West Virginia daily oil review. [volume] (Sistersville, W. Va.) 1894-1902, 1898-07-28
PUZZLED OVER CERvERA
Naval Men Think He Should
Have Put Up a Better Fight.
VIEWS OF A PROMINENT OFFICER.

The Four P"Terful Vessels l., HIS sound
ron Could, If Properly Han;;le>. Have
Made n Strong Stand Up Fisht-Con.
slant and Damaging Fire of American
Gunners May Probably Have Frightened
Cervera and His Mcn-LenEth OF War
Rests Mostly with Spain.
Naval officers at tho BROOKLYN navy
yard, from Admiral Bunce and his SEN
Tor aid, Captain Gilmore down, wero
puzzled recently TO find some good rea-
son TO explain why Cervera's four now
erful warships did not make a bette,
showing than they did the other sun
day morning III their efforts to get away
from Admiral SIMPSONS feet One
officer high in authority said:
lit Is beyond US to know why Ger
vera ships did not make a stand I'M
fight. When we first talked the thing
over, we wCro inclined to believe that
the SpaniardS were towards and did not
dare fight our ships. But when we re
Elected that they had come out of tho
harNor in broad daylight instead of at
night which would have been the best
umc for running away, we had TO
change our theory"
Don't you think that the sunlzcn
I Morrimac offered too much obstruction
TO the Spanish feet to get out of tho
harbor safely at Eight?" was asked.
"No. [ think, from what we learned
aftCrward about the sinking of the Mer.
rimaC, that the Spaniards had her buoy.
cd 50 that if they had tried to leave tho
harbor at night they could have done so
with comparative safety. We therefore
must take it for granted that when they
| left the harbor they intended to give us
good fight before they had to surren-
der But evidently they changed their
minds. What firing they did toward
our ships seems TO have been done with
ont accuracy of aim, and indeed with
out any other purpose i'll view except to
make a noise"
"Perhaps the Spaniards ran out of
ammunition?" was suggested "That
! could not be-, said the officer, "for
they had enough left to blow up their
own ships The same amount we'll di-
| rected could have blown up all of our
ships. " "What deductions do our naval
officers draw from the experience of
Cervera' 5 fleet" 1.-The only two things
which we can be positive of are that
there is great lack Of discipline in the
| Spanish navy and woeful ignorance of
the use OF modern warship machinery.
1t Is certain that had four United States
warships and two torpedo boat destroy
| erS gone out of n harbor to attack the
warships of Spain or any other nation
| we would have made some trouble
| With the exhibitions Of nerve and cour-
| age which have recently been displayed
| by our men 1t is safe to say that not
/ one American warship would have been
beacLed. Firing from our guns would
have been kept up as long as there was
a gun in working order and ammuni-
ton enough to load it. If it came down
that far, then there would be time
enough for the men still alive to scuttle
the ship and prevent it from falling
into the hands of the enemy in service
able condition. In the meantime our
marksmen would have sunk many Of
the enemy's ships.
1--WE would never have run away. In
running away and sinking his own
ships Cervera not only saved US the
trouble of destroying his ships, but he
lost an abundant opportunity to sink
some of ours. We had more ships than
he had, and to that extent we presented
greater target. The more ships of ours
III front of the harbor the greater chance
Cervera would have had of inficting
damage on us. You would not have
caught Dewey, Sampson, Watson or
| Schley running away merely because
| there were few more of the enemy's
ships in sight. But in this case the dis
patches do not show that we had any
more ships at the scene of battle than
the Spaniards mad. The superior num-
bers Of our fleet therefore did not of
itself cause Cervera's flight, although
the fear that all our ships might attack
him at once might have tended to
brighten his men,
What do you think had the most
effect III making the Spanish ships run
! away: The constant and damaging
! fire Of the American gunners. There is
where our target practice comes into
play. For years the United States has
| been devoting more attention to tar
get practice on shipboard than any other
nation. Many of the nations, and espe-
clally Spain, thought it was sufficient
TO buy the latest guns with up to date
appliances. They did not think that it
was very necessary that the men should
| be constantly trained in handling those
modern appliances. But we believed
that 1T was just as useless to have big
guns without knowing how to use them
thoroughly as it would be to have a
typewriting machine without knowing
how to manipulate the keys
Napoleon used to say that it took
| three months to make a soldier. hut sly