On the morning of January 18, the U. S. S. Prometheus completed the canal passage and dropped anchor in the harbor of Colon, Canal Zone. The battle fleet was assembled there for the maneuvers. Overhead planes were hovering to and fro, and somewhere off the coast the scouting fleet, the attacking force, was endeavoring to come unseen within the range of the Colon defenses. At noon there came a rumor that the enemy had been sighted and the evolutions completed. Many eyes were turned toward the flagship waiting for the expected signal which, terminating the maneuvers, would announce the commencement of liberty.
Soon a signal was wigwagged, but it was not the expected one. It was an order to prepare at once for detached service and for the commanding officer to come on board the flagship for instructions. Liberty cards were returned to the general office, boats were rigged in, deck gear stowed away, all loose equipage lashed up, and with the return of the commanding officer, the anchor was hoisted simultaneously with the taking in of the gig. Within an hour after receiving the signal the Prometheus was steaming past the battleships of the fleet and out of the breakwater entrance. We were bound for Mexico to the relief of the U. S. S. Tacoma, stranded on Blanquilla Reef, outside the harbor of Vera Cruz.
On the trip across the Caribbean the ship struck a heavy “norther” which lasted a couple of days. On the day after it abated a radio was received announcing the sinking of the Tacoma in this gale to her gun deck level. Subsequent radios announced the death of Captain Herbert G. Sparrow, the commanding officer of the Tacoma, and ordered the Prometheus to proceed to Tampico to meet the U. S. S. Richmond at that place.
On the afternoon of January 24 the Prometheus arrived at Tampico where 236 survivors of the Tacoma were transferred from the Richmond. The night was spent in fueling and in the morning the Prometheus departed for Vera Cruz where she arrived on the morning of the twenty-seventh.
Upon approaching Vera Cruz the wreck of the Tacoma could be seen off the starboard bow and as the Prometheus slowed down for the pilot boat, a motor sailer was launched and a wrecking party sent to destroy all ordnance left on the stranded ship.
Blanquilla Reef, a long, narrow bank of coral, famous for its disasters, is one of the series of reefs which encircle the entrance the harbor of Vera Cruz. In very calm weather the crest
View of Starisoahd Side of “Tacoma” |
of the reef, projecting a few feet above water, is about sixty feet in width. In time of storm the breakers sweep across the entire width of the reef. It has at one place a small steel framework supporting a light.
The wrecking party found the Tacoma lying parallel to the crest of the reef and about fifty feet away. She had a list to starboard and was in about seventeen feet of water. An idea of the damage the ship had sustained could be formed on approaching. Both of her topmasts were gone, as well as the number two smoke stack, the radio house, and her boats. The bridge was wrecked, and the crow's nest on the foremast, badly battered and hanging from its brackets, testified to the heights attained by the waves. The starboard shell plating from amidships aft could be seen badly stove in. All the gun port shutters on this side were gone and her main deck was covered with a mass of wreckage.
The Tacoma, lying parallel to the reef, formed a sort of breakwater and made an otherwise hazardous boarding possible. Upon boarding her, the damage found was astounding. The number two stack, seen missing upon approaching the ship, was gone
Chf. Carp., N. A. Nipli tin pale, 77. S. N. Main Deck ok “Tacoma" |
entirely. Its wreckage could be seen in the clear water between the ship and the reef. The flat cowls of those ventilators which remained had been crushed by the seas. Many of the steel covers to the water-tight hatches were gone and the starboard side of the hatch combings deformed. The bridge was wrecked and the navigational instruments had disappeared. Only ragged holes or ripped planking in that part of the bridge deck which remained, testified to their existence. One rapid fire gun from the starboard side was found on the main deck amidships and a damaged hammock netting on the port side showed the force with which the gun had been thrown across the ship. Parts of the engine and a twisted propeller of a thirty-six-foot motor sailer were found strewn about the deck. Nothing remained in the port skids, where this boat had been stowed, while in the starboard skids there was the engine of a gig, the keel, the stem, and some broken, twisted planking. A three-inch field piece, caught on fallen wreckage, was hanging over the side, only a few fragments of its wheels and carriage left. Everywhere on the main deck was wreckage and the evidence of fearful destruction.
