Spanish gunboat General Concha
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''General Concha'' was a Cañonero (
gunboat A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies. History Pre-ste ...
) or more technically "Third Class non-armored Cruiser" of the
Spanish Navy The Spanish Navy or officially, the Armada, is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Spanish Navy was responsible for a number of major historic achievements in navigation, ...
which fought at San Juan,
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
, during the
Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (cloc ...
.


Construction and description

''General Concha'' was built at the naval shipyard Esteiro at Ferrol,
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
, working order #169. She had an iron hull with bow ram, a single
funnel A funnel is a tube or pipe that is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, used for guiding liquid or powder into a small opening. Funnels are usually made of stainless steel, aluminium, glass, or plastic. The material used in its construct ...
, and a light schooner rig. She was the first ship of a class of four gunboats ordered by Admiral Francisco de Paula Pavía y Pavía during his third term as ''Ministro de Marina'' (Minister of the Navy). The design was made in Spain. The
keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...
was
laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...
on 1 May 1882 and the ship was launched on 28 November 1883. The engine with two boilers was constructed by '' La Maquinista Terrestre y Maritima SA'' in
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
at a final cost of 312,000 pesetas and was constructed directly aboard the ship, after being towed from Ferrol to Barcelona by the merchant vessel ''José Pérez''. Bunker coal stock capacity was 70–80 tons having an average consumption of 10 tons per day. Initially, weaponry was led by three main "González Hontoria" guns (a heavy armament for a gunboat, which made her being technically categorised as "Cruiser, Third Class" in spite of being a standard gunboat in all other aspects) and three Nordenfelt-type machine guns, two and one , but sometime after late 1899 the ordnance was changed to a lighter four rapid-fire Nordenfelt guns and two 25 mm Maxim machine guns. She was named after Spanish Navy Brigadier Don Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha, governor of the intendency of Salta del Tucumán, then part of the
Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata A viceroyalty was an entity headed by a viceroy. It dates back to the Spanish conquest of the Americas in the sixteenth century. France *Viceroyalty of New France Portuguese Empire In the scope of the Portuguese Empire, the term " Viceroyalty ...
, and explorer of the
Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...
in a 1779 expedition. He was executed by the first independent Argentine government in August 1810, near the city of Cruz Alta, Córdoba, along with
Santiago de Liniers Santiago Antonio María de Liniers y Bremond, 1st Count of Buenos Aires, KOM, OM (July 25, 1753 – August 26, 1810) was a French officer in the Spanish military service, and a viceroy of the Spanish colonies of the Viceroyalty of the River ...
and other
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.


Operational history

After becoming fully operational and ready for duty the General Concha was assigned to the then Spanish colony of San Juan,
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
where she served mainly as a coastal surveillance vessel until the
Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (cloc ...
began in April 1898. The
U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
soon established a permanent
blockade A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are leg ...
of San Juan on 18 June 1898. On 22 June 1898 ''General Concha'', the cruiser , and the destroyer came out of port to test the blockade, resulting in the Second Battle of San Juan. The
auxiliary cruiser An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in ...
s and moved in, resulting in a short, running gun battle, from which the Spanish quickly broke away. ''Isabel II'' and ''General Concha'' had a poor top speed of ; ''Terror'' made a
torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, s ...
run on ''St. Paul'' to cover their retreat, and was badly damaged by gunfire from ''St. Paul'', but all three Spanish ships made it back into port at San Juan. Two men had been killed aboard ''Terror'', the only casualties on either side suffered during the battle. On 28 June 1898, ''General Concha'', ''Isabel II'' and
gunboat A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies. History Pre-ste ...
left port again to assist a Spanish blockade runner, the merchant steamer , trying to make its way into San Juan's harbor with an important cargo of war supplies. ''Yosemite'' intercepted ''Antonio López'' and attacked it making her run aground in nearby reefs. ''General Concha'' arrived first and engaged ''Yosemite'', thwarting the efforts of the Americans to disrupt the undergoing salvage operation. The three Spanish warships exchanged long-range gunfire with ''St. Paul'', ''Yosemite'', and cruiser , with neither side scoring any hits. After the war ''General Concha'' returned to Spain and her armament was refitted to four rapid-fire 42 mm Nordenfelt guns and two 25 mm Maxim machine guns. She was assigned to the
Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
coast of Morocco, as part of the effort to interrupt
piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...
and arms smuggling by the local ''cabilas'', usually patrolling the area between Melilla and Alhucemas.


