The origins of the Chilean Navy date back to 1817, when General Bernardo O'Higgins prophetically declared after the Chilean victory at the Battle of Chacabuco that a hundred such victories would count for nothing if Chile did not gain control of the sea.[2]
This led to the development of the Chilean Navy, and the first legal resolutions outlining the organization of the institution were created. Chile's First National Fleet and the Academy for Young Midshipmen, which was the predecessor of the current Naval Academy, were founded, as well as the Marine Corps and the Supply Commissary.
The first commander of the Chilean Navy was Manuel Blanco Encalada. Famous British naval commander Lord Cochrane, who formerly had been a captain in the British royal navy, was hired by Chileans to organize and command their Navy. Cochrane recruited an almost all-anglophone complement of officers and midshipmen and crews of British, Irish, and American seamen. He became a key figure in the war against loyalist forces in Peru, and was instrumental in taking control of the fortresses of Valdivia, though he failed in his attempt to conquer Chiloé Island.
In March 1824, the Chilean Navy and Army undertook an expedition to expel the Spanish from Chiloé Archipelago. An expedition was dispatched to Chiloé Island, but it ended in failure when the Chilean Army led by Jorge Beauchef was defeated at the Battle of Mocopulli. Only after Ramón Freire's Chiloé expedition in 1826 did the royalist forces at Chiloé, under the command of Antonio de Quintanilla, surrender and Chiloé joined the new Chilean nation.
Age of exploration, territorial expansion, and wars (1830–1885)
The Chilean Squadron anchored in Valparaíso's bay in 1879
Chilean war hero and martyrArturo Prat is regarded as the ultimate example of the commitment of the navy to its country, after his death while leading a boarding party onto the enemy ironclad Huáscar at the naval battle of Iquique on 21 May 1879, during the War against Peru and Bolivia. The anniversary of this battle is celebrated every year as a public holiday called Día de las Glorias Navales. Prat is also considered to be one of the co-founders of the Naval Seaman Training School in 1868, which began operating a year later, and was one of the Naval Academy's finest graduate officers that in 1943 it became the National Naval School "Arturo Prat" in his honor.
Chilean Navy officer's uniform, circa 1890
The navy further distinguished itself during the Battle of Pisagua in 1879, led by both the Navy and the Marine Artillery Groups and Marine Infantry, the world's first modern military landing operation, that resulted in Chilean victories in other parts of Peru's Tarapacá region, and resulted to its annexation by Chile.
After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888. By occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations.[3]:53
With the Peruvian Navy destroyed, Bolivia becoming a landlocked country, and Argentina having only a brown-water navy, the Chilean Navy had a regional hegemony in the years following the War of the Pacific. To secure this advantage and not let new Argentine acquisitions challenge Chilean naval power, the Chilean government decided to modernize its navy. The modernization plan included the ordering of two cruisers and two torpedo boat destroyers, and the modernization of two armoured ships in English docks.
A new predreadnought battleship, Capitán Prat, was ordered under the new construction program in 1889. The advent of the 1891 Chilean Civil War had a breach between the two branches of the Chilean armed forces, while the bulk of navy sided with the congress side, the majority of the Chilean Army remained loyal to José Manuel Balmaceda. When the majority of the national congress broke relations with the government, Jorge Montt took control of the fleet at Valparaíso and with notable politicians, such as Ramón Barros Luco, on board, the fleet sailed north to the nitrate-rich Tarapacá area, which Chile had seized from Peru 10 years earlier. Tarapacá was, by that time, Chile's richest region in terms of natural resources and was without the fleet practically out of reach for the Chilean Army. From here, the navy organized an army made of nitrate miners, whom they armed and trained to face the 40,000-men-strong Army of Chile. In August 1891, the new army was disembarked in Quintero and defeated the Chilean Army at the Battle of Concón and the Battle of Placilla before the presidential faction disbanded and the Congressional side took power. On the elections of October 1891, Jorge Montt was elected president.
