BATTLE OF CUZCO WELL

On this morning, LCOL Robert W. Huntington dispatched CPT George Fielding Elliott with two rifle companies and 50 Cuban scouts on a 6-mile circuitous march along the shore to the Cuzco Well.  They were spotted by the Spanish, and a foot race ensued to the high ground overlooking the Spanish plantation house.  Elliott’s Marines reached the hilltop first and forced the Spanish away with rifle and machine gun fire.  The enemy retreated to the shelter of their plantation house, where the Marines rained down small arms fire at a range of 1000 yards.  Meanwhile, another Marine platoon on outpost duty heard the firing and approached on their own initiative to the head of the valley opposite Elliott.  The Spanish were now caught low in the valley in a crossfire!  The gunboat USS DOLPHIN opened fire with her 4″ guns and 3-pounders, but unable to see her target, her shells were so erratic several struck the Marines.  For a time, the Marines ducked in their position on the hill to dodge DOLPHIN’s gunfire, until SGT John H. Quick crafted a makeshift signal flag from his blue polka dot bandanna and ran back to the crest.  With his back to the enemy, and sky-lined by the terrain, he and PVT John Fitzgerald began signaling DOLPHIN.  On three occasions over the next four hours, Quick braved enemy fire to correctly spot the gunboat’s fire.

In an afternoon of sharp fighting the Spanish were routed with an estimated 160 casualties.  The heavily outnumbered Marines had sustained only three losses to combat and 20 heat casualties.  Four allied Cuban scouts were hit as well.  The Spanish camp was burned, 18 were captured, and the well was dynamited.  Attacks on Huntington’s Guantanamo foothold ended.

The subsequent destruction of Cervera’s squadron and the capture of Santiago de Cuba in July obviated the need for the Guantanamo station.  The Marines were withdrawn on 5 August. Indeed, compared to later fighting, the battle of Cuzco was but a skirmish.  However, an American public hungry for news of the first ground action gobbled-up the story after imbedded newspaper correspondents painted this action as heroic.  One story, in particular, was widely published–that of Stephen Crane, whose name was well known as the author of the popular 1895 novel Red Badge of Courage.  SGT Quick and Fitzgerald received the Medal of Honor, and Huntington’s Battalion was paraded to public acclaim in Washington, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Omaha.

The Marines would return shortly.  The 1903 Platt Amendment, negotiated during our post-war occupation, guaranteed Cuban independence and negotiated the lease of Guantanamo Bay that continues today.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  19 JUN 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Heinl, Robert Debs, Jr.  Soldiers of the Sea:  The United States Marine Corps, 1775-1962.  Baltimore, MD: Nautical & Aviation Pub., 1991, p. 116.

Millett, Allan R.  Semper Fidelis:  The History of the United States Marine Corps.  New York, NY: Macmillan Pub Co., 1980, pp. 131-33.

Moskin, J. Robert.  The U.S. Marine Corps Story, 3^rd ed.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1992, pp. 89-90.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 98.

United States Congress.  United States of America’s Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients and their Official Citations.  Columbia Heights, MN: Highland House II, 1994, pp. 606, 615.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The beach near the Cuzco Well became part of the US Naval base and served as a recreational area.  It is located near the modern Camp X-Ray detention facility.

George F. Elliott rose to the rank of MGEN and served from 1908-1910 as Commandant of the Marine Corps.  Two WWII troop transports, USS GEORGE F. ELLIOTT (AP-13, AP-105) remember him.  John Quick rose to the rank of SGTMAJ and later received the Navy Cross for heroic actions in WWI at Belleau Wood.  The Gleaves-class destroyer QUICK (DD-490) honors him.  Trivia buffs will note that our Navy did have a ship commissioned with the name JOHN FITZGERALD, however this did not recognize PVT John Fitzgerald above.  Rather, she was a British trawler purchased by our Navy in WWI for U-boat patrols with her British name retained.  Likewise, our armored cruiser WEST VIRGINIA (ACR-5) was renamed HUNTINGTON in 1916 so her original name could be given to BB-48.  But in this case her name honors West Virginia’s second largest city.

