The Flying Squadron was a United States Navy force that operated in the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Spanish West Indies during the first half of the Spanish–American War.
In the spring of 1898, tensions were rising between the United States and Spain over events in Cuba, particularly the explosion and sinking of the armored cruiser USS Maine (often referred to as a "battleship") in Havana Harbor.
[3] The heavy units of the U.S. fleet formed the North Atlantic Squadron, commanded by Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, which was concentrating at Key West.
[4] The Spanish Navy's First Squadron, commanded by Vice Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete, meanwhile began to concentrate at Sao Vicente in Portugal's Cape Verde Islands in April 1898, where it was when war broke out later in the month.
It sortied from Sao Vicente on 29 April 1898, secretly bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico,[5] which the United States Navy assumed was its destination.
[6] But Cervera's departure and the lack of information thereafter about his squadron's whereabouts caused a panic on the U.S. East Coast, where hysterical press reports of the potential devastation that Spanish naval guns could wreak on U.S. coastal cities fed people's fears.
Against its wishes, the Navy recommissioned eight old monitors of American Civil War vintage and questionable fighting value and deployed them in major ports, and the Flying Squadron was tied down at Hampton Roads until Cervera's location and intentions could be determined.
[11] On 21 May 1898, the Navy Department received intelligence information confirming that Cervera's ships were at Santiago de Cuba, and cabled Sampson at Key West.
[14] At dawn on 28 May 1898, the Flying Squadron saw that the Spanish armored cruiser Cristóbal Colón was anchored in the entrance channel under the guns of the harbor's coastal fortifications.
At 14:00 on 31 May 1898, Schley had the Flying Squadron make its first offensive move, sending the battleships Iowa and Massachusetts and the protected cruiser New Orleans in to bombard Cristóbal Colón and the coastal forts.
[15] Sampson arrived on 1 June 1898 aboard his flagship, the armored cruiser New York, bringing with him the battleship Oregon, the armed yacht Mayflower, and the torpedo boat Porter of the North Atlantic Squadron.
It also created a situation in which elements of two squadrons, North Atlantic and Flying, operated together off Santiago de Cuba under the two awkwardly juxtaposed flag officers.
But Sampson was more aggressive than Schley, and immediately set a plan in motion to block the harbor's entrance channel using the collier USS Merrimac as a blockship.
An inquiry blamed him for "vacillation, dilatoriness, and lack of enterprise"[15] during his time off Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba, and his performance compared unfavorably with that of Sampson.