THE MAINE’S FUNERAL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143786, 9 May 1912, Page 7

THE MAINE’S FUNERAL.

WRECKED AVAR SHIP SUNK AAIID FLOWERS. The battle ship Alaine, whose destruction in Havana Harbour on February 15, 1898, caused the SpanishAmericau war, was solemnly buried at sea on .March 16, after being resurrected from tho bottom of the harbour, where she hud rested for 14 years. This impressive and beautiful ceremony is without precedent in the history of the American Navy. ft was decided to make the filial interment of the wreck an occasion of national mourning, and there was a general cessation of business for a few minutes throughout tho country, after the news had been received that the Alaine had disappeared for over.

Tho battered hulk, which was covered with masses of Bowers, disappeared in the Gull .Stream, 66U fathoms deep, outside the three-mile limit opposite Havana, which spot officially marks her tomb. Her final resting place, however, will never he known, for tho depth of the water and the strong current of tile Gulf .Stream probably carried her a number of- miles north-east before sho settled at tho bottom of the Atlantic. FUNERAL CORTEGE. A hundred thousand people lined tho water front of Havana as tile strangest funeral cortege the seas have ever witnessed escorted the battered hulk to the ocean cemetery. Forty-seven bodies of bluejackets and marines, recovered from the wreck, were reverently conducted through the streets of Havana to the cruiser North Dakota, which carried them to the United ' States for burial. Nearly every official of the Cuban Government attended a service for the victims of the Mains.

Tho funeral procession which escorted the .Maine on her lost journey, included the American cruisers North Dakota and Birmingham (which afterwards proceeded to the United States), three Cuban gunboats, and a score of other vessels bearing delegations of American and Cuban mourners.

Those vessels iormed a hollow square around tho Maine. The naval tug Osceola, which convoyed tho high civil, naval and military dignitaries, steamed in front of the wreck, and the procession started silently and slowly out of the harbour.

On board the Maine, acting as her last pilot,-- was Captain O’Brien, familiarly konwn as "Dynamite Johnny,” who, as a Cuban filibuster previous to tho Spanisb-Amorioan war, did more than anyone else to keep the Cuban revolutionaries suplied with arms. COVERED AVITH FLOAVERS. Tho Maine was literally covered with flowers from stem to stern. Hundreds of floral decorations, composed of nearly a million individual flowers, concealed her battered decks. An enormous American flag flew from a jury mast.

The escorting vessels stopped, still in the hollow square formation, outside the harbour, and as the North Dakota played the “Star Spangled Banner,” and bluejackets manned'' ship, officers put out to the wreck and opened the sea cocks. The Maine began to sink in about 10 minutes, and as sho did so the guns from the war ships thundered out the last salute. Sho continued to sink slowly, until an explosion of compressed air in the hull caused her to drop suddenly heiow the surface. The last thing seen was the American flog disappearing through tiie flowers that wore strewn over the sea. The solemn silence was broken by the shrill notes of a bugle, sounding “Tapps,” tho naval and military signal for “lights out.”

Expert examination of the hulk of the Maine after it was raised in Havana harbour proved that tho battle ship had been destroyed by a mine. Tho Maine had gone to Havana early in January, 1898, on a friendly mission, and the explosion, which caused the death of 26G officers and men, took place on the night of Eobruarv 15. The destruction of'tho Main inflamed public opinion in tho United States against Spain, and tho war which broke out a few weeks later was largely attributable to that fact.