Casto Méndez Núñez

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Méndez and the second or maternal family name is Núñez.

Don Casto Méndez Núñez
Born	(1824-07-01)July 1, 1824 Vigo, Spain
Died	August 21, 1869(1869-08-21) (aged 45) Pontevedra, Spain
Buried	Panteón de Marinos Ilustres, Cádiz, Spain 36°28′47″N 006°11′37″W
Allegiance	Kingdom of Spain
Service / branch	Spanish Navy
Years of service	1840–1869
Rank	Cantralmirante (Counter admiral)
Commands	Schooner Cruz Gunboat Narvaez Screw corvette Narvaez Schooner Constancia Naval division, southern Philippines Gunboat Isabel II Screw frigate Princesa de Asturias Armoured frigate Numancia Pacific Squadron
Battles / wars	First Italian War of Independence Spanish-Moro Conflict Dominican Restoration War Chincha Islands War Bombardment of Valparaíso Battle of Callao
Alma mater	Nautical School, Vigo, Spain

Casto Secundino María Méndez Núñez (1 July 1824 – 21 August 1869) was a Spanish Navy officer. He served in the First Italian War of Independence in Italy in 1849, the Spanish-Moro Conflict in the Philippines in 1861, and the Dominican Restoration War in the Caribbean in 1863–1864. He achieved international renown for his command of the Spanish Navy's Pacific Squadron during the Chincha Islands War in 1865–1866, becoming one of the major Spanish naval figures of the nineteenth century.

Biography

Early life

Méndez Núñez was from Vigo, Spain, where he was born on 1 July 1824. His father was a postal worker. He completed his training at the Nautical School in Vigo. then went to Cádiz to take the naval entrance exams, which he passed. He was granted the right to wear the uniform of a guardiamarina (midshipman) on 1 February 1839.

Naval career

1840–1857

Méndez Núñez took up his post as a Spanish Navy midshipman on 24 March 1840 and remained at Cádiz until 4 September 1840, then reported aboard the 14-gun brig Nervión at Pasajes on 5 November 1840. In 1842 he made a voyage to Fernando Po off the coast ofAfrica and distinguished himself so much by his superior performance that his eligibiity for promotion was accelerated by a year. Operating along the coast of North Africa, he was promoted to guardiamarina de 1º (first midshipman) and reported aboard the paddle gunboat Isabel II. In April 1846 he was commissioned as an officer after passing another exam, and on 11&nbspJuly 1846 following he was promoted to the rank of alférez de navío (ship-of-the-line ensign), the lower of the Spanish Navy's two ensign ranks.

Méndez Núñez reported to the new 12-gun brig Volador on 31 July 1846 and was named officer in command of the four midshipmen aboard. Volador departed Cádiz on 10 October 1846 to deliver documents to Montevideo, Uruguay. In March 1848 Volador headed for Rio de Janeiro and in June 1848 departed Rio de Janeiro bound for Cádiz, which she reached on 1 August 1848. On 7 January 1849 she put to sea from Barcelona to transport Spanish Army troops to Italy as part of an expedition to protect the Papal States during the First Italian War of Independence. Once the threat to the Papal States had abated, the expedition got back underway on 4 May 1849, participated in the capture of Terracina, then carried out maneuvers as a show of force at Naples, Gaeta, and Porto D'Auro which helped bring the war to an end. On 18 May Méndez Núñez disembarked at Gaeta and on 29 May members of the Spanish expedition were reviewed by Pope Pius IX, showing him enemy flags they had captured, and he blessed the Spaniards and gave them thanks by Royal Order. Pius IX]] made Méndez Núñez and the other officers of the expedition the Commanders of the Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great. Volador subsequently returned to Spain at Cádiz.

