LETTERS NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY OFFICERS & TRUSTEES: Chairman, Guy E. C. Mairl and; Executive Vice Chairman, H oward Slotnick; Vice Chairmen, Richardo R . Lopes, Edward G. Zel in sky; President, Peter Stanford; Executive Vice President, Patri ck J. Ga rvey; Vice President, Norma Stanford; Treasurer, W illi am H . W hite; Secretary, Marshall Srre iberr; Trustees, Do nald M. Birney; Walter R. Brown, Richard T. du Moulin , Fred C. Hawkins, Rodney N. Houghton , Steven W. Jones, Warren G. Leback, Karen E. Markoe, David A. O 'Ne il, Cra ig A. C. Reyno ld s, Bradford D . Sm irh , David B. Vietor, Harry E. Vina ll , [Tl, Jea n Wo rr,Alexa nd er E. Zagoreos; Chairmen Emeriti, Alan G. C hoate, C raig A. C. Reyno lds FOUNDER: Ka rl Kortum ( 19 17- 1996) OVERSEERS: Chairman, RADM David C. Brown; Walcer Cro nkite, AJan D. Hutchison , Jakob lsbrandrsen,John Lehm an, Wa rren Marr, II , Brian A. McAllister, John Stobarr, Wi lli am G. Wi merer ADVISORS: Co-Chairmen, Fra nk 0. Braynard , Me lb ourne Sm ith; D . K. Abbass, Raymond Aker, George F. Bass, Francis E. Bowker, Oswald L. Bren, Norman J . Brouwer, RADM Joseph F. Call o, W illi am M. Doerfl inger, Francis J. Duffy, John W. Ewald, Joseph L. Farr, Timothy G. Foore, W illi am G il kerson, Thomas C. Gillmer, Walter J. Handelman, Charles E. H erdendorf, Steven A. Hyman , Hajo Knunel, G unna r Lundeberg, Co nrad Milster, Wi lliam G. M uller, David E. Perkins, Nancy Hughes Richardson, Timothy J. Runya n, Shannon J . Wall , Thomas Wells NMHS STAFF: Executive Director, Patrick J. Garvey; Chief of Staff, Burchenal Green; Director of Education, David B. Al len; Membership Coordinator, Na ncy Sch naars; Membership Secretary, Irene Eisenfeld; Membership Assistant, Ann M akela inen; Advertising Secretary, Ca rm en McCa ll um ; Accounting, Jill Romeo ; Secretary to the President, Karen Ritell; SEA HI STORY STAFF: Editor, Just in e Ahl stro m; Executive Editor, No rm a Stanford; Editor-at-Large, Peter Sta nfo rd TO GET IN TOUCH WITH US:
Address:
5 Jo hn Walsh Bou leva rd PO Box 68 Peekskill NY 10566 Phone: 9 14 737-7878 Fax: 9 14 737-78 16 Web sire: www.seahistory.org E-ma il: nmhs@sea hi story.o rg
MEMBERSHIP is invited. Afterguard $ l 0,000; Benefacto r $5,000; Plankowner $2,500; Sponsor $ 1,000; Donor $5 00; Parron $250; Friend $ 100; Co ntribu tor $75; Family $50; Regular $35. All members outside rhe USA please add $ 10 fo r postage. SEA HISTORY is sen t to all members. Individual copies cost $3.75 . Advertising: l 800 221-NMHS (6647), x235
4
smoke coming from rhe srack. Before I co uld relephone rhe engine room, rhe Chief EngineerappearedarNo. 2 harch. I poinred ro rhe srack and he came up ro rhe fl ying bridge. He said, "Young Man, I have been a C hief Engineer for manyyears"-he becam e a CE of a Munson Line passenger ship ar 26 and was rhen abo ur 50-"and I have made a liferime srudy of combusrion . Today, I reached perfection with the lighr brown smoke, an d yo u obj ect." We both stayed with American Foreign Steamship Co rp. for many years and remain ed good friends borh before and afte r he rerired. HARRY W. MARSHALL Scorch Plains, New Jersey
account of Huascar's seco nd enginee r, Carlos Warner, given orally ro the lri shC hil ean engi neer Sam uel MacMahon jusr after the battle, when Warner was a prisoner in the C hilea n transport Copiap6. MacMahon's Span ish was less than perfect and my comm and of the language is lim ited. I translated his text as "so me people were killed and others wounded among which are.... "-it being undifferentiared as ro who was killed and who wou nded. Another document I have read says that the edi ro r died, and I have wro ngly ass umed that, as their names were coupl ed rogether by Warner, this must also have applied ro the docror.
An Important Huascar Survivor My compliments ro Paul Q uinn on his excellent article about Huascar in your Autumn issue (SH94, "Huasca r Shows What the Turret Ship Can Do! "). Ir was a balanced and informative piece. I would like, however, ro note one error: On page 18, in his description of the epic Barrie of Angamos in 1879 wh ere Huascar singlehandedly confronted the bulk of the Chilean navy, Mr. Quinn seated that "[t]he fourth [round] penetrated the stateroom s, killing the docror Tavara and rhe ediror of rhe newspaper Coquimbo." In fact, Huascar's senior medical officer (mygrear-grandfarher Santiago Tavara) was severely wo unded in rhe face and legs by shell splinrers and was taken as a prisoner of war by the C hileans. Although initi ally not expected ro survive, he ev.e ntually recovered eno ugh robe rerurned ro his fam ily in Callao after the Chilean invasion and occupation of 1880. H e li ved unril 1896, carrying out duties as the chiefmedical officer for Callao. In additio n ro bein g one of Peru's medical pioneers, he is recognized alongside Admiral Miguel Grau as one of Peru's naval heroes. His bust is o n the mo nument ro the Barrie of Angamos in Callao, and his nam e is engraved on the list of Huascar's heroes on rh e monum ent in Lima; the Peruvian naval hospital is named in his ho no r. CDR SANTIAGO NEVlLLE-TAVARA, USN via e-mail
A Searching Critique We received a critique from Geoffrey W Fielding on the fallowing points, all on p age 15 in Peter Stanford's "The Queens at War" (SH95): 1) We said Poland, Denmark and Norway had been conquered by the Nazis by March 1940, when the Queen Eliza beth arrived in New York; however, D enmark and Norway were not invaded untilApril; 2) "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand" is not proverbial, as we had it, but Biblical, from 1 Kings; 3) our reference to Winston Churchill as "an out-ofoffice Member ofParliament" might have been confusing, but we meant that, while he still held his Parliamentary seat, he held no office in the government; 4) in recalling his nightmares about the invasion of Ethiopia, the author was remembering the events of 1936 and did not intend to imply that these events took place in 1940; 5) several developments-the destroyers-far-bases deal cobbled together in 1940, the 1941 extension ofthe American Neutrality Zone to Iceland, and the involvement of American convoy escorts-were mentioned together, not to suggest they all happened at once, but to convey the urgency ofaction before official US entry into the war; 6) we stand by our description of Winston Churchill as "rotund, ''.__ defined by Webster as "chubby, ''._rather than the suggested alternate "stocky ''._Rocky Marciano could be called "stocky, " and Churchill was no Marciano. For his general good health and robust constitution, however, we may indeed be thankful. If Mr. Fielding had continued his goodhumored critique top. 16, he would have noted a staggering gaffe, where in a typographical error the surrender of Germany is given as May 1944 rather than May 1945.-ED.
Paul Quinn responds: I am deligh red ro hear that CDR Nevi lle-Tavara's fa mous ancesror did, in fact, survive the Barrie of Angamos. T he quote I used comes from the
SEA HISTORY 96, SPRING 2001