The U. S. S. St. Louis left New York on the 30th of April, 1898, to scout off the island of Guadeloupe in the hope of sighting Cervera's fleet. While engaged in this duty, many conversations were held by her officers as to what the ship might do during the war, which would be useful to the country, and as to the various means by which our own cause could be advanced or the enemy's injured. Some one, I have forgotten now who it was, remarked that Admiral Sampson would greatly appreciate the cutting of the submarine cables leading to Cuba and Porto Rico, adding that a cable ship was now a necessary part of any well-organized fleet.
"Not at all," said Chief Officer Segrave, "there is nothing easier than to pick up and cut a cable."
At this the rest of us exclaimed, "How is it done? Can you do it?"
Mr. Segrave replied: "All you have to do is to lower a stout grapnel to the bottom and to drag it slowly across the location of the cable. If the bottom is sandy and free from rocks you can often catch the cable on the first drive, if, on the other hand, the bottom is foul, you may spend a week and not get it even when you have special appliances for the purpose."
"How do you happen to know so much on the subject?"
"I have spent years laying and repairing cables. I have, myself, laid some of the cables now in the West Indies."
"Could you pick up cables in so large a ship as the St. Louis?"
"Why not? It is only a question of devoting a big and valuable craft to work which might equally well be done by a small steamer."
"Would you like to try for those leading to Porto Rico?"
"Very much indeed."
We ran into Guadeloupe on May 11, and I immediately telegraphed to the Navy Department and to the commander-in-chief: "Unless I receive orders to the contrary, I shall destroy the two telegraph cables to San Juan, Porto Rico, which my first officer has laid [in] shallow, navigable waters." That evening, the ship proceeded to St. Thomas where instructions to join the admiral's flagship at a stated rendezvous off Cape Haytien and at a stated hour were given me. Orders not to destroy cables never came to me because they were never sent.
We learned at St. Thomas, in ways which it is not well to divulge, that the cable from San Juan to Jamaica was out of order. To isolate Porto Rico, therefore, it would be necessary to cut the St. Thomas-San Juan line and the alternate lines leading out of Ponce to Jamaica and to St. Thomas. As time permitted, we decided to cut the first of these three lines on our way to the flag.
It is always surprising to find out how hard is the obtaining of any exact information on any given subject. We have all had this experience. Generalizations abound, but when one wants accurate knowledge every topic is seen to bristle with difficulties and to be shrouded in mystery. Cable-cutting is no exception to the rule. Now there are two important conditions essential to success in this operation. In the first place, you must know where the cable lies; and, in the second, how to pick it up. I think it may be broadly stated that, outside of the records of the proprietary cable company and excepting as to some shore ends, the precise location of every cable is unknown. No chart that I was able to obtain, no source of intelligence, could tell me the very spot to go to for the purpose of raising the submarine wires I wished to sever. True, there are many charts indicating the presence of such lines connecting various ports, but they are all schematic only. To follow such a diagram closely in the belief that it will lead to the particular point sought would be a waste of time. There is one consideration, however, which is always useful as a guide. Cables are costly. Even the deep sea portions, which are lighter than the shore ends, are expensive, the price running from $500 per mile upwards. It may therefore be confidently assumed that where the water is over 20 fathoms in depth and consequently quite undisturbed by heavy gales of wind, the company will follow the shortest distance between the terminal points, which, in sweeping around an irregular and salient shore, will pass, naturally, from headland to headland. For example, when wishing to pick up the Santiago-Jamaica cables, we drew on the chart the straight course connecting the harbor mouth with Holland Bay, Jamaica, where the cables land, and we were confident that what we sought would be found, if at all, not far away. As a matter of fact we got the cables just where we reasoned that they must lie. But how much more satisfactory it is to know in advance where the cable was originally placed, and how fortunate I was to have at my disposal a man who had placed it there himself and knew how to go about grappling for it.
