Arizona republican., 1898-06-21
LESSONS FROM DEwEYs FIGHT
An Officer on the Baltimore Writes of
 His Experiences.

Among the many letters that were received yesterday in the eastern states from officers and seamen of Admiral Dewey's feet there was one from Pas, Assistant Engineer B. L. Beach of the cruiser Baltimore, under date of May s addressed to friend in this city. 1. sums up what in the opinion of the many naval officers are valuable les sons of the Manila fight, and in addi- ton gives several details, especially as to the experiences of men below decks during the fight, that have not appear eG in print thus far. The letter, al- I though written not for publication is of such a nature that these extracts can be given from it without violating propriety:
 We feel that we have had a great victory here which we ascribe to sev- eral causes. First, the Spaniard is al ways behind the times. He knew that an American fleet was expected and was sosure of his tremendous superior ity that he took absolutely no precau- ton. The night we ran by the forts Gin the early morning of the engage ment) the Spanish officers were all at Q grand ball. The entrance to the har-
  thought that was enough, and had no patrol, picket boats or torpedo boats on watch. The result is that we ran by their magnificent guns guarding the entrance to Manila bay, and were out of range inside before the Span iards knew it.
 Another reason for our success was due to Commodore Dewey's orders. Not one of the ships had any intima- tion that we would run by the forts as we did until thirty miles away, when the commodore gave the order We were by the Spanish forts and at the fleet by 5:30 a. m. on Sunday, May 1. They were ten ships strong, carrying 11G modern guns, to which we opposed a superior fleet of six ships carrying 135 guns. Two of their ships were over 3,200 tons displacement, and the rest were modern gunboats. This fleet was assisted by batteries on shore armed with modern guns. which made their guns superior in number to ours. In number of men engaged they were undoubtedly far superior to us. The Spaniards were absolutely confident of victory. No other outcome was an ticipated by them; no preparation was made for a different result. 1 think that their ships combined with their forts, made them equal to us, so far as powers of offence and defence were concerned. They had as many modern guns approximating to the same size as we had and more men to fire them. They should have been able to have fired as much weight of shot in 6 spec fled time as we did
 'The whole thing, in other words, lay in the fact that it was tbe Amerl- can against the Spaniard, the Anglo Saxon against the Latin. Every shot fired from our fleet was most deliber- ately, coolly and pitilessly aimed. The Spaniards fired an enormous number of times, but with apparently the most aim. Shells dropped all around our ship; we were in action for over four hours; hundreds of shot and shell fell close to us. Only five or six pierced us and they did no damage.
 ''The damage done by our ships was frightful 1 have visited all of the sunken Spanish ships, and had l not seen the effects of American marks nanship, would hardly give credit to reports of it. One smOkestack of the Castilla, a 3,30O-ton Spanish ship. was struck eight times, and the shells through the hull were so many and so close that it is impossible that Span iard could have lived on her deck. The other large ships the Reina Christina, was perforated in the same way. We did net employ much tactics because tLere wasn't much need for them. There were the enemy and we went for them bullheadedly and made them exceedingly sick.
 ''The lesson 1 draw from the fight is the great utility of target practice. The Spaniard has none; we have it every three months. Strengths of na vies are compared generally ship for ship; the personnel is just as impor- tant I am confident that, had we manned the Spanish ships and had the SpaniardS manned our fleet. the Amer