Not all navy officers sided with the congress. Some like Juan Williams Rebolledo, Juan José Latorre and Policarpo Toro remained on the presidential side and Francisco Vidal Gormaz declared his neutrality. After the war these officers were removed from their offices. In contrast to these officers whose career or influence in the navy was truncated by the war, the 1891 Chilean Civil War served as a starting point of a successful career in the navy for a generation of young officers like Francisco Nef and others who sided with the Congressionals who won the war.
After incidents with Chile in 1872, 1877, and 1878, Argentina had decided that a brown-water navy, even if modern, was not enough to back up its ambitions in Patagonia and the South Atlantic. Both countries were distracted in the next few years by Argentina's internal military operations against natives and Chile's War of the Pacific against Bolivia and Peru, but by 1890, a full-fledged naval arms race was underway between the two.[4] The Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina had been a major success in laying the groundwork for nearly all of Chile and Argentina's 5,600 kilometres (3,500mi) of shared borders, but the drawing of boundaries in the largely unexplored inland Patagonia soon became a major source of territorial disputes. Over the 1880s and 1890s, Chile and Argentina engaged in an arms race fueled by nationalistic rhetoric and tax income from their blooming economies. Both countries signed a treaty in 1902 to end the arms race.
During the 1890s, the Chilean Navy carried out many hydrographic surveys in the Patagonian channels aimed to improve navigation, and explored the river basins of Patagonia. A German geographer, Hans Steffen, led navy explorations to western Patagonia, laying the groundwork for colonization of what would be Aisén Region years later. The navy occasionally collaborated with European naturalists such as Carl Skottsberg in their surveys of Chilean territory.
Depression and mutiny (1902–1950)
A possibly altered photograph shows the Chilean Air Force bombing the Chilean Fleet at the port of Coquimbo during the Chilean naval mutiny of 1931
In 1904, Brazil ordered two Minas Gerais-classdreadnoughts to be built by the United Kingdom.[5] In response, Argentina ordered two Rivadavia-class dreadnoughts with an option for a third from the United States. They also ordered 12 destroyers from three nations in Europe. With its major rival acquiring so many modern vessels,[upper-alpha 1] Chile was forced to respond, although this was delayed by a financial depression brought on by a major earthquake and a drastic fall in the nitrate market in 1906 and 1907, respectively.[7][upper-alpha 2] Eventually, Chile ordered two Almirante Latorre-classsuper-dreadnoughts and six Almirante Lynch-class destroyers from British shipyards, but received only two destroyers before the rest were purchased by the Royal Navy during World War I; of these, Chile would finally receive three destroyers and one battleship, the Almirante Latorre, after the War.
In 1931, the navy once more made headlines in Chilean politics when large portions of it (26 ships) began a mutiny that demanded the president to rescind a salary reduction. The demands were later expanded to include an agrarian reform, industrial "solidarity", and the payment of the external debt by the "millionaires". The mutineers had their ships located at Coquimbo and Talcahuano's naval base, which they controlled. Chilean government responded by sending the Chilean Air Force to bombard the ships in Coquimbo and charging Talcahuano's naval base. After the quelling of the rebellion, the navy was purged, although the mutiny had its origin among the lower ranks.
These economic and political factors, along with Chile's neutrality for much of World War II, meant that the navy did not acquire any warships until after the war.
Role in Antarctica, incidents with Argentina, and the navy in the government (1950–1990)
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Chile formulated its Antarctic claim in 1940. In 1947, the navy established the first Chilean base, the Captain Arturo Prat Base, on the continent before the Chilean Army or Air Force established their own bases. Since then, the navy has played a major role in supplying Chilean bases and performing numerous rescue missions, among them, the MVExplorer in 1972 and 2007.
The Navy's most recognizable sailing-school ship, the Esmeralda, began operations in 1952. It since has made various trips around the world with selected cadet officers and NCOs on board trained in ship handling and operations, as a requirement for graduation. Prior to the Esmeralda, another sailing ship, the General Baquedano, fulfilled the same functions.
In the 1950s, the Chilean Navy became involved in a series of incidents with the Argentine Navy and Argentine civilians in the disputed areas of the Beagle Channel and Cape Horn. These incidents took the form of incursions into Chilean waters by Argentine fishing ships, and provocations, such as the shelling of a Chilean lighthouse by the Argentine Navy during the Snipe incident of 1958.