Wreck

On 11 June 1913 ''General Concha'' sailed from
Almuñécar Almuñécar () is a Spanish city and municipality located in the southwestern part of the comarca of the Costa Granadina, in the province of Granada. It is located on the shores of the Mediterranean sea and borders the Granadin municipalities of ...
, Granada, in mainland Spain to Alhucemas, a Spanish stronghold in the Moroccan coast. In command of the ship was ''Capitán de Corbeta'' Don Emiliano Castaño Hernández and aboard was (as a passenger) Colonel Basterra. Upon reaching the Moroccan coast the ship encountered dense fog and continued inbound to Alhucemas at slow speed, but lack of sight from coastal references after some time led the crew to misinterpretation of the position of the ship and some five miles out from her destination she violently ran aground near the cove of Busicú at 07:40 local time. This area was ''de facto'' controlled by the Bocoy cabila, a group of Morocco rebels fighting the Spaniards. The ship was trapped among rocks with her bow pointed to the coast, so immediately an anchor was moored from the stern to try to free her, unsuccessfully. A rowboat was lowered to closely evaluate the extent of the hull damage. All bow compartments, the pantry and some engine room sections were flooded, and all rifles stored in the bow armory room were reallocated to the officers' room amidships. The armed boat nr.2 was launched, with eight seamen led by ''Alférez de Navío'' Don Luis Felipe Lazaga with the mission of reaching Alhucemas to communicate the distress of the vessel and also evacuate Colonel Basterra. The local insurgent forces soon realized the compromised situation of the Spanish vessel and began harassing the crew of ''General Concha'' with spare rifle shots from the nearby cliffs. The crew was forced to fight the attackers and undergo repairs in the damaged bow section at the same time. The bow 120 mm gun turned out to be inoperative, being partially below waterline. During this first shooting two crew were killed. Several other men including ''Alférez de Navío'' Don Rafael Ramos Izquierdo y Gener were also wounded. The doctor, Don Manuel Quignon, improvised a "medical room" in a compartment inside the ship. With a rope he wrapped around himself a mattress as improvised protection and came to the outside deck, exposed to fire, dragging all the wounded and dead to the inside of the ship for treatment. An attempt was made by three men to reach the aft 120 mm gun to fire back but now the whole outer deck was well covered by abundant rifle fire and two died and the third was badly wounded. The rest of the crew were forced to stay inside the ship. About 12:30 the attackers left their positions and began an assault on the wrecked ship, boarding her by the partially submerged bow section and taking several prisoners here. But in the aft section the ''Alférez de Navío'' Ramos had rallied all remaining and able crew (some 20 or 25 men), most armed with rifles and some others with revolvers and even with axes launched a counterattack as a last chance to maintain control of the ship, forcing the looters in the bow to withdraw from the deck back to their row boats with many casualties. However, they took a total of 11 crew men with them. The commander, D. Emiliano Castaño, was hit two times in the neck and the collarbone and died, and ''Alférez de Navío'' Izquierdo had to take command of the remainder of ship and crew. Having now a bargaining element with the captive men of the crew the pirates ceased the attack and withdraw except for some remaining snipers on the cliffs. A few hours later one of the crew prisoners was freed and sent back to the wrecked ''General Concha'' with instructions from the rebels to surrender the ship in exchange for spare the lives of prisoners and crew, otherwise they would blow the ship with dynamite. The proposition was considered but not accepted nor answered by the Spanish officers, being the ship already damaged beyond repair. Both parties engaged again in an exchange of rifle fire from fixed positions, as the attackers did not make any further attempt to directly assault the boat. Finally at 17:00 Spanish reinforcements arrived (gunboat ''Lauria'' and steamer ''Vicente Sáenz'') and took the crew to safety.


References

* Alejandro Anca Alamillo and Lino J. Pazos Pérez ''Naufragios de la Armada Española y otros sucesos marítimos acaecidos durante en siglo XX''. Madrid, Spain: Real del Catorce Editores S.L., 2006. . * Chesneau, Roger, and Eugene M. Kolesnik, Eds. ''Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905''. New York, New York: Mayflower Books Inc., 1979. . * Nofi, Albert A. ''The Spanish–American War, 1898''. Conshohocken, Pennsylvania:Combined Books, Inc., 1996. . {{DEFAULTSORT:General Concha Ships built in Spain Gunboats of Spain Ships of the Spanish Navy Spanish–American War naval ships of Spain Maritime incidents in 1913 1883 ships Shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea Shipwrecks of Africa