The process of grappling is very simple in the abstract. Over the bow, you lower a grapnel to the bottom and then steam very slowly ahead—barely moving the ship—square across the line of the cable. The grapnel creeps over the bottom, its prongs burrowing slightly under the surface of the soil until they catch underneath the cable. The gradually increasing tension on the grappling rope reveals to the expert, whose hand is always on the outboard part, that the cable is caught. The movements of the ship are under his control by signals to the bridge, and he measures the speed by the old device of the Dutchman's log—billets of wood thrown overboard from time to time. It is well to keep going ahead for a few minutes after getting an unmistakable "bite" in order to lift the cable off the bottom and thus ensure its being well hooked. Then the ship is stopped, the line taken to a steam capstan or winch and hove in. As soon as the bight is well out of water a hawser is bent to it and the grapnel relieved of its duty. When the cable is inboard a stout plank to protect the deck, a couple of sharp blows with an axe and the thing is done. Letting one end go and steaming a couple of miles away with the other make a gap of sufficient magnitude to embarrass the repair steamer, should she come along before peace is declared.
Practically much depends on the judgment and experience of the operator. He knows when it is best to put a shot of 3/4-inch chain just ahead of the grapnel; when best to use manila; when ordinary wire is advisable. For deep sea work, in 1200 fathoms or upwards, a special steel rope has been developed, very strong, very light, very flexible, its outer strands wrapped with hemp yarns. The "feel" is so much deadened that with improvised appliances you might catch and part a cable in such a depth of water and be never the wiser; or, you might miss it and think you had broken it. It is the old story—sooner or later in any particular branch of human activity we must abandon makeshifts, use standard appliances and call in the professional.
The conditions I have just described are those most commonly found—a comparatively smooth sandy or gravelly floor. For such conditions the outfit mentioned will suffice, with patience and care.
But cables often lie on rocky bottoms; possibly they run between boulders or coral heads that protect them from the searching prong of the grapnel which engages under one rock only to spring, when freed, clean and clear over the modest and retiring wire, or to have its prongs straightened out to a state of flabby uselessness. Here a cable is as safe as if buried in a trench except for the one chance out of the thousand which favors the grappler. Under these circumstances, recourse is had to one or more so-called centipedes. Imagine a piece of five- or six-inch lap-welded iron pipe, about three or four feet long. A series of square holes is cut in this pipe, each pair at opposite ends of a diameter, the diameters being placed spirally along the length of the pipe. Through each hole and its opposite, square pieces of iron or steel are driven and the ends turned forwards towards the ring by which the instrument is towed. This is a centipede. It always has for its leader a length of chain. Two or more centipedes with their leaders are occasionally bent tandem to the same line. Perseverance and repeated trials are necessary even when centipedes abound. In cable practice it is sometimes considered economical to abandon altogether a leaky wire and to replace it with a new one rather than attempt to raise and repair it in such foul bottom.
While on this branch of the subject I may remark that the two cables from Santiago to Cienfuegos come under the head of cables protected by the nature of the bottom. We made altogether in the St. Louis and Suwanee no less than fourteen drives for them at points varying from just outside the harbor mouth at Santiago to ten miles distant but we never succeeded in getting the wire or in bringing up anything more than the grapnel itself with its prongs straightened out like the ribs of an inverted umbrella. The Santiago-Cienfuegos cables were our conspicuous failure.
On the 13th of May the St. Louis broke the San Juan-St. Thomas cable. It was necessary to go quite close to the beach about eight miles east of San Juan—and great was the excitement created on shore by our approach. Horsemen could be seen riding frantically in all directions, doubtless to summon troops to resist or friends to facilitate an assumed landing on our part. Not being able to determine which was the actuating sentiment, friendship or enmity, we refrained from firing. The grapnel opened out in this drive, but it brought up enough of the gutta percha insulation and of the protecting hemp to justify us in believing that the cable was actually parted, corroborating the evidence of the heavy strain and sudden release of tension.
When, next morning early, I reported to Admiral Sampson, on board his flagship, both what I had done and what I thought I could do, he expressed his great satisfaction and he quickly adopted my suggestion that the St. Louis continue the work she had begun. Chief Officer Segrave was summoned over from the St. Louis that he might explain to the admiral his requirements in the matter of lines and grapnels. A number of Manila hawsers of 6, 7 and 8 in. circumference, and a lot of stout grapnels were delivered to us by the fleet. For inshore work, where light draught and handiness were necessary, the admiral was good enough to assign to my assistance the U. S. S. Wompatuck, commanded by an excellent, faithful and brave officer, Lieutenant Carl W. Jungen, U. S. Navy.
When such preparations were completed as the resources of the fleet permitted the St. Louis, displacing over 17,000 tons, the largest vessel, by the way, which ever wore a pennant, and her little consort, the Wompatuck, of 462 tons displacement, steamed away from the flag towards Santiago de Cuba, our first point of attack on the enemy's submarine communications with Cuba.
