RAISING A WRECK THAT CAUSED A WAR

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 41, 28 May 1910, Page 9

RAISING A WRECK THAT CAUSED A WAR

THE BATTLESHIP "MAINE." The United .States Government, according to a recent cable, are proposing to set aside a sum of £IOO,OOO to raise the wreck of the battleship Maine, which lies embedded in the mud of Havana harbor.

It is now just over twelve years since the battleship was blown up as it rode at anchor in the harbor. Its movable armament, guns, and so on were recovered soon after the explosion, but the battleship itself has remained as it sank, and the present action has been taken as a result of various protests that the wreck is a menace to navigation. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the blowing up of the Maine urn's the cause of the Spanish-American War, for it has always been recognised that the outrage inflamed .public feeling in America to such an extent that it precipitated a crisis that made war inevitable.

The original cause of the Maine being at Havana was. nf course, that the lives of American residents in the town were considered to he endangered by the fighting between the Spanish authorities and the Cuban insurgents. The United States Government decided to send a warship to Havana so that, in an emergency, the Americans might seek shelter on board. The Maine arrived in the harbor to■vrard* the end of January, 1808, and she was taken by the official Spanish pilot to a special mooring buoy, a buoy that, necordini; to the testimony afterwards given before the United States court of enquiry, "was apparently reserved for some purpose not known." Her commander, Captain C. D. Sigsbee, understood that, the Spanish authorities resented the presence of the battleship in the harbor, and he did all in his power to give an impression of the visit being ■an ordinary friendly call. The usual" salutes and ceremonial visits were exchanged, hut he found that beyond those the Spaniards would not go fthey expressed themselves as being

visits that were purely social and unofficial, but they declined to visit the Maine more often than was required by the strict demands of international courThere was no public dcuonstrati'm when .("'•."■« ; ? •ii v .-i,«„ .:• the +" out ac tin- *.ime time he minced that the attitude of the Spanish soldiers towards him and his officers was one ot sullen gloom. Things went on in this uncomfortable manner until the night of February 15. Captain Sigsbee was in his cabin writing, when suddenly there came a sound like a shot. He' glanced towards the deck and saw the bow rise a. little. A few seconds later came the great explosion—"a terrible mass of fire and explosion"—that sent a million pounds' worth of steel to the bottom, and caused the deaths of over 250 men. At the instant of the second explosion the electric lights went out, and Captain Sigsbee found his cabin plunged m darkness. He groped his way to the entrance. Here |p cannoned against an orderly, who will go down in fame as having, in that awful moment, calmly apologised for almost knocking down his commander. He then saluted "and briefly reported that there 'had been an explosion.

Captain Sigsbee went on deck at once, and one of the first things he noticed was the. sound of many voices from the shore, -suggestive of cheers. The battleship settled down very quickly, and it was only after every other living soul had left it that Captain Sigsbee stepped into a ship's boat and was rowed to the neighboring American liner.

Two commissions of enquiry were held —an American and a .Spanish—and both came to diametrically opposite conclusions. The Spanish commission, which was not thought to be thorough, declared that the explosion originated in the interior of the warship, and was the fault of the Americans themselves. The American commission came to the conclusion that the Maine was blown up by some agency outside the vessel, and it was, of course, presumed that the "person or persons unknown" ihad the tacit .approval of the Spanish authorities. The facts will most probably all be known some day, but in the meantime it is interesting to know that Captain Sigsbee's private opinion agreed with the finding of the American commission.