Rupture of the Blockade of Arica
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| Rupture of the Blockade of Arica | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Naval campaign of the War of the Pacific | |||||||
 The Corvette Unión forcing its way through the blockade | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Peru |
 Chile | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Manuel Villavicencio José Lagomarsino |
 Juan José Latorre Carlos Condell | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 2 ironclads, 1 transport | 2 corvettes, 5 land batteries with 13 guns | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 1 killed, 8 wounded | 9 killed, 18 wounded | ||||||
The Rupture of the Blockade of Arica was a naval battle of the War of the Pacific during the Blockade of Arica. The rupture was carried out by Manuel Villavicencio who commanded the BAP Unión of the Peruvian Navy. The Unión broke the Chilean blockade of the port twice in less than 8 hours on March 17, 1880.
Southern Expedition
After losing the Huáscar in the Battle of Angamos, Chile had gained naval dominance and began planning the Land Campaign against Peru .
The Chilean army landed its expeditionary force in Ilo and Mollendo while its fleet blocked Arica from November 28, 1879 to prevent the Peruvian garrison from receiving reinforcements from Lima .
By that time, Peru had already lost most of its southern ports such as Iquique, Ilo and Pisagua but Arica was a port defended by heavy guns and the Manco Cápac monitor that served as a floating battery. The Naval Battle of Arica had begun in the port on February 27, 1880 where the Chilean frigate captain and commander of the blockade, Manuel Thomson was killed in the battle. The port was then bombarded from February 29 to March 6, but without heavy losses. During the blockade, there were neutral ships from other countries such as the French Hussard, the German SMS Hansa, and the British HMS Thetis and HMS Shannon but were anchored a safe distance from the bay as their task was to observe the development of the blockade and the combats that could occur between the Chilean fleet and the Peruvian defenses of the port.
In the first days of March 1880, the ship's captain, Manuel Villavicencio, was summoned by the supreme director of Peru, Nicolás de Piérola. Piérola told him that it was essential to break the Blockade of Arica and deliver weapons and supplies to the Arica garrison. Hearing Piérola's orders, Villavicencio replied:
Mr. President, during the last ten months aboard the Chalaco, I have fulfilled my duties, and I have managed to evade every enemy warship that has come my way. Now that I am in charge of a faster ship, you can be sure, God willing, that despite the blockade, I will enter Arica. I can't assure you that I will return, but I will do what I can.
During the following days, Villavicencio loaded the Unión with 37 boxes of shoes, 39 bales of white canvas, 1 box with 190 buttons, 5 boxes with 2 full machine guns, 100 boxes with 100,000 shots for Remington rifles, and the BAP Alianza to increase night surveillance of the bay, carried out until then only by the Bolivian torpedo Sorata.[1] On March 12, 1880, Colonel Nicolás de Piérola, Supreme Director of the Republic, arrived at Callao to personally bid farewell to Commander Villavicencio and the Unión crew. At 11:00 a.m., the Unión made the maneuvers to undock the port of Callao, maneuvered between the merchant ships anchored in the roadstead, It headed for San Lorenzo Island and then headed south. The Unión landed on the afternoon of the 14th in Quilca where after receiving news from the PSNC steamer Mendoza, it continued its journey to Arica on the afternoon of March 15.
They wanted to take advantage of the fact that the blockade of Arica was only sustained by two ships: the ironclad Huáscar and the transport Matías Cousiño. These ships sailed on the high seas at night and returned to the port at dawn, so they would try to enter the port at dawn.
At the same time, the BAP Talismán set sail on March 11, 1880 bound for Quilca with a load of: 2 crates of medicines, 90 crates with 1,800 Remington 0.50-caliber rifles, 578 crates with 500,000 shots for said rifles, 100 crates with 200 thousand shots for Remington caliber 0.43 in, 2 boxes with 20 thousand shots for Winchester rifles, 4 Blakely 9-pounder cannons, 2 howitzers of 12-pounders and 24 boxes with projectiles for the cannons. Brigadier General Manuel Beingolea, who was going to command the 2nd Army of the South, which was being formed in Arequipa, was traveling in the transport. The transport arrived in Quilca on March 14, but the commander of the ship, Lieutenant Commander Manuel Carrasco, decided not to disembark when he saw strange lights and after a court martial, he decided to sail to Pisco and there he unloaded his cargo.
Opposing forces
Peru
The Arica batteries were under the command of Commander Arnaldo Panizo and were divided into those on land, those in the north and those in the hills. The head of the plaza of Arica was the captain of the ship Camilo Carrillo.
The Morro batteries, located south of the port in the Morro de Arica, were:
High Battery: 1 Vavasseur 250 lb, 2 Parrott 100 lb and 2 Voruz 70 lb. Low Battery: towards La Lisera beach, 4 Voruz of 70 lb. During the combat, a Voruz cannon was blown south of the nose, on La Lisera beach, due to the defect of the projectile's fuse, which caused the bomb to explode inside the cannon.
The Manco Cápac was a monitor with a displacement of 2,100 tons. Its armor was 127 mm and 254 mm in the rotating turret, which carried two 500 lb Dahlgren guns. She was assigned to the Bolivian speedboat Sorata, which was used for night patrol. Its propulsion system was with a propeller, being able to reach a maximum speed, on the day of combat, of 3.5 kn. She was under the command of the frigate captain José Sánchez Lagomarsino.
The Union was a corvette built in 1865, with a wooden hull protected with iron and copper. She displaced 2,066.66 t and had 12 Voruz muzzle-loading rifled guns of 70 lb as main armament, in the battery, 6 per side. She also had 2 Armstrong 70-pound guns in the bow and a Withworth 9-pound muzzle-loading gun. Her propulsion system was also mixed, with a propeller, she being able to reach a maximum speed of 13 kn. She was under the command of the ship's captain Manuel Villavicencio.
Chile
The Almirante Cochrane was an ironclad of a 3,560 t displacement, in service from 1874 and 1875 respectively. They had 230 mm thick armor and their main armament consisted of 6 Armstrong 250 lb muzzle-loading guns in battery, 3 per side. Her minor armament was two 1-inch Nordentfeldt machine guns on the bridge, two 7-pound Armstrong muzzle-loading guns, and two 20-pound Armstrong breech-loading guns. Her propulsion system was mixed, steam engine, with double propeller, and sailbeing able to reach a maximum speed, the day of the combat, of 12 knots. The Almirante Cochrane was under the command of Captain Juan José Latorre.
The Huáscar was an ironclad with a displacement of 1,745 tons built in 1865. She has 114.3 mm thick armor on the hull and her main armament consisted, at the time, of two 300 lb Armstrong muzzle-loading guns located in a rotating armored turret. Under the Chilean flag, modern artillery was added: two Armstrong 40- lb breech-loading guns with a range of 7,000 m, one on the starboard quarterdeck and one on the port quarterdeck, and a 1-lb Hotchkiss rapid-fire cannon. She also had a 0.44 in Gatling gunon the top of the mainmast. Her propulsion system was with a propeller, being able to reach a maximum speed, on the day of combat, of 8 kn . After the death in February of its first Chilean commander, Manuel Thomson, also commander of the blockade, he was commanded by Commander Carlos Condell.
The Amazonas was a transport that had belonged to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company and had been purchased during the war. In service since 1859, she has an iron hull, where she displaced 2,019 t. She was armed with a 6-inch Armstrong gun, being capable of a maximum speed of 13 kn.