Destroyers Cochrane and Blanco Encalada, Fletcher class, light cruiser O’Higgins, destroyer Almirante Riveros and light cruiser Capitán Prat in Arica port, circa 1965.
During the late 1970s, the Chilean Navy played an important role in defending Chilean sovereignty over the Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands that the Argentine Navy planned to seize.
The birth of the modern Chilean Marine Corps of today began in 1964. Naval educational institutions were reformed in 1968, when president Eduardo Frei Montalva created the "Naval Specialities Schools System" with headquarters at the Las Salinas Naval Base in Viña del Mar. One of its schools, the Naval Seaman Training School, became the Seamen's School of the Navy "Captain Alejandro Navarrete Cisterna" in the same year as its centenary, in honor of the first naval seaman to rise through the ranks to become a naval officer. The NSSS soon became the Naval Polytechnic Academy in 1995, through a merger of all its component schools, with some of these schools staying as independent constituent academies.
After the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat, together with the Army, the Air Force, and the Carabiniers, the navy, led by Admiral Jose Toribio Merino, became part of the government junta led by army commander in chief Augusto Pinochet. Upon the latter's resignation from the junta leadership in 1981, Adm. Merino became its chairman until March 1990, presiding over its sessions and those of the Legislative Commission. He was also, concurrently, the national defense minister. The training ship Esmeralda functioned as a floating prison and torture chamber for political prisoners during the 1973–1980 period of the military dictatorship.[9] It is claimed that probably over a hundred persons were kept there at times and subjected to hideous treatment.[10][11] It was also an unprecedented period of growth and expansion of the naval service, as more vessels became part of it, the marines strengthened and the navy's special forces unit raised.
Present
The 25,000-person navy, including 5,200 marines, is directed by Admiral Julio Leiva Molina Martin as of 2017. Of the fleet of 66 surface vessels (soon to be increased to 74),[citation needed] 21 are major combatant ships based in Valparaíso. The navy operates its own aircraft for transport, patrol, and surface and antisubmarine attack. The navy also operates four submarines and a tender ship to support them, all based in Talcahuano.
The navy also provides access to services for residents of Chile's Pacific and Southern island regions, thus integrating its disjointed geography. The transport of passengers, especially during the school year or in cases of emergency, together with the supply of provisions and fuel, are of key importance to the inhabitants of these insular zones.
The institution regularly carries out civil operations whereby navy professionals provide social assistance and health care to the civilian population, and provide support in cases of natural catastrophe.
Sa'ar 4 type ship of the Chilean Navy
It also undertakes preventive education campaigns for Chile's population on issues that include security on beaches and seaside resorts, and measures to be taken in the case of a tsunami.
Construction of 4 multi-purpose ships (LPD), part of project "Escotillón IV" and the "plan de construcción naval continua" (continuous naval construction plan in spanish) of the Chilean Navy.[16]
Chilean Navy special forces sailors equipped with the MP5N
The Chilean Marines or (Infanteria de Marina de Chile) are the land/amphibious attack force of the Chilean Navy. The 5,000 man force combines special training and tactics with state-of-the-art equipment.
The Servicio Hidrográfico y Oceanográfico de la Armada de Chile (SHOA, Spanish for Hydrological and Oceanographic Service of the Chilean Navy) is an agency of the Chilean Navy managing situations dealing with hydrology and oceanography including tides and tsunamis. SHOA is also the official Chilean government timekeeper.[17]
Ranks and rates
Ranks and rates are shown on the sleeves of all Chilean Navy summer uniforms (and on the shoulder boards on winter or summer service uniforms as well for officers and WOs only). Shoulder and sleeve ranks are inspired by those in the British Royal Navy, the French Navy and the German Navy. Officers, WOs and NCOs of the Marines add the Infante de Marina (Marine Soldier) title to their ranks from Seaman onward, as the Marines are part of the Navy.
All officers, active or reserve, study at the Arturo Prat Naval Academy and later in the Naval Polytechnic Academy and the Naval War Academy receive improved training and education to be promoted as well as training in his/her specialty field while all active and reserve NCOs (known in the Navy through the general term Men of the Sea) study at the Seamen's School of the Navy "Alejandro Navarette Cisnerna" and later in the Naval Polytechnic Academy and its attached and independent colleges for later specialty training.