Below, the damage was even worse. The water level was just below the gun deck and through the missing gun port shutters the waves were still rolling in. The side plating, torn just above the gun deck edge, allowed the water to escape with the retreat of each wave. The entire starboard side amidships and both sides aft on the gun deck were bare. Nothing remained except stanchions and some of the water-tight bulkheads. The corrugated iron partitions were gone, as was everything of wood. Of the furniture in the captain’s quarters, scarcely anything remained and that only in fragments. Things had simply disintegrated. Not a back nor a leg remained on a chair nor a rung attached to a leg. Watertight doors had been ripped from the binges, dogs stripped from the bolts, air port frames torn from the shell plating.
Many of the personal effects of the captain, his medals, the metal of his golf clubs, his battered table silver, shoes, and a number of his chessmen together with pieces of broken tile, tattered remnants of clothing, scraps of wood and other articles too disfigured to be recognized, were found behind the sheathing on the starboard side. The water, seeking to escape through the broken shell plating, had carried the debris with it and piled it up behind the sheathing. The decks were bare of linoleum and the captain’s bath of tile. This tile had been the cause of much of the apparent disintegration, as it was found throughout the ship, and evidently carried about by the surging sea, had acted as so much abrasive.
Only on the port side abreast the machinery casings and in the sick bay immediately forward were things more or less intact, but even here there was considerable damage and evidence of the fury of the storm, the deck itself at one point had opened up in a transverse rupture, extending from the engine room bulkhead to the shell plating. As it was afterwards learned, it was at this place that the officers and men on board during the second storm had taken refuge.
The hatches leading below decks were filled with twisted steel ladders and broken furniture. The constant commotion of water with the attendant crashing about of the debris rendered any attempt to go below the gun deck extremely perilous. Attempts made on the following day by divers from the Omaha and the
Prometheus to gain the magazines were given up on this account; hence little knowledge of the condition of the hull below the water level could be ascertained. Looking down the engine-room hatch, the port engine seemed to be listed somewhat to port. This condition could not be definitely determined, as here, too, the water was in a state of turbulence and was full of floating wreckage.
It was found that the breech plugs of the guns had already been removed from the ship and the wrecking party completed the destruction, cutting slugs from the gun barrels and sections through the gun mounts with the oxy-acetylene torch. Nothing on the ship was found to be worth salvaging except the mirror of the searchlight mounted above the bridge. The searchlight itself was battered out of shape but, strangely, the mirror escaped unscathed.
Returning to the Prometheus, the wrecking party found the ship inside the breakwater, with the U. S. S. Omaha, and three destroyers. The Omaha was flying the flag of Rear Admiral Kittelle, commander destroyer squadron. Preparations had already been made for the reception of the bodies of Captain Sparrow, U. S. Navy, and Solomon Sivin’s, radioman third class. The bodies were lying in state ashore at the Naval College, then held by the De La Huerta forces. A boat party made up from the United States ships present received the bodies at the dock to which they had been borne by a guard of honor from the Mexican rebel forces. They were turned over with fitting ceremonies. Everywhere marked respect for the dead was shown. Thousands of the citizens of Vera Cruz lined the docks, the Omaha’s band played the funeral hymns, and her airplane flying overhead dropped flowers on the water. When the bodies were lowered to the Prometheus motor sailer not a head was to be seen, of the thousands present, that was not uncovered.
On the following day, the remaining survivors of the Tacoma, several of whom were severely injured and almost all of whom were suffering from privation and exposure, were transferred to the Prometheus from the Omaha, and that afternoon the ship sailed for Charleston, S. C.
* * * *
The following account of the grounding and subsequent wrecking of the Tacoma has been compiled from the stories of the survivors.
In the early morning of January 16, the U. S. S. Tacoma, Captain Herbert G. Sparrow, U. S. N., commanding, while attempting to make the entrance to the harbor of Vera Cruz, ran aground on Blanquilla Reef. The general alarm was sounded and the engines were reversed at full speed. The ship was found to be hard and fast on the reef, forty-five minutes of continuously reversing at full power failing to net any result. The condensers became hot; sand was evidently entering the intakes. The engines were stopped and all hands combined to shift astern ammunition and other movable weights; in an effort to lighten the bow.
