Battle of Pacocha

Battle of Pacocha
The Naval Combat in the Pacific between HMS SHAH and HMS AMETHYST and the Peruvian Rebel Ironclad Turret Ram HUASCAR on May 29th 1877, William Frederick Mitchell
Date 29 May 1877 Location Off Ylo, Pacific Ocean[1] Result Indecisive
Belligerents
United Kingdom	Peruvian Rebels
Commanders and leaders
Algernon Horsey	Luis Astete
Strength
1 frigate 1 corvette 2 artillery boats	1 ironclad
Casualties and losses
Unknown wounded[2]	1 killed Unknown wounded[2]

The Battle of Pacocha was a naval battle that took place on 29 May 1877 between the rebel-held Peruvian monitor Huáscar and the British ships HMS Shah and HMS Amethyst. The vessels did not inflict significant damage on each other, however the battle is notable for seeing the first combat use of the torpedo.

Background[]

In May 1877, Nicolás de Piérola, former Minister of Finance, initiated an attempt to overthrow then-President Mariano Ignacio Prado. As part of this coup attempt, on 6 May two of his supporters, Colonel Lorranaga and Major Echenique, boarded Huáscar at the port of Callao while the captain and executive officer were ashore. Officers remaining on the ship were part of the plot and persuaded the crew to join their cause. Now in rebel hands, Huáscar put to sea with Luis Germán Astete in command. Other Peruvian naval ships present in the port, such as Atahualpa, were in a state of disrepair and unable to pursue.^[3]

The rebels used the ship to harass commercial shipping, especially off Callao, the main commercial port of Peru. However, after she forcibly boarded some British merchant ships, British authorities sent HMS Shah and HMS Amethyst, under command of Rear Admiral Algernon de Horsey, to capture the vessel, with authorization and reward offered by the Peruvian government of Mariano Ignacio Prado.

On May 16, it appeared in the port of Antofagasta, Bolivia, where he picked up Nicolás de Piérola, as Supreme Chief of Peru, and his entourage of followers..

Battle[]

Huáscar escaped after a fierce exchange of fire. Her guns were undermanned, and she fired just 40 rounds. Shah's mast was damaged by splinters. On the British side, Shah fired 237 shots and Amethyst 190, but they carried no armour-piercing ammunition. Huáscar was hit 60 times, but her armour shield caused all the shots to bounce off harmlessly. In a last-ditch effort to sink Huáscar, two small torpedo rams from Shah attempted to torpedo her, but Huáscar escaped under the cover of darkness. The rebel crew was forced to surrender their ship to the Peruvian government ships squadron just two days later.

This battle saw the first use of the newly invented self-propelled torpedo, which at the time had just entered limited service with the Royal Navy. Huáscar evaded the torpedo.

Importance[]

This combat was the first and only time that a Peruvian ship was able to succeed in a combat against Royal Navy ships. Rear Admiral De Horsey was requested by the British Parliament as a result of this incident, the news of which went around the world and filled the Peruvian sailors with pride.

It was important because it was the first time a mobile Whitehead torpedo was used in combat, which was later used by the Russians during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. On those occasions this torpedo was useless, because in the day it was easy to dodge them, as easy as the British ships avoided the Huáscar spur, although the Russians managed to sink the Turkish steam Intibah. The first time it was successfully used against a warship was in a night action, paradoxically the Huáscar witnessed the event, when the Blanco Encalada armored vessel was sunk in 1891, at which 5 torpedoes were fired, hitting the last one. The Huáscar also tried to use mobile torpedoes during the War of the Pacific, but it was the Lay torpedo system, which was electrically directed and never had a successful application.

The combat also proved the inefficiency of the English cruisers, even though they had a well-trained crew, which as a whole was superior to that of the Huáscar (837 men versus 179), advantage in powerful guns and attack from two flanks at the same time. The Huáscar would have defeated them with efficient gunners and non-enthusiastic young rebels. It was shown that it was necessary for these types of cruisers to have some armored protection, giving rise to the so-called protected cruisers, although Chile and France navies were the first to have this type of ship.

References[]

External links[]

• Britons And Peruvians Fight At Sea

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