The following day, the 15th of May, was spent in the Windward Passage out of sight of land in fitting up the Wompatuck for grappling, furnishing her with steaming water, etc. It was determined that an attempt on the Santiago-Jamaica cables should be made by that vessel May 16, and we timed our movements so as to arrive off the port about 9 P. M.
The night was appropriate to the work, being moonless, but clouds with mist and rain would have been still more acceptable as obscuring us from the enemy. Such as the weather was, however, the stars shining brilliantly in the calm air, we had no choice but to go in and run the risk of detection. Accordingly, a volunteer party from the St. Louis, with Chief Officer Segrave at its head, went on board the Wompatuck with me. They were not, as yet, formally enlisted or commissioned in the United States Navy, were in fact only under charter to the government by the American Line and thus lay under no positive obligation to endanger their lives in a military enterprise.
The Wompatuck approached the port from the westward, hugging the land and stealing slowly towards the Morro which soon towered above her. We were at the very mouth of the harbor. Lowering the grapnel quietly we soon had hold of a telegraph cable and then the heaving-in process began. In spite of our precautions, some noise must have been made, for a patrol boat came out towards us. Supposing that the Morro, which was close to us, mounted guns, and believing that our presence, now known, would bring a reinforcement sufficient to deprive us of the four or five hours necessary to grapple, raise and cut both Jamaica cables, I decided to abandon the attempt that night and try to reach my end in another way. We returned to the St. Louis, which lay in the offing, and learned that during our absence she had been chased by two patrol vessels flashing signals to each other. We then steamed well out of sight to the southward and westward.
On the 18th of May the St. Louis and Wompatuck came from the westward towards Santiago at daylight at the distance of a mile or so from the beach. At 5 A. M. we were within range of the batteries. The Morro fired a gun to give warning of our approach, and we supposed that it would be followed by a general opening of fire upon us. In this we were agreeably disappointed.
The water is so deep off Santiago that it was necessary to pass quite close to the batteries in order to reach bottom with our grapnel. Men on a predetermined line of bearing from the lighthouse we lowered down not far from a thousand fathoms of hawser and began the slow work of feeling for the cable. It was not until after 11 A. M., if my memory serves me rightly, that the St. Louis hooked her fish and could heave in. In the meantime, great activity and excitement prevailed on shore. Steamboats plied between the Morro and the city bringing troops and carrying away passengers whom we took to be women and children. At the Socapa battery and at that to the eastward of the Morro, men were working like beavers to get guns into position. It was evident that the Krupp 6-in. B. L. R.'s we had been told of as in place were not ready. Still no effort was made to disturb us, and I doubt whether, for a long time, the Spaniards suspected our object. At about noon, however, we had begun to lift the cable. Word to that effect must have been sent to the officer in command from the cable station, for the Spaniards opened on the ship—the lighthouse being then distant a mile and a tenth by observation. The shots were not well directed, however. We had no difficulty in shortly driving the gunners from their pieces near the Morro, or in seeing them as they ran away.* The Wompatuck, which had been lying well outside of the St. Louis, came up in great shape and joined in the action. The total broadside of the American ships in this fight was two 6-pounders on board the St. Louis and one 3-pounder on board the Wompatuck.
*In the table of bombardments of Santiago given by Commander J—, Proceedings Naval Institute, March, 1899, p. 29, it is stated that a 16-cm. gun at the Morro "could only fire three shots." It appeared to us on board the St. Louis as if the cause lay rather with the gun's crew, which certainly, to a man, sprinted in fine form.
The battery of rifled mortars on Punta Gorda gave me much concern, for it was entirely out of reach of my little guns and yet was able to drop its shells all around us. We were practically a stationary target, for the St. Louis was fast to the cable. We could not make up our minds to let that go, so we stuck to it and hove it up. Once the bight was secured we could steam away as we liked. It was a great relief to me when the valuable and most vulnerable ship I commanded had put the western point of land between her and Punta Gorda. We were some forty odd minutes under fire—and exposed to large shells sent from guns beyond our range, whose accuracy of aim became painfully threatening. However, “all's well that ends well." We got the cable; we fought the Spaniards; and we silenced the guns that were within our range; and we escaped unhurt.
The next day we made an unsuccessful attempt to cut the French cable at Guantanamo, which we cut the day following, outside the Mole St. Nicholas. At this point the Wompatuck left us to join the flag at Key West.
