General Concha was a Cañonero (gunboat) or more technically "Third Class non-armored Cruiser" of the Spanish Navy which fought at San Juan, Puerto Rico, during the Spanish–American War.
Construction and description
General Concha was built at the naval shipyard Esteiro at Ferrol, Spain, working order #169. She had an iron hull with bow ram, a single funnel, 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 was laid down 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 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, and explorer of the Patagonia 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 and other counter-revolutionaries.
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 where she served mainly as a coastal surveillance vessel until the Spanish–American War began in April 1898.
The U.S. Navy soon established a permanent blockade 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 cruisers 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 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 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 coast of Morocco, as part of the effort to interrupt piracy 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, 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.