Voladar arrived at Málaga in early 1850 and became part of the Training Squadron, subsequently cruising between Cape Rosas and Málaga. By a Royal Order of 19  November 1950, Méndez Núñez received a promotion to teniente de navío (ship-of-the-line lieutenant. He became commanding officer of the seven-gun schooner Cruz on 14 April 1851. Under his command, Cruz patrolled the southern coast of Spain to prevent the smuggling of arms into the country. Although Cruz was in need of repairs and scheduled for drydocking, Méndez Núñez received orders to carry documents to Havana in the Captaincy General of Cuba, and got underway from Cádiz on 8 February 1852. Méndez Núñez displayed great seamanship in command during what turned out to be a risky and exhausting voyage, and Cruz avoided serious damage.

In 1853, Méndez Núñez took command of the two-gun paddle gunboat Narváez, which still was under construction at the Reales Astilleros de Esteiro at Ferrol. He received orders in January for Narvaez to proceed to Cádiz in January, but after she put to sea he found that she was unseaworthy due to her poor overall condition, including much rotten wood in her hull, forcing him to return to Ferrol, where Narvaez was scrapped. He subsequently saw service with the Spanish coast guard. Shore duty at the Ministry of the Navy followed, during which he translated into Spanish the 1820 book A Treatise on Naval Gunnery by the British Army officer Howard Douglas. His translation was published in 1857.

Philippines, 1858–1862

In 1858 Méndez Núñez became the commanding officer of another warship named Narváez, this one a screw corvette which, like the previous Narvaez, was under construction when he took command, also at the Reales Astilleros de Esteiro at Ferrol, and used the same steam engine that had been installed on the previous Narvaez. Narvaez was commissioned on 20 November 1858. She departed Cádiz on 10 February 1859, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and headed for the Philippines in the Spanish East Indies, stopping along the coast of Luzon on 21 June before arriving at Manila on 26 June 1859, completing the passage in four months and eleven days. On the Philippines station, Méndez Núñez took command of the paddle gunboat Jorge Juan, which off Basilan on 21 August 1860 sank five armed boats manned by Moro pirates from Jolo that were headed to the Visayas, took the survivors prisoner, and handed them over to Spanish authorities at Cavite.

Méndez Núñez was promoted to capitán de fragata (frigate captain) on 3 May 1861 and given command of both the schooner Constancia and the Spanish naval division in the southern Philippine Islands. He raised his flag aboard Constancia. His first operation after his promotion was against the Sultanate of Buayan, which was in rebellion against Spain. The Sultan was based alongside the Rio Grande de Mindanao at Pagalungan on the southwestern coast of Mindanao in a well-garrisoned and well-equipped fort surrounded by a wall 7 metres (23 ft) high and 6 metres (20 ft) thick, surrounded by a 15-metre (49 ft) wide moat, and armed with short-range guns. Arriving on the scene with his entire division — Constancia, the schooner Valiente, and the gunboats Arayat, Luzón, and Toal — Méndez Núñez disembarked a Spanish Army force to attack the fort on 16 November 1861, but the men sank up to their knees in the marshy ground around the fort, making an assault likely to result in high casualties, and he withdrew them. At dawn on 17 November he launched a second attack, with the landing force supported by gunfire from Arayat and Pampanga, and the Spanish troops reached firmer ground, albeit at a greater distance from the fort, and managed emplace several artillery pieces ashore. When that attack stalled, Méndez Núñez ordered small boats to reconnoitre the fort under enemy fire, then, having chosen a point of attack, maneuvered Constancia alongside the fort and sent an assault force into the fort as if boarding a ship. The disembarked landing force renewed its attack at the same time, and two hours later the fort fell to the Spaniards withheavy casualties among its Moro defenders. For this feat of arms, Méndez Núñez was promoted to capitán de navío (ship-of-the-line captain) in January 1862 and recalled to Spain. He arrived at Cádiz on 2 July 1862.