↑ By 1911, the disparity between the navies of Chile, Argentina, and Brazil had grown; Brazil had nearly four times the tonnage of Chile, while Argentina had nearly three-and-a-half times as much.[6]
↑ Livermore and Grant, who cites Livermore's work,[8] both attribute part of this delay to a 1908 earthquake, but no major earthquake hit Chile in that year, cf. List of earthquakes in Chile. However, the Valparaíso earthquake of 1906 caused nearly 4,000 deaths, a tsunami, and a wide swath of destruction over the Chilean capital and surrounding areas. Given this, it seems likely that Livermore's 1908 earthquake was a typographical error inadvertently repeated in Grant's account.
Endnotes
↑ WO1 Luis Mella Toro. Brazas a ceñir.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
↑ Esmeralda: The torture ship Archived former site of a committee led by Germán F. Westphal, a former Chilean political prisoner and a professor at the University of Maryland in the United States. They believe the ship should not be allowed in ports as long as the crimes remain unpunished. Last updated 15 March 2006.
Huáscar is an ironclad turret ship owned by the Chilean Navy built in 1865 for the Peruvian government. It is named after the 16th-century Inca emperor, Huáscar. She was the flagship of the Peruvian Navy and participated in the Battle of Pacocha and the War of the Pacific of 1879–1883. At the Battle of Angamos, Huáscar, captained by renowned Peruvian naval officer Miguel Grau Seminario, was captured by the Chilean fleet and commissioned into the Chilean Navy.
The Battle of Angamos was a naval encounter of the War of the Pacific fought between the navies of Chile and Perú at Punta Angamos, on 8 October 1879. The battle was the culminating point of a naval campaign that lasted about five months in which the Chilean Navy had the sole mission of eliminating its Peruvian counterpart. In the struggle, two armored frigates, led by Commodore Galvarino Riveros Cárdenas and Navy Captain Juan José Latorre battered and later captured the Peruvian monitor Huáscar, under Rear Admiral Miguel Grau Seminario.
José Toribio Merino Castro was an admiral of the Chilean Navy who was one of the principal leaders of the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, along with General Augusto Pinochet of the Army, General Gustavo Leigh of the Air Force, and General César Mendoza of the Carabineros. Together they established a military dictatorship that ruled Chile from 1973 until 1990, during which more than 3,197 Chilean citizens were executed or simply "disappeared", according to the reports of official bi-partisan commissions established by the President of Chile, Patricio Alwyn, in the 1990s. In addition, a further 28,459 Chileans were victims of torture, which included approximately 3,400 cases of sexual abuse of women.
Agustín Arturo Prat Chacón was a Chilean lawyer and navy officer. He was killed in the Battle of Iquique, during the War of the Pacific.
The Naval Battle of Papudo was a naval engagement fought between Spanish and Chilean forces on November 26, 1865, during the Chincha Islands War. It was fought 55 miles north of Valparaiso, Chile, near the coastal town of Papudo.
The Chilean naval mutiny of 1931 was a violent rebellion of Chilean Navy enlisted men against the government of Vice President Manuel Trucco.
Carlos Arnaldo Condell De La Haza was a Chilean naval officer and hero of the Battle of Punta Gruesa during the start of the War of the Pacific.
Admiral Edmundo González Robles, Chilean admiral; former commander in chief of the Chilean Navy, appointed by the Supreme Government of Chile for the period June 2009 - June 2013.
The Maritime history of Chile started when Chile gained independence, but traces it origin in the colonial era and has ultimately origin in the seafaring tradition of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe and the Mediterranean as well as from indigenous peoples of Chile.
The Ecuadorian Navy is an Ecuadorian entity responsible for the surveillance and protection of national maritime territory and has a personnel of 9,400 men to protect a coastline of 2,237 km which reaches far into the Pacific Ocean. The vessels are identified by a ship prefix of B.A.E.: Buque de la Armada del Ecuador or L.A.E.: Lancha de la Armada del Ecuador.
