The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-01-23

| the fleet? Chiefly, at the last minute
dependence on the fighting engineers
TO overcome needless obstacles, put the
ships into position and hold them
| there.
Until that morning the Brooklyn had
never been under forced draught since
| her contract trial trip. l have said that
the service regulations require forced
| draught trials at least twice a year.
| The regulations also provide that fore
ed draught shall never be used, except
| by order of the commanding officer.
The Iowa, under orders to carry
steam enough to give a seven-knot
speed at night and five-knot speed by
day, was bent chiefly on coal economy
| The Oregon passed her like a racer
Perhaps that is why the Oregon's er-
| ratio chaplain thought the Iowa was
going in the opposite direction The
Indiana was more completely unpre-
pared than the Brooklyn, if possible;
as deliberately so as the Iowa
The torpedo boats had hard time
in the Spanish-American war. Officers
who were on them and officers who
were not on them, but who know thu
facts, tell truths unfamiliar to the pop
ular ear AIT the outbreak of the war
the number of engineer officers in the
United States Navy was so ridiculous
ly inadequate to the duties required
that the Navy Department was COM
PEELED to experiment at running tor
pedo f1otillas with single engineer.
Not one engineer TO a boat, but one
engineer to six or eight boats! Young
line officers had to look after the en-
gines in the intervals of their other
duties. They are not to be blamed for
the defective results. They were faith
full enough and ambitious enough, but
you cannot learn engineering in three
months. Some of the United States
torpedo boat boilers We're completely
wrecked for lack of water One of the
boats burned all her boilers so badly
that, when they were taken out, the
Workmen, the contractors, inspectors
and everybody else who saw them
were amazed at the temerity of the
men who had kept steam in them. The
commanding officer of one torpedo boat
prepared an elaborate report on the
constructive defects of the machinery
of his craft.
1t is even officially conceded that,
but for the Oregon, the Colon and
probably another Spanish ship would
have escaped SO much for having
engines in order, boilers ready, fires
burning. Here was a ship after fif-
teen-thousand-mile run. four months
out of dock, with foul bottom and in
creased displacement, almost equalling
her trial trip record for speed. And
she fought as she ran. Inside of fifteen
minutes after the full speed signal was
given she was making fifteen knots.
Within an hour she was making nearly
seventeen. Coming twn the Pacific
the Oregon had Cardiff coal under her
boilers-the best quality of Cardiff for
steaming. When she turned the corner
of the continent and get into the At
lantic she picked up in the coal ports
the best fuel she could buy, but it was
much inferior to Cardiff. Milligan had
few hundred tons of Cardiff left. He
shovelled them into the fighting bunk
ers This will do for emergency"
said he Then he locked the bunkerS
On the blockade the coal supplied TO
the ships was-wen less fiery than
patriotism. On the day of the battle
Milligan unlocked the fighting bunk
ers, and the Cardiff coal helped the |
Oregon to make her burst of speed. |
Besides, there were fires under all her |
boilers when Cervera slipped out
For Gods sake, get on more boil
ersi' That was the sort of message |
sent from the bridge of one of the |
United States warships to the engineer
half a dozen times in an hour when the
fleet was pelting the Spaniards. The
who in time of war had his
boiler rooms ready for peace chafed at
the delay. His anxious messages We're
to worry the men below
water tenders, oilers, coal
oassers. firemen The Chief Engineer
stood in between, knowing that his
men must keep cool-headed, and he
sent back word that all the boilers
we're connected, filled and all the fires
burning. It's the only way to keep
he old man quiet he said. But all
he boilers were not yet connected
when the fight finished.
If you were sealed up in a heated
ron tank floating on the sea and ham
nered at by missiles which now and
hen let in daylight and splinters, you
would get a dim idea of the lot Of the
engineers men aboard a battleship IN
lction. But the engineers men have
o work in the hurly-burly and you
TaI1 O.