Caribbean, 1862–1864

In October 1862, Méndez Núñez was ordered to command of the paddle gunboat Isabel II, on which he had once served, and he took command of her on 1 November 1862. She dgot underway on 14 November and arrived at Havana on 8 December 1862. From January to March 1863 Isabel II carried out patrols along the coast of Cuba to interdict the flow of arms and other contraband onto the island. During political unrest in Venezuela, he left Havana on 23 May 1863 bound for Puerto Cabello and La Guaira. Upon arriving at Puerto Cabello, local authorities informed him that the port was blockaded, but Méndez Núñez took the position that no recognized government existed in Venezuela, and on that basis ignored the local authorities and entered the harbor, where Isabel II landed a [[Spanish Marine Infantry] force which protected all foreign diplomatic representatives, citizens, and property. He personally negotiated an agreement under which no one opened fire. On 29 June 1863, he departed La Guaira to transport the chargé d'affaires of the United Kingdom and Spain and Venezuelan General José Antonio Páez to Puerto Cabello to sign the agreement, which took effect a few days later. For engaging in diplomacy that prevented bloodshed and defused the crisis in Venezuela, he received the thanks of the Commander General of Havana and the Government of Spain.

After departing Venezuela, Méndez Núñez stopped at San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo, before arriving at Santiago de Cuba on the southeastern coast of Cuba, where Isabel II took on coal and dropped off a schooner captured in Santo Domingo. Receiving word that the Dominican Restoration War had broken out on Santo Domingo, he brought 650 Spanish Army troops, a battery of horse artillery, mules, and 19 horses, and put to sea. Isabel II arrived at Puerto Plata on the moonless evening of 27 August 1863, where a maritime pilot informed him that 200 Spaniards were holding out in a fort under siege by 2,000 rebels who planned to attack at dawn. Isabel II picked her way through uncharted shallows, anchored at 22:00, and completed disembarkation of the troops at 01:30 on 28 August. The Spaniards attacked the rebels at 02:00, taking them completely by surprise and quickly scattering them, relieving the fort.

On 1 January 1864, Méndez Núñez returned to Havana, where Isabel II was scheduled to undergo an overhaul. Leaving Isabel II, he took command of the screw frigate Princesa de Asturias on 22 January 1864and returned to action off Santo Domingo aboard her, establishing a blockade of Manzanillo and Monte Chisti. After returning to Havana, he relinquished command of Princesa de Asturias on 9 August 1864.

Numancia, 1864–1865

A few days after leaving Princesa de Asturias, Méndez Núñez boarded the mail steamer Paris at Havana for passage to Spain. After arriving, he took up duties as the director of personnel of the Ministry of the Navy. During this duty, he developed an aversion to politics and a distaste for military officers who left their profession to pursue political careers.

By royal decree, Méndez Núñez was given of command of Spain's first ironclad warship, the armoured frigate Numancia at the beginning of December 1864. He assumed command on 24 December, a week after she was commissioned. After her arrival from her construction yard in Toulon, France, Numancia had her guns mounted at the Arsenal de Cartagena in Cartagena, where her full crew reported aboard. She got underway from Cartagena on 8 January 1865 bound for the Arsenal de La Carraca at San Fernando, which she reached on the morning of 11 January. There she completed preparations for a deployment to the southeastern Pacific Ocean, where the commander of the Spanish Navy's Pacific Squadron, Luis Hernández-Pinzón Álvarez, had seized the Chincha Islands from Peru in April 1864 in response to various incidents between Spain and Peru, precipitating a crisis between the countries.

At Cádiz, she prepared for a lengthy deployment, and was overloaded with as much coal and gunpowder and as many projectiles and provisions as she could carry. This increased her draft to 9.96 metres (32 ft 8 in) at the stern and 8.36 metres (27 ft 5 in) at the bow, and her displacement rose to 7,700 tons.

Painting of Numancia by Rafael Monleón y Torres (1843–1900).

Numancia resumed her voyage on the afternoon of 4 February 1865, departing Cádiz with four boilers lit at 16:00 and with provisions for six months, 1,160 tons of coal, gunpowder and projectiles, and a crew of 590 men. The pilot disembarked at 18:00 and she set course for the Cape Verde Islands in good weather with a fresh northwesterly breeze. As she neared the islands, she encountered a storm on 12 February with high waves that struck her broadside, causing her to roll up to 53 degrees, from gunwale to gunwale, submerging her freeboard. She nonetheless weathered the storm without great difficulty and arrived safely at São Vicente in the Cape Verde Islands on 13 February. Ironclad warships were new in the navies of the world in the 1860s, and French and British ironclads had experienced great difficulty when encountering bad weather; foreign navies took note of Méndez Núñez′s seamanship in what they viewed as an historic demonstration of the seaworthiness of armoured warships.

