Битва за Гуантанамо в 1898 году

Battle during the Spanish–American War

The Battle of Guantánamo Bay was fought from June 6 to June 14 in 1898, during the Spanish–American War, when American and Cuban forces seized the strategically and commercially important harbor of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Capturing the bay from the Spanish forces was instrumental in the following Battle of Santiago de Cuba and the subsequent invasion of Puerto Rico. Although overshadowed by the land and sea battles at Santiago, the establishment of the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay and the rout of defending Spanish troops by American and Cuban forces was important in the final Spanish defeat.

Cuba had been in rebellion against Spain since 1895. Soon after the rebellion began, two insurgent leaders – José Martí and General Máximo Gómez – had landed at the beach of Cajobabo, between Guantánamo Bay and Cape Maisí, but after three years of fighting throughout the island, the rebels had only been successful in two provinces – Oriente and Camagüey. Following the explosion of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor in February 1898, the U. S. declared war on Spain in support of the Cuban insurgents. Havana harbor was blockaded, and by the end of May the Spanish fleet was bottled up in Santiago Bay, 40 mile (64 km) west of Guantánamo Bay, by Rear Admiral William T. Sampson. In the U. S., an army expeditionary force was rapidly being readied at the same time for action in Cuba. Thus, America was allied with the Cuban insurgents. Guantánamo Bay had a measure of commercial importance because of the sugar port of Caimanera on the western shore of the inner bay, some five statute miles (8 km) from the sea.

Despite the nominal offensive position of the insurgents in the vicinity of Guantánamo Bay, Spanish regulars and guerrillas held Guantánamo City, the port of Caimanera and the railroad connecting the two cities, the large sugar mills, and other outlying strong points. The Guantánamo garrison consisted of some 5,000 men under the command of General Felix Pareja. A Spanish blockhouse stood on the hill overlooking the village on Fisherman's Point near the entrance to the bay, and a fort on Cayo del Toro commanded the relatively narrow channel leading from outer to inner bay. The Spanish gunboat Sandoval was based at Caimanera on the inner bay, and a string of blockhouses defended the railroad to Guantánamo City, 14 mile (23 km) inland. The Cuban insurgents maintained coastal outposts from the mouth of the Yateras River, east of the bay, to a point 15 mile (24 km) west of Santiago, and were in undisputed possession of the western point at the entrance to the bay.

The first successful U. S. foray against Guantánamo Bay occurred on 6 June, with the arrival of the unprotected cruiser Marblehead, captained by Commander Bowman H. McCalla, and the auxiliary cruisers St. Louis and Yankee, commanded by Willard H. Brownson. Commander McCalla had been detached by Admiral Sampson from the blockading fleet at Santiago and ordered to reconnoiter the bay for a naval base. The captain of St. Louis was to cut the cables which had their terminus in a small station on Fisherman's Point, and connected Cuba with Haiti and the outside world. On a previous occasion, St. Louis, on a similar mission, had been driven from the bay by the Spanish gunboat Sandoval. This time, as the three warships came into the bay at dawn, Spanish soldiers clustered about the blockhouse on the hill known today as McCalla Hill. The blockhouse and the village were speedily cleared by fire from Marbleheads six pounder gun, along with a single shell. The Spanish gunboats Alvarado and Sandoval came down the channel from Caimanera to meet the attack but retired precipitately on discovering the caliber of guns against them. The one cannon of the fort on Cayo del Toro opened fire on Marblehead without effect until it was silenced. The telegraph cables leading east to Cap Haïtien, west to Santiago, and the small cable in the bay connecting Caimanera and Guantánamo City with Cap Haïtien were all successfully cut, and from 7 June to 5 July the town of Guantánamo had no communication with the outside world. Upon returning to the blockading fleet from the reconnaissance, Marblehead carried two Cuban officers who had been brought off to the ship from Leeward Point (the western side) of Guantánamo Bay. They had been sent to Admiral Sampson by General Calixto García (the same who figured with U. S. Lieutenant Rowan in the famous "A Message to Garcia") to report that the Cuban forces, whose outposts occupied positions on the coast from the mouth of the Yateras to a point 15 mile (24 km) west of Santiago were at the disposition of the U. S. Commander in Chief. Commander McCalla thereafter maintained close liaison with General Pedro Pérez, commanding the Cuban forces around Guantánamo City, through the latter's Chief of Staff, Colonel Vieta, and thus received valuable advice and assistance.