The post Battle of Cuzco Well appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                CAPTURE OF GUANTANAMO BAY

Much of the Spanish-American War was fought in Cuba, where American intervention hoped to end oppression of local Cubans by their Spanish overlords.  Spain answered with a squadron of four cruisers and three destroyers from the Cape Verde Islands on 29 April.  These feared warships, under the command of ADM Pascual Cervera y Topete, deeply troubled American planners who were doubly concerned at not knowing Cervera’s intended target.  Would they reinforce Havana, or attack the US marshalling base in Key West, Florida, or worse, bombard our Atlantic seaboard?  RADM William T. Sampson was dispatched with a strong flotilla of modern American battleships and cruisers to Cuban waters.  His scouts finally located Cervera’s ships in the protected harbor at Santiago de Cuba, on the southeastern shore of the island.  Visual inspection of this harbor was blocked by hills at its mouth, but by this date Sampson had positioned his battleships outside the harbor entrance and had blocked the main exit channel with the scuttled collier USS MERRIMAC.  But Sampson’s ships, powerful as they were, burned coal.  The nearest coaling station was off the tip of Florida at Fort Jefferson, a two-day round trip.  Consequently, Sampson looked to establish a coaling station 40 miles to the east of Santiago de Cuba at a harbor called Guantanamo Bay.

The 1^st Marine Battalion, then training in Key West, was ordered to take Guantanamo Bay.  On June 7^th, CDR Bowman H. MaCalla in the cruiser MARBLEHEAD (C-11) and the auxiliary cruisers YANKEE and ST. LOUIS entered Guantanamo Bay.  Two days of maneuvers and gunfire from the battleship OREGON (BB-3) routed Spanish defenders from a blockhouse on a hill at Fisherman’s Point, silenced a battery at Caimanera, and chased the gunboat SANDOVAL into the upper harbor.  The 633 men and 21 officers of the 1^st Battalion–“Huntington’s Battalion” after their commander, USMC LCOL Robert W. Huntington–landed this day at Fisherman’s Point from the transport PANTHER.  They were the first American forces ashore in Cuba, establishing Camp McCalla near the deserted Spanish blockhouse.  PVTs William Dumphy and James McColgan became the first US ground casualties of the war while standing picket duty.

But over their first three evenings ashore, Huntington’s Marines came under vicious counterattack by a growing number of Spanish.  The battalion medical officer, Assistant Surgeon John Blair Gibbs, was struck in the head and killed on the 11^th.  To protect his supply lines and reduce exposure to such attacks, Huntington moved his Marines closer to the beach.  Huntington then learned from a Cuban guerrilla that the Spanish force numbering about 500 was garrisoned two miles distant in a plantation house near their only source of drinking water, a well at Cuzco beach.  If that well could be destroyed, the Spanish would be forced to evacuate.

Continued 14 June…

The Abrogation of the Platt Amendment, May 29, 1934.  IN: Commager, Henry Steele.  Documents of American History, Vol II, 7^th ed.  New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963, pp. 291-92.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 244.

Hull, R.R.  “Signal Encounter at Guantanamo.”  Naval History, Vol 12 (3), June 1998, pp. 18-23.

Maclay, Edgar Stanton.  A History of the United States Navy from 1775 to 1901, Vol III.  New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company, 1901, pp. 337-41.

Millett, Allan R.  Semper Fidelis:  The History of the United States Marine Corps.  New York, NY: Macmillan Pub Co., 1980, pp. 131-34.

Murphy, M.E.  The History of Guantanamo Bay, on-line ed.  www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/history.html, 23 May 2003.

The Platt Amendment to the Army Appropriations Bill of March 2, 1901.  IN: Commager, Henry Steele.  Documents of American History, Vol II, 7^th ed.  New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963, pp. 28-29.

Site visit, Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 19-22 May 2003.

United States Congress.  United States of America’s Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients and their Official Citations.  Columbia Heights, MN: Highland House II, 1994, pp. 606, 615.

Young, James Rankin.  Spanish American War and Battles in the Philippines.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 86-94.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Today the area of Fisherman’s Point and MaCalla Hill is the site of the leeward ferry landing of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.

The post Capture of Guantanamo Bay appeared first on Today in Naval History.