After refilling her coal bunkers, Numancia got back underway on 16 February 1865 to begin a transatlantic voyage, initially encountering calm weather in which she made 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph) under sail in light winds after turning off her engine. On 13 March 1865 she arrived at Montevideo, Uruguay, where she met the brigantine Galiano, the screw corvette Wad-Ras, and the transport steamer Marqués de la Victoria. Numancia and Marqués de la Victoria got underway from Montevideo on 2 April 1865, Numancia exchanging 13-gun salutes with foreign warships in the harbor, and proceeded in company to the Strait of Magellan, on the northern shore of which they anchored at Puerto del Hambre so that Numancia could coal from Marqués de la Victoria. They resumed their voyage on the morning of 19&nbssp;April, and at 10:00 passed Santa Agueda Hill at the southernmost tip of the mainland of South America and end of the Andes. After they anchored for the night at Fortescue Bay, a warship flying no flag approached, and, given the political tensions in the area, Numancia prepared for action, her crew manning battle stations and loading her guns. The warship hoisted the Peruvian flag and the Spaniards recognized her as the Peruvian Navy corvette America, which was making her delivery voyage from the United Kingdom to Peru as Peru armed itself for a possible war with Spain. America passed close to Numancia′s bow and anchored off her starboard beam.

America weighed anchor and departed very early on the morning of 20 Apri 1865, Numancia following at 07:00 and proceeding at full speed with eight boilers lit. She sighted Cape Pilares at the western end of the Straight of Magellan at 17:00, and by 18:00 was in the Pacific Ocean, having completed her transit of the strait in ten days. She sighted America trailing behind her, but America soon had to move farther out to sea to avoid excessive rolling. Numancia had no such problems, and on 21 April she turned off her engine and proceeded under sail the rest of the way to Valparaíso, Chile, which she reached on 28 April 1865. Méndez Núñez gathered information from the commanding officer of the screw corvette Vencedora, learning that Pinzon's successor as Pacific Squadron commander, Vicealmirante (Vice Admiral) José Manuel Pareja, had signed the Vivanco–Pareja Treaty with the Peruvian government in January 1865, avoiding a war,. and that the Pacific Squadron was at Callao, Peru. Numancia got back underway and made a seven-day voyage to Callao, anchoring there there at 11:00 on 5 May 1865 after exchanging gun salutes with the Pacific Squadron flagship, the screw frigate Villa de Madrid, and joined Pareja′s squadron. Numancia′s 60-day voyage from Cádiz to Callao — during which she had spent 30 days at sea and 30 days in port, traveled 9,000 nautical miles (17,000 km; 10,000 mi), consumed 2,800 tons of coal, and suffered only one death, that of a crewman swept overboard and lost — was an unprecedented one for an ironclad warship of any navy, and Méndez Núñez received a promotion to contralmirante (counter admiral) on 20 June 1865.

Chincha Islands War

The Vivanco–Pareja Treaty was unsuccessful; the Peruvian Congress viewed it as a humiliation and rejected it, prompting the outbreak of the Peruvian Civil War of 1865. The political situation in the southeastern Pacific region further deteriorated during 1865 when Pareja steamed to Valparaíso to settle Spanish claims with Chile. When Chile refused to settle, Pareja announced a blockade of Chilean ports, and the Chincha Islands War broke out between Spain and Chile on 24 September 1865. The blockade spread the Pacific Squadron thinly along the Chilean coast, and early setbacks in the war culminated in a humiliating Spanish naval defeat in the Battle of Papudo on 26 November 1865 in which the Chilean Navy screw corvette Esmeralda captured the Spanish Navy schooner Virgen de Covadonga. News of the defeat prompted Pareja to commit suicide aboard Villa de Madrid off Valparaíso, shooting himself in his cabin on 28 November 1865 while lying on his bed wearing his dress uniform. He was buried at sea. Numancia departed Callao with Marqués de la Victoria in tow on 5 December 1865 and rendezvoused with Villa de Madrid and the screw frigate Berenguela. Méndez Núñez took charge of the Pacific Squadron on 12 December 1865 and transferred to Villa de Madrid. Antequera took command of Numancia.