With the decision to establish a base at Guantánamo Bay, the First Battalion of Marines, consisting of six companies of around 650 men (four infantry and one artillery company), was ordered to proceed in the converted transport Panther, and join the fleet off Santiago. The First Battalion, under the command of Lt. Col. Robert W. Huntington USMC, had been undergoing battalion exercises while awaiting orders at Key West. USS Panther reached Santiago on 9 June 1898. leaving A company and F company (the artillery company) aboard to unload the ship, as Commander Reiter, the captain of the Panther, had refused to authorize the use of ship's personnel for unloading duties. Reiter also refused to permit the unloading of the remainder of the Marines' small arms ammunition, claiming that it was needed as ship's ballast. The Marines burned crude huts of the village and the remains of the blockhouse with all their contents to avoid the possibility of yellow fever. The Spanish had fled in such a hurry that clothing, money, jewelry and weapons had been left behind. Located on the sands of the open beach, the Marine campsite proved an ideal target for snipers concealed in the brush. At daybreak (05:00) on Saturday, 11 June, Spanish guerrillas opened fire on the Marines at Camp McCalla from the surrounding brush. Firing a fusillade from their rapid firing Mauser rifles, the guerrillas advanced towards the camp. Gunfire from Marblehead passed overhead and impacted in the nearby hills. Wearing large palm leaves tied to their uniforms for camouflage, and firing smokeless powder cartridges, the Spanish forces were difficult to locate as they moved from bush to bush in the dense undergrowth. Marines responded with their Lee straight pull rifles, along with machine gun and artillery fire from the Marine 3 inch field pieces. By capturing and destroying the only nearby source of fresh water, it was hoped that the defending Spanish forces would be forced to leave the area. Commander McCalla approved the plans, and the attack was scheduled for 08:00 the next day. Marine companies C and D, about 160 men, under Captain George F. Elliott, a future Commandant of the Marine Corps, joined by the fifty Cubans under Lt. Col. Thomas, would approach Cuzco along the cliffs by the sea. A smaller Marine force would advance by an inland valley, holding a picket line for the main force, with men in reserve to assist if necessary. The gunboat Dolphin was assigned to support the attack from sea. The day was already hot when the combined U. S. Cuban force began its march on 14 June. Colonel Laborde guided the main force, and a Cuban scout named Polycarpio guided a smaller force led by 2nd Lt. Magill. The march was slowed by rough terrain, vicious undergrowth, and increasing heat; at one point, the captains of Companies C and D in the main column had fallen behind owing to heat exhaustion. According to Pvt. John Clifford of Company D, the machine guns were instrumental in supporting the Marine assault. This was the first known tactical use of machine gun fire for mobile fire support in offensive combat. The light weight of the Marines' new 6mm Lee cartridge proved to be of considerable benefit, allowing each Marine and machine gun crew to transport large amounts of ammunition over the mountainous, jungled terrain. Midway through the battle, the Cuban rebel forces ran out of 6 mm cartridges, and were resupplied with an additional six clips (30 cartridges) from the belts of individual Marines, yet none of the Americans ran short of ammunition, despite firing some sixty shots apiece in the battle. During this portion of the fighting, Captain Elliott had requested that Dolphin provide fire support to the Marines by shelling the Spanish blockhouse and nearby positions with her naval guns. Through a miscommunication of signals, however, the gunboat began unknowingly dropping shells in the direct path of a small force of fifty marines and ten Cuban irregulars led by 2nd Lt. Magill, who was attempting to flank the Spanish position and potentially cut off any avenue of retreat. Camp McCalla saw no further attacks by Spanish or guerilla forces, and was disestablished on August 5, 1898. Meanwhile, attention was soon focused on other areas of the bay. The Spanish were adding to their earthworks on Cayo del Toro, where they had three bronze guns and a modern Krupp gun. At Caimanera, on the bluff south of the village, were mounted three more of the guns, and the small gunboat Sandoval had a battery of one six pounder and an automatic one pounder Maxim gun.

