water. She was
raised, and the bodies of her crew were
given more fitting burial. Then she
was lowed to the Charleston harbor
and put into service. She was designed
to approach a vessel at anchor. dive
under her keel While dragging a float
ing torpedo, and thus bring the torpedo
against the side or bottom of the vessel. |
The first night set for an attack re-
suited in death for the nine men COM
posing the crew of the boat. She was
lying at the wharf when passing |
steamer sWamped her by the wash
following.
One again she was raised and tied up
to the Fort Sumter wharf. One again |
she sank, and six men went down with |
\ 10 ICI,t ha |