In January 1866, Ecuador and Peru joined the war against Spain. Méndez Núñez concentrated the Pacific Squadron off Valparaíso, then sent Villa de Madrid and the screw frigate Reina Blanca south to attack a Chilean-Peruvian squadron in the Chiloé Archipelago off Chile, but the resulting Battle of Abtao was indecisive. Méndez Núñez decided to make a second attempt at destroying the allied squadron, this time with Numancia and Reina Blanca under his personal command. On 17 February 1866, he and the two ships left the waters off Valparaíso and headed south to the Chiloé Archipelago, where they found that the allied ships had retreated into an inlet on the coast of Calbuco Island. Unable to close with the allied ships because of Numancia′s draft, Méndez Núñez ordered his ships to withdraw. The two Spanish ships anchored at Puerto Low on 27 February, at Puerto Oscuro on 1 March, and in the Gulf of Arauco on 9 March 1866. At some point during these operations — sources disagree on whether it was on 6 March or on the afternoon of 9 March — Reina Blanca captured the Chilean sidewheel paddle steamer Paquete de Maule, which was bound from Lota, Chile, to Montevideo carrying naval personnel assigned to join the crews of the Peruvian ironclad turret ship Huáscar and broadside ironclad Independencia there; sources disagree on the number of personnel aboard, claiming both a total of 134 men and of eight officers and 140 enlisted men. On 10 March, Reina Blanca captured two Chilean barges carrying coal and gunpowder, both much needed by the Spanish squadron. Numancia, Reina Blanca, and their three prizes departed the Gulf of Arauco on 12 March to rejoin the rest of the Pacific Squadron off Valparaíso, Numancia and Paquete de Maule doing so on 14 March and Reina Blanca and the two barges arriving on 15 March. Chilean authorities offered to exchange Spanish civilians held in Chile for the men captured aboard Paquete de Maule, but Méndez Núñez turned the offer down. He hoped to exchange his captives for the Spaniards captured aboard Virgen de Covadonga, but the Chileans refused.

Bolivia joined the war against Spain on 22 March 1866, closing all the Pacific ports of South America south of Colombia to Spanish ships. After the Chilean government ordered all vessels communicating with the Spanish fleet to be barred from Chilean ports, Mendez Núñez, under orders to take punitive action against South American ports, presented an ultimatum from the Spanish government to the Chilean government on 24 March 1866: if Chile did not meet Spanish demands, he would bombard the undefended port of Valparaíso, although he found the idea of attacking an undefended port repugnant. When Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, the American minister to Chile, learned that Méndez Núñez had been ordered to bombard Valparaíso, he asked United States Navy commander inthe area, Commodore John Rodgers to attack the Spanish fleet. Méndez Núñez famously responded with "I will be forced to sink [the US ships], because even if I have one ship left I will proceed with the bombardment. Spain, the Queen and I prefer honor without ships than ships without honor (España prefiere honra sin barcos a barcos sin honra.)" In the end, no foreign navy interfered in the bombardment.

Not receiving a favorable response from the Chileans, his squadron arrived at Valparaíso on the morning of 31 March 1866. Numancia fired two shots to signal the rest of the squadron to open fire at 09:00, then withdrew to a rearward position and took no further part in the bombardment. Facing no opposition, Reina Blanca, Villa de Madrid, the screw frigate Resolución, and Vencedora conducted a three-hour bombardment of Valparaíso while Berenguela and Paquete de Maule stood by offshore to guard against any attempt at escape by Chilean merchant ships. By the time it ended at 12:00, the bombardment had killed two people, injured 10, and sunk 33 merchant ships in the harbor, destroying Chile's merchant fleet. It inflicted US$10 million (equivalent to about US$224 million in 2011) in damage.

