This question of what destroyed the Maine was addressed by the two official inquiries conducted by the US Navy into the matter. The first US Navy Court of Inquiry to investigate the MAINE disaster, known as the Sampson Board and consisting of Captain William T. Sampson and three other officers, arrived atHavana on February 21, 1898. They listened to testimony from Captain Sigsbee, the officers and crew of the Maine, and other witnesses of the explosion. In addition, they also listened to the statements of divers who had been sent down to examine the wreck of the MAINE. These divers had a very difficult job, working around the jagged wreckage in the dirty, dark, almost opaque waters of the harbor.
After the Sampson Board completed its investigation and inquiries in 1898, it came to the conclusion that the MAINE had been destroyed by the explosion of the forward and reserve magazines of six-inch ammunition, both located in the forward part of the ship. The divers had reported that the port side of the ship where the forward reserve magazine for six-inch ammunition had been located was entirely gone. Apparently that magazine of secondary battery ammunition was a location of the explosion. Most of the testimony of the witnesses and the observations of the divers seemed to indicate that the explosion of these magazines had been triggered by an external blast. The majority of the witnesses testified that there had been two explosions, as would have been the case if the explosion of the magazines had been triggered by the blast of a mine outside the ship. Lt. John Blandin, officer of the deck at the time of the explosion, reported that he heard an explosion coming from the port side, forward. Another officer, Cadet Cluverius, was in his cabin writing a letter when the explosion occurred. He recalled hearing a report like the firing of a gun, followed by all the ship's lights going out, and then there was an "indescribable roar, a terrific crash, intense darkness ..."
Other witnesses on board other ships in the harbor alsoobserved two explosions. The American passenger steamer CITY OF WASHINGTON was moored aft of the MAINE. After 9:30 PM, two American tobacco dealers were sitting in deck chairs on her deck. One of them had just joked that they were well protected with the guns of the Maine commanding the city when he heard a sound like a cannon shot. He looked up and saw the bow of the MAINE rise up out of the water, apparently as a result of the force of the first blast beneath the forward end of the ship. Then he saw a huge, fiery explosion in the center of the ship, followed by thick black smoke and debris falling everywhere as they ran for cover. At the same time, the captain of their ship, Frank Stevens, heard a muffled blast which seemed to comefrom underwater, followed by a second explosion. When he saw what had happened, he ordered the ship's boats launched. Frederick Teasdale, captain of the British bark DEVA, was below deck on board his ship, berthed about one half mile south of the MAINE at a wharf in Regla, across the harbor from Havana. He felt his ship stagger, and he was afraid that she had been rammed by a steamer. This was apparently caused by a shock wave from the first blast, under water. He then ran on deck, in time to see the explosion of the Maine's magazines hurling debris and smoke across the harbor.
While inspecting the wreckage on the day after the disaster, several officers of the MAINE had noticed bottom plates, identifiable by their green anti-fouling paint, thrust up out of the water. Later, the divers had found the keel of the ship in an "inverted V" shape thrust upward to within eighteen inches of the harbor surface, more than thirty feet above its original position. They placed this bent section of the keel at about frame eighteen, near the bow, and it was interpreted as having been driven into the ship, and upwards, by a powerful outside force, such as the explosion of a mine, beneath the keel. Based on this evidence of an external explosion, the Sampson Board reached the conclusion that the MAINE had been destroyed by an external, submarine mine. If the mine had been a Spanish naval mine, it assumed that the mine was large, with a charge of several hundred pounds of high explosive guncotton which triggered the explosion of the magazines. With deliberations completed by the third week in March, their report was delivered to the Navy Department in Washington on March 25, 1898.
In addition, there were two pieces of information which the Sampson Board did not accept as evidence. One was that otherdivers had reported finding a hole in the ship's side with the edges bent inward, which seemed to indicate an external blast. The second was a hole in the harbor floor, filled with soft mud, opposite the hole in the ship's side, which some observers interpreted as having been caused by the same external blast. The Vreeland Board's Investigation
Twelve years later, in 1910, a second inquiry into the fate of the Maine was begun. At this time, many Americans wanted the remains of the men which had been left on board the Maine removed from the wreck and brought back to the United States for burial. Others wanted a second, more thorough investigation of the disaster. In addition, the Cubans wanted the wreck removed from Havana harbor, where it was a hazard to shipping. In response, Congress authorized the raising of the MAINE and appropriated funds for the project.
The job was given to the US Army Corps of Engineers, which constructed a water-tight elliptical cofferdam on the floor of Havana harbor around the wreck of the MAINE. After its completion in November, 1911, the water was pumped out from around the wreck inside the cofferdam. This left the wreck in the open air, where it was more easily and thoroughly examined by the new investigators, for the first time since it had sunk. A second board of inquiry, lead by Rear Admiral Charles E. Vreeland met on November 10. Their investigation was finished in several weeks and the report was sent to President Taft on December 14, 1911. The remains of the crewmen had been removed from the ship and taken back to the United States on board the armored cruiser NORTH CAROLINA for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. The wreck of the ship was then refloated, towed out to sea, and ceremonially scuttled on March 16, 1912.
When the Vreeland Board began their investigation in 1911, they were able to take a much better look at the wreck of Maine. They reached essentially the same conclusion as the Sampson board, differing only in detail They agreed that the magazine explosion had been triggered by an external blast, but that that the original charge was a low form of explosive, and that the original blast did not occur at frame eighteen as decided by the Sampson court. Instead, they placed the explosion further aft, between frames twenty-eight and thirty-three, where about 100 square feet of plating was dented in as much as two feet and torn irregularly, with the torn edges bent inward into the ship. According to the Vreeland Board, a large high explosive charge would have punched a clean hole in the side of the ship, rather than the large dent and ragged tear which they found. They decided that the bending of the keel into the "inverted V" shape had been caused by the explosion of the magazines.
Maine’s hulk was finally floated 2 February 1912 and towed out to sea where it was sunk in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico with appropriate ceremony and military honors 16 March.
Thus, the conclusion that the explosion which destroyed the ship was triggered by an external blast, as reached by both the Sampson and Vreeland inquiries, seems to be a valid one. Having reached that same conclusion, we still don't know what actually caused the blast. Was the MAINE destroyed by a Spanish mine, as so many believed in 1898, by sabotage, or by some kind of "infernal machine" ?
