and naval coastal guns to repel an attack from the water.
Upon conclusion of the war with Spain, the American political and military leadership understood that they only possessed half of the power projection capabilities required to be a major world power for the twentieth century. Based on the performance of the U.S. Navy, America understood that its efforts at modernization, training, and expanding its naval forces had paid dividends. Spanish naval power was completely crushed in less than three months because the United States invested the time and energy for the best guns and armor, powerful steam engines, and highly trained naval personnel. However, the ground aspect of the American military was missing, based on the ad hoc performance in the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. While the deployment of Soldiers and Marines ashore was successful because of their grit and determination against Spanish ground forces, the American military clearly lacked the ability to efficiently execute amphibious warfare.
American forces were critically delayed because of their haphazard landing in the vicinity of Santiago, therefore giving the Spanish defenders time to rally and set up strong defensive positions to prevent the quick capture of Cuba’s capital. However, the U.S. Army would have faced a much worse situation if the Spanish defenders had attacked the American ground forces while they were assembling and preparing for the big push into Cuba’s capital. The lack of specialized troop transports built for quickly loading and unloading ground forces and logistical support was obvious; but in addition, little coordinated naval gunfire was available for troops on the beach, and no communication or unity of command existed between the landing force and the naval squadron tasked to supervise the debarkation. A. B. Feuer points out:
Mahan [sic] commented on the petty bickering between the Army and Navy war departments: The transports did not come under naval authority until they had sailed—and then only for escort duty. Everything connected with seagoing transportation is a particular feature of maritime activity. Internal disciple of a ship—and proper control of its movements in a convoy—can only be insured [sic] by naval organization and naval command. The committing of transport service to the Army is vicious in theory, and directly contrary to the practice of the most experienced maritime nation—Great Britain.100
Simply put, leadership, as well as naval and logistical technology, was simply not in place to conduct a fast, effective amphibious landing for the U.S. Army.
While the Marine attacks on Guantanamo Bay and Cuzco Well were successful, significant technological gaps were readily identified in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Communication between ship and shore was too slow and cumbersome because naval and ground forces had to rely on messengers being rowed back and forth. However, the use of makeshift signal flags during the fighting at Cuzco Well to help coordinate naval gunfire away from the American ground forces and direct it toward the Spanish defenders was a stroke of common sense that played a role in developing America’s future amphibious capabilities. In addition, the use of naval gunfire, the employment of machine guns, and the engagement of light artillery with Lieutenant Colonel Huntington’s Marine battalion on the beaches of Cuba led to the expansion of the Marine Corps’ mission of now conducting amphibious assaults in America’s future conflicts.
Evaluation of the United States’ fledgling amphibious warfare capabilities indicated that logistics were also an issue. The offloading of both Soldiers and Marines in Cuba and the Philippines was simply too disorganized, while the deployment of ground forces was simply not used to great effect based on a combination of economy of force and the local concentration of American military power. Major Robert Meade of the United States Marine Corps voiced his frustration to Captain French Ensor Chadwick, chief of staff of the North Atlantic Squadron, about the gainful deployment of himself and the other Marines while on the U.S. Flagship New York off Santiago, Cuba, on June 12, 1898. Meade requested that the chief of staff define his position and duties on the flagship and clearly define his status. In addition, Meade felt that the Marines of the fleet would not be landed as an organization and, therefore, would be of no use to the campaign ahead.101 The troop transports were not made specifically to carry and land men and supplies. Instead of the orderly landing and buildup of supplies, also known as “building the iron mountain,” naval and ground forces failed to communicate and, in some cases, refused to cooperate with the landing force. During the amphibious assault on Guantanamo Bay, Commander McCalla had to give a direct order to one of the ships in his squadron after it refused to help the Marines unload their equipment and provide the necessary support to finish their transition ashore. Despite the Marines’ success in capturing Guantanamo Bay, Commander McCalla understood what was at stake in possibly losing the naval installation to a Spanish counterattack.102
Besides command and control issues, naval vessels used for carrying the ground forces were found to be inadequate in the trip from the United States to Cuba. According to Edmund Morris, “Considering the logistical problem of moving 16,286 troops … [General Shafter] had no choice but to leave the remainder of his corps behind in Tampa, owing to wild miscalculations of available berth space; as it was the ships were so crammed with men that bodies covered every foot of deck…. It was out of the question to disembark, since orders to proceed might be received at any minute; so for the next six days sixteen thousand men baked like sardines in their steel ovens.”103 Despite also having captured small towns in the vicinity of Santiago, several problems were not anticipated, such as these settlements not having the capabilities to support the offload of American men and equipment. In addition, American ships involved in the landings did not have enough naval intelligence to either develop a familiarity with the hydrography of Cuba’s coast or to have an understanding of possible naval defenses and units that might be defending the beaches. Therefore, naval forces involved in the amphibious assaults hesitated to get close enough to shore and risk possibly grounding one of their ships. The difficult situation on the Cuban coast meant that wooden lifeboats had to be used to move weapons and supplies ashore. While men improvised by jumping off their ships along with their horses and swimming ashore, they lost several of their animals to drowning or, in the case of donkeys, had no luck pushing them off the ship at all.104 This problem meant more than just not having a cavalry to function as reconnaissance or to serve as a mobile force to use against the Spanish; it also effectively grounded the logistical train. According to Donald Smythe, “So exasperating was the mess that grumbling was inevitable. One trooper damned [General] Shafter up and down as a fat old slob who was sitting on his rump in his tent when he should have been on the spot straightening out the supply mess.”105 For that reason, soldiers had to carry heavier loads of supplies and weapons with them into battle through extremely harsh heat when they advanced against enemy positions near Santiago. From General John J. Pershing’s recollection of the landing in Cuba during the Spanish-American War as a junior officer, “Each soldier carried three days’ field rations of raw bacon, hardtack, and coffee. On his back was strapped his rifle, 100 rounds of ammunition, a blanket roll, a shelter tent, and a poncho. So weighted down, it meant certain death.”106
While these problems could not have been remedied due to the urgency of time and the political situation both at home and abroad, the American political and military leadership understood that improvements needed to be made to its amphibious capabilities for future wars. The lack of U.S. amphibious capabilities became apparent in the Philippines when Commodore Dewey’s naval and ground forces found themselves in a very sensitive diplomatic situation. The destruction of Spanish naval power in the Pacific attracted the British, the Japanese, and the Germans. While Great Britain and Japan looked on as the Americans destroyed Spain’s Pacific Fleet, German naval forces intentionally got in the way of American ships in Luzon by either denying them access to certain parts of Manila Bay or intentionally getting in the line of fire to prevent an American bombardment of Spanish defenses in Manila. After Germany’s ships withdrew thanks to Commodore Dewey’s refusal to have his ships back down from a potential fight, Dewey began negotiations for the surrender of the Spanish garrison and occupation of the city. However, Commodore Dewey and the small American occupational force found itself handling a potential Filipino insurgency, especially when the Philippines’ national leaders found out that they would not be granted immediate