Méndez Núñez chose the heavily defended port of Callao for his next attack. He divided the squadron into two divisions, the first made up of Numancia, Berenguela, Reina Blanca, Vencedora, and three auxiliary steamers and the second of Villa de Madrid, Resolución, the screw frigate Almansa, Paquete de Maule, and three transport frigates and, after burning prize ships his squadron had captured, set off on 14 April 1866 for San Lorenzo Island off Callao, the second division getting underway at 09:00 and the first division at 16:00. The first division made the voyage under steam and arrived at San Lorenzo Island on 25 April, while the second division, making the journey under sail and delayed by the low speed of one of the transport frigates, arrived on 27 April 1866. Several days of negotiations began on 26 April, during which Méndez Núñez granted neutral countries a four-day delay in his attack to give them time to salvage their interests in Callao. The Spanish ships used the delay to prepare for the attack: The frigates all lowered their topmasts and main yards and altered their rigging to reduce the likelihood of damage to their masts, set up on-board field hospitals, and painted over the white stripes on their hulls with black paint to reduce the ships' visibility and give Peruvian gunners less of an aiming point. A messenger arrived on 1 May with orders for Méndez Núñez to return to Spain, but Méndez Núñez viewed it as dishonorable to withdraw from the southeastern Pacific after bombarding an undefended port and without engaging the defenses of heavily fortified Callao, and he asked the messenger to report that the message had not arrived until 3 May so that the attack on Callao good go ahead on 2 May.

The 19th-century painting The Battle of Callao by Rafael Monleón y Torres (1843–1900). Numancia is at center.

Moment in which the Spanish sailor Casto Méndez Núñez fell wounded on the bridge of the frigate Numancia during the bombardment by the Spanish fleet of the forts of El Callao (2 May 1866). 1878 painting by Antonio Muñoz Degrain (1840–1924).

On the morning of 2 May 1866 the Spanish ships entered Callao Bay, beginning the Battle of Callao, the largest battle of the Chincha Islands War. Vencedora and the auxiliary ships stood off near San Lorenzo Island while the other six Spanish ships attacked Callao, with Numancia (operating as Méndez Núñez′s flagship), Almansa, and Resolución assigned to bombard the northern part of the harbor while Reina Blanca, Berenguela, and Villa de Madrid shelled the southern part. Numancia fired the first shot at 11:55, and soon all the Spanish ships were exchanging fire with the Peruvian fortifications. At one point, Numancia struck bottom in 30 feet (9.1 m) of water and had some difficulty pulling off the shoal, overheating her propeller bearings while running her engine in reverse at full power. Seeing that Numancia was immobilized temporarily, Peruvian gunners focused on her, and one shell struck her bridge, from which Méndez Núñez was commanding the squadron. The shell carried away the binnacle, and nine shell fragments struck Méndez Núñez. He tried to continue, but collapsed after a few minutes, and was forced to turn over command of the squadron to Miguel Lobo Malagamba.

Numancia fired over a thousand rounds during the Battle of Callao and took either 45 or 52 hits, according to different sources, including four by 500-pound (227 kg) shells and two by 300-pound (136 kg) shells. but only one shell penetrated Numancia′s armor; the teak wood underneath it absorbed much of the remaining force of the impact, which resulted merely in a few blown-out rivets and a small leak that her crew repaired quickly. She otherwise suffered only a few dents and scratches. During the bombardment, Numancia accidentally cut an underwater cable used to activate Peruvian mines, rendering the mines useless. By 16:00, only three Peruvian guns still were firing, and Méndez Núñez, whose wounds were not serious, ordered Numancia, Almansa, Resolución, and Vencedora to shift fire from the harbor defenses to the city itself, but he rescinded the order after his officers advised him that his squadron had run low on explosive shells and would have to use solid shot, which would be ineffective. Running low on ammunition and with only the last three Peruvian guns still firing, the Spanish squadron ceased fire at 16:40 as dusk fell and fog began to form in the harbor.