In the meantime the storm, which had been threatening, had commenced to break, and at seven o’clock waves were tumbling over the side. The Tacoma, which had originally struck bow on, was now swung by the force of the seas broadside on the reef. Water was reported rising rapidly in the after fire room and orders were given to secure the boilers and vacate that compartment. Soon the other fire room and the engine rooms were abandoned for the same reason. The radio in the meanwhile, was busy sending out “S.O.S.” calls, and on deck every available man was being used in the construction of life rafts.
The dinghy was lowered over the side and a line was run to the light on the reef, in case the use of the breeches buoy became necessary. The men in the dinghy were unable to return to the ship and a whaleboat was sent in with a second line. The crew of the dinghy was picked up and the whaleboat, in attempting to return to the ship, was upended. After a two-hour battle with the seas the last of the men succeeded in making the light on the reef, with the exception of one who swam to the ship.
Meanwhile a small harbor tug and the steamship Yore were unsuccessfully attempting to float a line to the stranded vessel, but with the approach of night and the increasing storm, the vessels sought refuge within the harbor. A Mexican gunboat flying the colors of the De La Huerta forces came out and rescued the men on the light, after which it stood by, throughout the storm, in the lee of the reef.
On the Tacoma, the waves were breaking all over the ship, water leaking in through the hatches and gunports. The shutter at No. 5 gun, aft on the starboard side, carried away, flooding the adjacent compartment. The other gunports, leaking badly, were caulked with sea bags.
With the coming of morning the storm abated and at 10:00 a.m. the American consul came on board for a conference with the commanding officer. It was decided to take most of the men off and in the afternoon the Mexican gunboat took off all but Captain Sparrow, seven officers, and forty-two men. The gunboat transferred these men to shore where they were given quarters in a dance hall at a beach resort, five miles north of Vera Cruz and directly opposite Blanquilla Reef.
The men remaining on board commenced to clear up the wreckage, replaced the shutters, secured additional braces at the No. 5 gunport, and made preliminary preparations for the work of salvaging the ship. On the eighteenth the Tacoma took a slight list to starboard.
On the nineteenth the U. S. S. Richmond arrived from Panama and the U. S. naval tug Dayspring from New Orleans. On the twentieth the U. S. S. Allegheny arrived and the Richmond left tor Tampico, taking with her the men quartered on shore with the exception of twenty, left with the tugs for armed guard duty.
Word was received that another storm was coming, but as the Tacoma had successfully weathered one, which had been quite severe, the commanding officer felt that she would have no difficulty in going through another. Every effort was made in the meantime to get the Tacoma off the reef. The tugs ran lines to the ship and made several attempts to drag the vessel off. These were unsuccessful as the lines were all too light and parted under the strain.
Shortly before the storm commenced the wrecking tug Si. Helena arrived and ran a fifteen-inch hawser from the stern to a wrecking anchor placed to seaward of the ship. At 2:30 p.m. the storm broke, just as the crew of the Tacoma were endeavoring to lake in the slack on the hawser. For two hours they exerted every ounce of strength, Captain Sparrow, the officers, and seamen alike hearing a hand. It was hoped that by keeping a strain on the hawser the ship’s stern at least, as it was oscillated up and down by the heavy sea, might he worked off the reef. The storm gathered quickly; soon the fury of it far surpassed the earlier one and it was impossible to remain on deck. The men retreated below, closing all but one of the water-tight hatches on the topside.
Below, the gunports were leaking and again attempts were made to caulk them with hags and reinforce them with additional shores. The storm, increasing to the violence of a hurricane, rocked the ship incessantly on the reef. Water was rising in the compartments below, the berth deck was vacated and all hatches leading below the gun deck were closed. The hatches aft leading to the topside began to leak; a shutter to one of the starboard guns gave way, letting in a rush of water. Lieutenant Fitzpatrick, the navigator, with several men, was endeavoring to add extra shores to this shutter, when it gave way entirely, knocking down Lieutenant Fitzpatrick, breaking his collarbone, and knocking Regan, boatswain’s mate first class, unconscious; Owens, ship’s cook, and Sivins, radioman, received minor injuries.