Almirante Latorre, named after Juan José Latorre, was a super-dreadnought battleship built for the Chilean Navy. It was the first of a planned two-ship class that would respond to earlier warship purchases by other South American countries. Construction began at Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne soon after the ship was ordered in November 1911, and was approaching completion when it was bought by the United Kingdom's Royal Navy for use in the First World War. Commissioned in September 1915, it served in the Grand Fleet as HMS Canada for the duration of the war and saw action during the Battle of Jutland.
The Almirante Latorre class consisted of two super-dreadnought battleships designed by the British company Armstrong Whitworth for the Chilean Navy. They were intended to be Chile's entries to the South American dreadnought race, but both were purchased by the Royal Navy prior to completion for use in the First World War. Only one, Almirante Latorre (HMS Canada), was finished as a battleship; Almirante Cochrane (HMS Eagle), was converted to an aircraft carrier. Under their Chilean names, they honored Admirals (Almirantes) Juan José Latorre and Thomas Cochrane; they took their British names from what was then a dominion of Canada and a traditional ship name in the Royal Navy.
The First Chilean Navy Squadron was the heterogeneous naval force that terminated Spanish colonial rule in the Pacific and protagonized the most important naval actions of in the Latin American wars of independence. The Chilean revolutionary government organized the squadron in order to carry the war to the Viceroyalty of Perú, then the center of Spanish power in South America, and thus secure the independence of Chile and Argentina.
A naval arms race among Argentina, Brazil and Chile—the wealthiest and most powerful countries in South America—began in the early twentieth century when the Brazilian government ordered three dreadnoughts, formidable battleships whose capabilities far outstripped older vessels in the world's navies.
Capitán Prat was a unique ironclad battleship of the Chilean Navy built in the late 1880s and completed in 1890. Armed with a main battery of four 9.4 in (240 mm) guns in four single turrets, Capitán Prat was the first battleship in the world to be equipped with an electrical system. She was built in the La Seyne dockyard in France, and commissioned into the Chilean fleet in 1891. Foreign navies tried to purchase the ship twice before the outbreak of wars, including an American attempt in 1898 and a Japanese offer in 1903.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the South American nations of Argentina and Chile engaged in an expensive naval arms race to ensure the other would not gain supremacy in the Southern Cone.
Agustín Manuel Hipólito Orella Macaya, known simply as Manuel Hipólito Orella, was a Chilean naval officer who made a career in the Chilean Navy. He was one of the first Chilean midshipmen who entered the nascent navy in 1818. He joined the First Chilean Navy Squadron and participated in the naval war for the independence of Chile and Peru. Likewise, also spent time in the Chilean Army in the infantry branch. Furthermore, he held several important positions in the navy until his death in 1857.
Almirante Simpson was a unique design of torpedo gunboat, built by the British shipyard Laird Brothers. Acquired by the Chilean Navy in 1895, during construction. The ship had a brief service in Chile, being transferred to the Ecuadorian Navy in 1907 and renamed Libertador Bolívar. She was the first Ecuadorian warship of the 20th century and had an important participation in the Ecuadorian Civil War of 1913–1916. After the war, the ship was retired and then sank in 1928.
Luis Anacleto Castillo Goñi (1844-1928) was a Chilean vice admiral who was a participant of the War of the Pacific. During the war, he was a commander of the Blanco Encalada, participating in numerous battles throughout the Naval campaign of the War of the Pacific and going on to serve an extensive military career after the war.
References
Garrett, James L. "The Beagle Channel Dispute: Confrontation and Negotiation in the Southern Cone." Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 27, no. 3 (1985): 81–109. JSTOR165601. ISSN0022-1937. OCLC2239844.
Gibbs, Jay (2005). "Question 30/04: The Bolivian Navy in the War of the Pacific". Warship International. XLII (3): 242–247. ISSN0043-0374.
Grant, Jonathan A. Rulers, Guns, and Money: The Global Arms Trade in the Age of Imperialism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. ISBN0-674-02442-7. OCLC166262725
Livermore, Seward W. "Battleship Diplomacy in South America: 1905–1925." Journal of Modern History 16, no. 1 (1944): 31–48. JSTOR1870986. ISSN0022-2801. OCLC62219150.
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