Méndez Núñez's squadron spent the next several days at San Lorenzo Island, making repairs and tending to casualties. The Chincha Islands War ended in a ceasefire on 9 May 1866, and on 10 May 1866, Mendez Núñez's squadron burned and scuttled Paquete de Maule near San Lorenzo Island and departed South American waters. Viewing his ships as too badly damaged to make an eastward passage around Cape Horn in winter, Méndez Núñez decided to steam west and led most of the squadron on a voyage across the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with Villa de Madrid as his flagship. However, Berenguela′s and Numancia′s temporary repairs at San Lorenzo Island were deemed inadequate for them to make the entire voyage safely, and Numancia also had exhausted her coal supply, so Méndez Núñez formed a separate division made up of Numancia, Berenguela, Vencedora, Marqués de la Victoria, the steamer Uncle Sam, and the sailing transport Matauara to proceed under sail to the Philippines, where Berenguela and Numancia could undergo permanent repairs.

Méndez Núñez's squadron spent the next several days at San Lorenzo Island just off Callao, making repairs and tending to casualties. The Chincha Islands War ended in a ceasefire on 9 May 1866, Villa de Madrid having suffered a total of 74 men dead or wounded during the war. On 10 May 1866, Mendez Núñez's squadron burned and scuttled Paquete de Maule and departed South American waters. Mendez Núñez viewed an eastward passsage around Cape Horn in winter as too dangerous for his damaged ships, so he decided to steam west across the Pacific Ocean. He divided the squadron, sending Berenguela, Numancia, Vencedora, and three auxiliary ships to the Philippines for repairs while he led the rest of the ships on a voyage across the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with Villa de Madrid as his flagship. Méndez Núñez's ships passed around the Cape of Good Hope under sail in winter without warm clothing or fresh food, and scurvy broke out among the crews. By the time the squadron had crossed the South Atlantic Ocean and made port at Rio de Janeiro on 24 June 1866, completing a circumnavigation of the world, 31 members of Villa de Madrid′s crew had died and 350 more were sick, and the crews of the other ships had suffered similarly.

After arriving at Rio de Janeiro, the squadron began patrols in the South Atlantic while Méndez Núñez took measures to address the needs of his own squadron and indiscipline at the Spanish Navy′s Río de la Plata station at Montevideo. The arrival of the screw frigates Concepción and Navas de Tolosa finally allowed Méndez Núñez to release those of his ships in the poorest condition — Villa de Madrid, Reina Blanca, and Resolución — to return to Spain. Despite the ceasefire in the southeastern Pacific, Spain did not reach peace settlements with its opponents for years afterward, and so Méndez Núñez, although still recovering from his wounds, remained in command on the South American station with the screw frigates Almansa, Concepción, and Navas de Tolosa, patrolling in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean against possible enemy naval operations and interdicting contraband bound for the southeastern Pacific. During these operations, Méndez Núñez was at sea continuously for several months, during which his squadron captured several ships carrying contraband and anchored several times at Montevideo, at Buenos Aires in Argentina, at Santiago de Cuba in Cuba, and San Thómas before returning to Rio de Janeiro.

Honors and awards

• Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (Holy See)
• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III (Kingdom of Spain)

Commemoration

Four Spanish Navy warships have been named Méndez Núñez:

• An armoured frigate, converted from the screw frigate Resolución, renamed Méndez Núñez in 1870, and retired in 1888.
• A Blas de Lezo-class light cruiser built in 1924 and retired in 1963.
• The former USS O'Hare (DD-889), a Gearing-class destroyer, in service in the Spanish Navy from 1973 to 1992.
• Méndez Núñez, an Álvaro de Bazán-class frigate commissioned in 2006.

The municipality of Mendez, Cavite, Philippines, was named in honor of Méndez Núñez.

A room at the Pazo de García Flórez in Pontevedra, Spain, is dedicated to a display of Méndez Núñez's office.

See also

Related articles

• Plaza de Méndez Núñez

External links

• Numancia (includes short biography)
• Biography (in Spanish)
• War Ensign used by Spanish Navy ships between 1785-1931
• Ensign used by Navy ships belonging to the Ferrol Naval Department 1732
• The "Revista Naval" page published in Ferrol in Spanish for the "Armada Española"