The captain, wishing to see the condition of the topside and to get into radio communication with the shore, went above through the forward hatch, taking with him Lieutenant Hungerford and five radio men. Shortly after he left, a huge mass of water came over the forecastle and, pouring through this hatch, carried away the ladders, thus destroying the last means of communication with the topside. Other gunport shutters were giving away, the gun deck compartments were being swept with large volumes of water and those below retreated to the only place of refuge remaining, the compartment on the port side abreast the machinery spaces. They closed the water-tight doors to this compartment, and used everything at hand to reinforce the doors and shore the bulkheads.
The pounding of the ship increased, waves lifting her up and dropping her on the hard coral of the reef. The uproar of the elements made sleep or rest impossible and every minute it was thought the ship would break up or roll over. Soon water was leaking into the compartment of refuge. Higher and higher it rose, forcing the occupants to seek safety on mess benches and on the tops of clothes lockers. There the night of peril was passed.
In the morning, during a lull in the tempest, Sill, signalman third class, succeeding in making his way to the upper deck, found in a hammock netting Lieutenant Hungerford and Chief Radioman Cooper, both semiconscious and seemingly at the end of their physical powers. The former was feebly calling for the captain, and in an adjacent netting Sill found the bodies of two radio men, Sivins and Lussier, the bodies being horribly crushed. Nothing could be seen of the captain or of Herrick, the other radioman. Waves were tumbling over the side and masses of water sweeping the fleck carried destruction and potential death from bow to stern. The injured were taken through a bunker plate; the lull in the storm being over, it was absolutely impossible to remain on deck. The bunker plate was replaced and again all exits to the topside were barricaded.
Food had now given out, the men were living on emergency rations and scraps of floating bread. If the storm did not abate soon, the end was only a question of hours. The prisoners of the elements, skin bruised from floating coral, injured by drifting Wreckage, watersoaked, nerve racked, famished and some suffering greatly from thirst, were nearing the end of their resistance.
Lieutenant Hungerford revived enough to tell the story of the topside. Finding the radio house gone and unable to make their way back to the hatch, the party sought refuge in the hammock nettings. This was a poor shelter at best, but it was the only retreat possible. The heavy steel top and sides protected them Lom falling masts and rigging, and from wave-borne wreckage, but the waves surging across the deck repeatedly swamped the nettings and threatened to drown them within the enclosure. Constant vigilance was needed to keep their heads above water and to brace themselves for the shock of the successive water attacks. Their strength was rapidly giving out. Then the gun on the starboard side carried away, and tossed by the infuriated water here and there about the deck, threatened to crush the side of the hammock netting. It was decided to attempt a retreat to another netting and a dash was made. Hungerford found himself in another netting with Cooper but saw nothing more of the captain. About that time the stack went down, taking with it a lot of adjacent topside hamper.
Fortunately the severity of the storm during the second night was not as intense as that of the preceding, and in the morning it had calmed considerably. Again the topside was gained and this time it was possible to make a more thorough search. The body of the captain was found under some vegetable lockers on the starboard side in the vicinity of the missing stack. The bodies of Sivins and Lussier were gone from the hammock netting; that of Sivins was later found with the head sticking in an ammunition hoist. No traces could be found of the other two.
The storm continued moderating and later in the day a whaleboat was launched from the Allegheny, which succeeded in making five trips to the Tacoma taking off all but sixteen of the men. These sixteen, including two of the injured, were taken off by a Mexican pilot boat which was capsized just after leaving the Tacoma. Fortunately all on board were cast up on the reef where they found refuge on the light tower.
Words cannot adequately express the devotion of the survivors to the memory of their late captain. One and all were filled with sorrow for his loss and with the greatest admiration for his conduct throughout the crisis. Up to the very end he exhibited the most sterling qualities of leadership. Wherever the breach was, he was foremost; never ordering, but leading; without fear for himself, he was all for the ship and for the safety of his men. He died an example for us to heed.
This story would not be complete without a word, too, for the generous Mexicans in De La Huerta’s forces. Everything possible, within their limited resources, was done for the rescue and relief of the Tacoma and her personnel.