Admiral Sampson decided to shell the fort of Cayo del Toro, and on 16 June he sent USS Texas and Yankee to join with USS Marblehead in this plan. Fire from the three ships temporarily dismounted two of the enemy's big guns, destroyed the buildings on the Cay, and drove the troops from all guns and trenches. Their combined firepower had reduced the Spanish fort to impotency within 15 minutes of initially engaging it. One enemy shell landed near the bow of the Marblehead, sinking within ten yards of the ship, but no hits were scored. As the Americans proceeded slowly, a lookout on Marblehead reported that the starboard propeller was foul of a buoy. The engine was stopped, and the propeller was cleared of the "buoy", which turned out to be a contact mine. The mine was successfully disarmed. Afterward, it was learned that the ships had passed through a field of 18 such mines, or torpedoes, on the trip up the bay and through the same field on the return trip, without injury of any kind. A few days after the attack on Cayo del Toro, the mine field was thoroughly explored, and 14 mines were recovered. Their failure to explode on contact was attributed to mechanical faults, plus a healthy growth of barnacles on the contact levers. The minesweeping operation, carried out without specialized equipment, involved two steam launches and two whaleboats from Marblehead and Dolphin. A launch and whaleboat side by side, connected to the other launch and whaleboat by a rope with a chain drag in the center, swept the channel. When the drag met an obstruction, the boats came together and crossed the ends of the drag. The boats were then hauled carefully up to the mine, which was brought to the surface and disarmed. Twice the drag brought up two mines together. While sweeping for mines, the boats had been fired on from Hicacal Beach, where 250 Spanish infantry were posted to guard the mine field. It was determined to rout the last enemy force remaining in the vicinity of the bay, and on 25 June Lt. Col. Huntington led two companies of Marines and 40 Cubans in an amphibious assault on Hicacal Beach. It proved to be a bloodless encounter, since the Spanish had left a day or two earlier.

With Guantánamo Bay successfully occupied, US interest centered on operations at Santiago. An American expeditionary force of 17,000 officers and men under Major General William R. Shafter was landed east of the city at the small ports of Daiquirí and Siboney between 22 and 25 June, without opposition. A week later, on 1 July, the historic battles of El Caney and San Juan Hill ended in victory for U. S. forces, opening up the approaches to Santiago itself. On the morning of 3 July, a demand was sent to the Spanish commander, General Arsenio Linares, to surrender or suffer bombardment of the city as an alternative. On the same morning, the Spanish fleet under Admiral Pascual Cervera sallied forth from Santiago Bay, only to meet with complete destruction at the hands of the U. S. fleet. Major Spanish resistance at Santiago was at an end, although it was not until 15 July that a preliminary agreement was signed. U. S. forces occupied the city on 17 July. The 7,000 Spanish troops at the city of Guantánamo – only 40 mile (64 km) away – did not march to the aid of Linares' besieged army, because prior to the cutting of his communications, General Pareja had been directed by his superiors to hold the city of Guantánamo at all costs. This was so ordered because the Spanish feared that the Guantánamo valley might be used as an invasion route by U. S. forces, as the English had once used it to advance on Santiago. After the Navy cut the cables and established a base at Guantánamo Bay, General Pareja remained in complete ignorance concerning the course of the war because the Cuban insurgents maintained such a tight ring about the city that not one messenger got through their lines. Fifteen were caught and executed as spies. None of General Linares' frantic requests for aid reached Pareja. The threat posed by U. S. Naval forces and a battalion of Marines at Guantánamo Bay, plus the stranglehold on land communications by 1,000 Cuban insurgents, effectively pinned down an army of 7,000 men which might have changed the outcome of the fighting at Santiago. Less than a week after the surrender of Santiago, the base at Guantánamo Bay was used to launch the invasion of Puerto Rico, 500 mile (805 km) to the east. Three thousand five hundred troops under General Miles sailed from the Bay on 21 July. This was the last important event in the Spanish–American War phase of Guantánamo Bay; on August 12, the war ended with the signing of the peace protocol and an armistice. The new U. S. Naval Base was not formalized by lease agreement between the U. S. and Cuba until five years later, when in 1903 it was acquired as a "coaling and Naval station", but its worth was already proven. Lt. Col. Huntington's Marine First Battalion, which had reembarked aboard the Resolute during the siege and surrender of Santiago, sailed for the United States, and after a stop at New York, arrived at Portsmouth Harbor, disembarking her marines on the evening of 24 August 1898.