Battle of Santiago de Cuba Battle of Santiago de Cuba The Battle of Santiago de Cuba was a naval battle that occurred on July 3, 1898, in which the United States Navy decisively defeated Spanish forces, sealing American victory in the Spanish–American War and achieving nominal independence for Cuba from Spanish rule. The battle marked the culmination of the Cuban Wars for Independence that had been waged by Cuban revolutionaries against Spanish imperial power for several decades. The United States had political, economic, cultural, and ideological interests in Cuba. Within this larger context, many American political leaders, pushed by interventionist public opinion, were outraged by
Battle of Santiago de Cuba and later research by historians, have suggested that nearly 85% of the Spanish ammunition at Santiago was utterly useless, either defective or simply filled with sawdust as a cost-saving measure for practice firing. The American ammunition had no such issues of lethality. "Vizcaya" continued the fight until overwhelmed, and by the end of the engagement she had been struck as many as 200 times by the fire from "Brooklyn" and "Texas". "Brooklyn" had closed to within when she finally delivered an round which, according to witnesses, may have detonated a torpedo being prepared for launch. A huge explosion ensued, "Vizcaya"