Iquique Naval Combat - Second Phase of The Battle

Second Phase of The Battle

General Buendía, commander of the Peruvian garrison of Iquique, had artillery cannons placed on the beach and sent an emissary in a fast rowing boat with a warning to the Huáscar that the Esmeralda was loaded with torpedoes. Grau stopped 600m (660 yd.) from her and began shooting with the 300-pound cannons, not hitting her for an hour and a half, owing to the Peruvian sailors' inexperience in the handling of the monitor's Coles turret. The Chilean crew answered with their 30-pound cannons and gunfire, shots that rebounded uselessly from the Huáscar's plated armour.

At the coast, the Peruvian Army garrison in the town installed a cannon battery manned by gunners and bombardiers, and began to bomb the Chilean ship. A grenade reached her, killing three men. Prat order the warship to move, overexerting the engine and causing one of the boilers to explode, The ship's speed dropped to 2 knots (her engine was defective due to age and lack of maintenance). This move allowed Grau to see the absence of the torpedoes that supposedly filled the Esmeralda. One of Huáscar's shots hit directly on board, beheading the ordering bugler and mutilating the gun crews.

The position of the Esmeralda was desperate when it began to receive both Huáscar and Iquique's beach's cannon shots. Even Grau from his armoured tower exclaimed:

“It's remarkable how these Chileans fight”

, impressed by the courage shown by the enemy.

Grau, seeing the useless slaughter that was taking place in the dismantled and disgraced corvette and wanting to end the combat, which had been nearly 4 hours long until that moment, ordered his ship to ram into the Esmeralda. Prat tried to avoid the blow by giving the rod forward and closing a port not managed to sidestep the blow to the mizzen mast height without further damage. When the ships collided, the Huáscar fired their ten inches (300 pounds) cannons at close range, causing the deaths of 40 or 50 sailors and marines.

By then, Prat raised his sword and cried his final order:

"Let's board, lads!"

, but due to the roar of the battle only Petty Officer Juan de Dios Aldea and Seaman Arsenio Canave heard it, and both of them and Prat jumped aboard the other ship. Arsenio unfortunately slipped and fell down because of the impact, so only the two officers got to the monitor. Petty Officer Aldea, by then armed with a boarding hatchet and a pistol, received a burst from the artillery tower and fell mortally injured. Only Prat continued advancing armed with a sword and a pistol. Grau gave the order to capture the Chilean captain alive.

Once on board, Prat, walked up to the conning tower, on the journey towards he killed the Peruvian Signal Officer, Second Lieutenant Jorge Velarde, but while moving to the Coles Tower a sailor from the artillery tower struck him dead with a shot in the forehead with a rifle in his hand.

After the first boarding attempt failed, Grau wanted to give his opponents time to surrender. In the Esmeralda Lieutenant Luis Uribe Orrego by now the ship's acting Captain, then called the official meeting and decided not to surrender to the Peruvian Navy. While this was happening a sailor climbed the mizzen-mast to nail down the Chilean national flag.

Grau was soon notified that the truce did not work again and decided to ram again the Esmeralda, rushing at full speed on it, now for the starboard side. Uribe tried to maneuver like Prat and managed to present his side at an angle to spur the monitor Huáscar, but this time he opened a water route, entering pouring into the powder magazine and machines. The ship had a crew shortage and without more ammunition than he had on deck.

The Huáscar again fired guns at such close range that killed several crew members including engineers and firemen who went up on deck and washed away the officers' mess room, which was then also the ship's clinic. Sublieutenant Ignacio Serrano cried again

"Stand by for boarding!"

and he boarded the Huáscar with eleven more men, armed with manchetes and rifles but which was also unsuccessful, falling on the deck of the monitor for Gatling guns and the monitor's crew, some dying immediately due to bullet wounds sustained. Ignacio Serrano was then the only survivor and had received several shot wounds in the groin. Grau quickly had him picked up and carried to the infirmary in a state of shock, where they left him next to the dying petty officer Aldea.

20 minutes after was the third ram, this time in the sector of the mizzen mast accompanied by two guns, the corvette leaned forward and began to sink. When the Esmeralda was sinking, the last cannon shot was fired by Midshipman Ernesto Riquelme, while the main deck was going underwater the Huascar crew heard screams of "Long Live Chile! Glory and Victory!" from the ship's sailors. The Chilean flag was the last part of the warship to go underwater, still flying and nailed to the mizzen-mast. It was 12.10 pm at midday, and that was when Grau realized that Cmdr. Prat had already died in the infirmary.