The rough coral bottom off the south side of Porto Rico frustrated our subsequent efforts to isolate that island and demonstrated the need of special tools.
I have spoken already of my repeated failures to get the Santiago- Cienfuegos cable by which Havana communicated with Santiago. On two of these occasions we got at night close into the beach tinder the Socapa battery, once in the St. Louis, when there were but 12 fathoms of water under her bow, which lay just outside of the surf. Why the Spaniards did not blow the big liner out of water surpasses my comprehension. She offered an ideal target, her huge bulk plainly outlined as a silhouette against the background of a search-light beam behind her. Again, in the Suwanee, on June 16th, I got even closer still—so close that Lieut. Aranco of the Spanish Navy vainly begged the gunners to open fire on us, for he could both see and hear us distinctly. Probably Lt.-Comdr. Delehanty, who commanded the Suwanee, would have rejoiced in being fired at. For myself, I frankly confess I am glad the Spanish commandant rejected Aranco's proposition.
About this time the Army Signal Corps was vainly endeavoring to get the remaining Santiago-Jamaica cable—the one which it seems the St. Louis had left intact on May 18, although I had reason at the time to believe it broken. The corps had chartered the cable steamer Adria, fully equipped for such work, while I had furnished all the information in my possession, had described how and where I had grappled number one, and what measures I should take to secure number two. As far as I could I aided in every way. Among other things I had strongly advised steaming across the line of the cable from east to west, for I had towed the broken ends of number one to the westward, leaving the eastern approach clear. Any cable picked up to the eastward would, therefore, in all probability, be a live cable.
Provided thus with all the counsel and knowledge at my disposal, the cable steamer, under the Signal Corps, made one last and dramatic effort—passing over the line with the Oregon and Texas between her and the batteries. To make a long story short she went from west to east and she did not get the cable then or at any other time.
On the night of June 18, the admiral allowed the St. Louis to try for the remaining cable. Starting in after nightfall and proceeding from east to west she picked up and severed the cable without difficulty or loss of time. From that date on no telegraphic messages passed out of Cuba via Santiago.*
* Marine Barracks, Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N. Y.,
November 15, 1898.
I certify that on August 10, 1898, I landed at the cable station at the entrance to Santiago Harbor, and had a conversation with the operator. During the conversation the operator informed me that no news had been received or sent over the Jamaica-Santiago cable since the 18th of June, the night when the St. Louis cut the last cable in front of Santiago.
A. W. CATLIN,
First Lieutenant, U. S. M. C.
The St. Louis cut the French cable from Guantanamo to Santiago on June 7, and the same day she grappled that from Guantanamo to Mole St. Nicholas. By the admiral's orders the latter was not cut, but about ten inches of the conductor were removed, and the injured place buoyed. The idea was to have this line only temporarily disabled and ready for subsequent use with but slight repairs. It is an interesting fact that for several hours afterwards, messages were sent and received over the damaged line. The moral is that if you want to stop the enemy's use of a cable you must completely sever it and separate the ends.
It was Chief Officer Segrave who put us in the way of cutting cables and who actually cut three, viz., San Juan-St. Thomas, the first Santiago-Jamaica, and the Guantanamo-Mole St. Nicholas lines. It was his temporary successor, Chief Officer Geo. E. Beckwith, who cut the two cables which formed the loop on the Santiago-Hayti section, leading into and out of Guantanamo—a most difficult job it was, too—and also the last Santiago-Jamaica link. They both bore commissions in the navy of the United States and well had they deserved them.
The St. Louis thus cut every foreign cable leading to Cuba and established an honorable name in connection with work which could hardly have been in the minds of her designers when they drew the plans of so noble a vessel, distinguished in war as well as peace.
It would be unfair if I brought this brief sketch of events to a close without recording my appreciation of the loyalty and pluck of Commander Randle, previously and subsequently the worthy commodore of the American Line, who was the sailing master of the St. Louis during the war when not actually in command of her, and my indebtedness to his zealous and never-failing cooperation. In all this he was imitated by the officers and men who served directly under him, and who speedily set up a healthy rivalry in all good things with "the regulars" on board composed of my aid, Ensign F. R. Payne, Lieut. A. W. Catlin, U. S. M. C., and his excellent guard of marines, not to mention four naval cadets of the third class at the Naval Academy, Messrs. Fremont, Williams, Cook and Goodrich.