The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-28
THE MORNING NEWS THURSDAY, JULY 2S. 1898.


ing turret guns the view must b. unim- |
peded for some time Thes moke from
our guns did the enemy no harm either
as some part of the ship was almost
bound to protrude, and with this assist
ance his guns could be laid Both sides
were even in this however, since. with
the exception OF the Colon. none of the
spanish ships had smokeless powder The
Colon did not have any heavy guns in
her turrets. as they had not been compile
ted. Wash deck gear, IL is said filled up
thelr turrets, but the turrets could not
have been so small as that would imply.
Inc teaching of Mahan about men We're
fuuy borne out. The great lesson of the
war is the Importance of the personnel
Poor men make poor ships. No matter
how brave and efficient the officers may
ne. they cannot fight well with poor
crew. Thirty men. however alive cannot
inIuse their knowledge and enthusiasm
into five hundred others. The officers
may make the men stand up at the guns
and prevent them from jumping over
board by closing the half-ports and by
other means; but they cannot cause other
than real men-of-wars men 10 put up a
good fight. No wonder that the crews Of
some of the Spanish ships wanted to
jump overheard on coming out of the har-
Dor, All the men were conscripts, and
6UO mad been impressed Just before the
departure of the fleet from the Canaries
1t Is said that all the jais there were
opened ana the Indicators taken aboard
the Spanish ships You can force a man
aboard ship, but you cannot force him
TO fight.
Our men had another advantage They
had had gun practice. Most of the gun
ners were on personally affectonate terms
with their guns and made bulls -eyes with
them, and not only ached to train them
on the enemy, but mad such confidence in
their craftsmanship that fear was out of
the question. The crew simply knew they
could lick the other fellows and their
whole interest was in their own ships. not
in those of the enemy. The Spaniards are
not towards, yet their impulse from the
first was to dive out Of their ships They
fell sure of defeat. l value too, the moral
effect of the men of large ships. That also
gives confidence.
The resistance of thick armOr was Illus
trated in some instances. Battle is a bet
ter test than the conditions of the proving
ground. on the Colon's siX-inch armor the
nose of quite good-sized pTojectile was
found sticking, and a large twelve-inch
common shell had exploded on II without
doing damage. However, on the Vizcaya
a large shell had entered well aft in the
cabin and had passed right through, tear
ing off plate on the other side; she was
not armored. On the Iowa. two large
shells struck well forward at the water
line, but on the unarmored part of the
ship. The first, a siX-inch, did not even
pierce the cofordam, but though it pulver-
lied the cellulose 1t is still in the Golfer
dam, the inner side of which it did not
penetrate. Moreover as it did not ex-
plode the rotating band being recovered
entire, though separated from the shell,
il presumably was an armor-plercing shell.
Surely it must have had little velocity.
This Is the more surprising as the Spanish
ships adj had the long, high-power Eng
lish guns. sim the blow probably was an
oblique one.
The other big shell also struck the wa
terline, just a few feet aft of the first
one, and made a clean hole In the Golfer
dam. Striking a hatch well amidships,
it exploded, but the pieces seem to have
been carried along, most of them going
through the chain locker, which is right
abreast the hatch There are seven good
sized boles through IL, besides any num-
Der of dents. The chain locker happen
ed to be empty, so the pieces passed
through into the midship chain locker,
where they We're caught by the chain. One
of them passed through the after side Of
the chain locker and struck the base of
the turret. Most of the pieces We're pick
ed up around the deck in the immediate
vicinity and in tho chain locker. showing
that the force of the bursting charge must
have been slight. One of the pieces gave
the arc of the base of the shell, which
proved TO be a Pinch. The ship
was struck by a number of other smaller
shells, once on a stanchion aft, prob
ably any number of times on the armor
and scars made by two small-arm bullets
were discovered on the muzzle face of one
of the after 12-inch guns Everything
would tend to emphasize the superiority
of armored ships over unarmored ones.
Such a Kidding as some of the Spanish
ships received could not have been in
f1ta on any or oh hat
gagged.
Everything goes to prove the value of
the battleship; the power they have to
keep off torpedo boats and rapid-hre fus-
ilade, and the confidence a battleship in
spires in the crew, all go TO show the value
of the type.
The importance of having no woodwork
aboard and making the most perfect pro-
vision against fire cannot be oVerestimat-
ed Fire was what destroyed the Spanish
fleet, and not only the fire from our ships
but that aboard their own. Now they had
little wood aboard any of the vessels yet
no one of them was under fire more than
a few minutes (about hfteen) before smoke
could be seen rising from the decks 1t
seems even the cork paint burned. One fire
on the Vizcaya was extnguished, but
others started quickly, both forward and
aft. The water mains were shot away,
and the fight had to be given up Some
thing must be done to protect these mains
hereafter in every fighting ship. Fire and
smoke always have the worst possible ef-
feet on the crew, and owing TO the great
number of matches and compartments on
the ship, flames are the harder to discov-
ar and fight. It was found simply inn
possible to keep fighting both the fire and
the ship, the gun fire slackening up as
soon the alarm was given. So clear
did this become that whenever the flame
and smoke could be seen from our fleet
it was felt that all was up with that ship,
and the tendency was to direct our gun
fire on some other ship. Without an ex-
ECZEMA Qtching, Burning, Scaly