The Gunboat Baire - Cuba Arqueológica

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The gunboat Baire (1906-1943).
Brief history of a ship of the Cuban Navy.
By Alfredo E. Figueredo
http://www.histarmar.com.ar/ArmadasExtranjeras/Cuba/ElCanionroBaire.htm
(septiembre, 2010).
The Coast Guard Service of Cuba was created in 1899 by the Unites States
provisional government. The head of the same would be the Director of Customs of
Cuba, Major Tasker H. Bliss. This Service, at the beginning, was formed by four former
Spanish auxiliary gunboats, five coastal tugboats ordered from the United States, and
some yachts and ships purchased from the domestic merchant marine and from abroad. 1
The first government of an independent Cuba published on 7 June 1905 in the
Gaceta Oficial an invitation for bids for the Coast Guard Service in order to acquire a
steamship with twin screws, displacing 500 tons, at a price not to exceed $ 115,000.00.
The house of G. Hempel, in the person of Pablo Deeher, representatives of the famous
shipyard J. W. Klawitter of Danzig, German Empire, signed a contract for that ship with

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the Secretariat of Finances in December 1905. On 4 February 1906, said construction
was approved by Decree 126 of the Secretariat of Finances. 2
In 1906, Baire was launched in Danzig, German Empire. Pursuant to the
contract, she displaced 500 tons; measured 196 x 23 x 9 feet. She had bunkerage for 120
tons of coal, and her engines generated 1,200 horsepower with Babcock boilers, giving
her a speed of 14 knots. The minimum draft was 7 feet, and the maximum was 10 feet.
She mounted two guns of 5.7 cm. (6 lbs.), two guns of 4.7 cm. (3 lbs.), and a Browning
.50 caliber machine gun. Her complement was 11 officers, 2 warrant officers, and 63
sailors. She made the trip from the Baltic Sea to Havana without any complications. 3
The elegant design of Baire may be appreciated in the photograph accompanying
this article, as well as the rambow, which was then in fashion. The venerable third-class
cruiser Cuba, before its reconstruction, also had a similar rambow.
At the beginning, the new gunboat, first of her name, was destined to patrol the
coasts from Cape Maisí to Santiago de Cuba. When in 1911 the Coast Guard Service
was incorporated to the new Navy, Baire continued with the same coast guard duty until
1920. In 1917, she was reconstructed in the United States (Charleston Navy Yard) due to
the First World War, and her original armament was changed for another of United States
provenience. As of that date, she mounted four guns of 7.62 cm. (12 lbs.) and two guns
of 3.7 cm. (1 lb.), all new. Apart from the .50 caliber Browning, another machine gun
was added, a .30 caliber Browning. 4
After her reconstruction, and during the First World War, Baire was part of the
“Mobile Force” of the Navy, based in Havana, along with the third-class cruiser Cuba,
the cruise-schoolship Patria, and four submarine chasers. 5
On 23 April 1923, Baire, under her captain Enrique Ferrer, transferred the mortal
remains of Mariana Grajales from Kingston, Jamaica, where they were buried, to
Santiago de Cuba. 6

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In October, 1926, a hurricane sank the gunboat Hatuey in the port of Havana.
This gunboat served the functions of a Presidential Yacht. Even though in 1929 the yacht
Jamaica, renamed as Juan Bruno Zayas was acquired to serve as a Yacht for the chief
executive, until the decade of the 1940’s Baire was also sometimes called to serve the
President in that way. 7
During the month of August, 1931, General Mario García Menocal and Colonel
Carlos Mendieta Montefur, active in the opposition to president Machado, convinced
Corvette Captain Juan E. Rivera, who was at that time commanding Baire, to take them
from Río Verde, north coast of Pinar del Río, to Oriente. This became known to
Machado, who separated Rivera from the Navy, and arrested Menocal and Mendieta at
the same Embarcadero de Río Verde. The gunboat Oscar Fernández Quevedo took the
two conspirators to Havana, escorted by Baire under another captain. 8
Baire visited Tampa from the 10 to the 14 February, 1936, by reason of the
Annual Gasparilla Carnival and the Florida Fair, part of the Jubilee of the Tobacco
Industry of that city. Some fights were reported at the dock between the crew of Baire
and “Cuban political refugees residing in Florida”. According to Lieutenant George H.
Bahm, USN of the U.S.S. Schenk (DD-159), which was also docked in Tampa in front of
Baire, these “political refugees” were followers of the recently deposed president
Machado, and had as their objective “seizing the gunboat”. This attempt failed. 9
In 1940, the speed of Baire was limited to 10 knots; in the 1941 edition of Jane’s
Fighting Ships, Baire still appears as a Presidential Yacht. In 1943, the history of our
handsome ship ends, when, due to the Second World War, an inspection by Commander
C. A. Griffiths, USN (Ret.) recommends that, because of the poor condition of her hull
and machinery, repairs not be continued, and she should be retired from active service
immediately. The guns, the machinery, and the equipment may be salvaged. 10

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In 1956, a submarine chaser of the United States PC-class was acquired by the
Navy from the Honduran merchant marine. She was given the number P.E. 203, and the
name of the old Baire. This was the second ship so called in Cuban service. 11
NOTES
1 Balbis, Historia; Gálvez Aguilera, Marina de Guerra.
2 Balbis, op. cit.
3 loc. cit.; Wright, Cuban Navy; Parkes and Pendergast, Jane’s.
4 Gálvez Aguilera, op. cit.; Wright, Cuban Navy; Parkes and Pendergast, Jane’s.
5 Scheina, Latin America.
6 Gálvez Aguilera, op. cit.
7 Balbis, op. cit.
8 loc. cit.
9 Wright, Cuban Navy.
10 McMurtrie, Jane’s; Wright, Cuban Navy.
11 Balbis, op. cit.
Works Consulted
Balbis Torregrosa, Pelayo. Historia de la Marina de Guerra Cubana. Miami: Isa
Printing & Binding Corp., 2001.
Gálvez Aguilera, Milagros. La Marina de Guerra en Cuba (1909-1958). Primera Parte.
La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, Historia, 2007. (12) XIII-XIV, 1-333 (1) p.
Goicoechea, J. M. The Cuban Navy, 1902-1958. Warship International, vol. XXXIV
(1997), No. 1, pp. 13-31; vol. XXXIV (1997), No. 2, pp. 141-142.
McMurtrie, Francis E., ed. Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1941. (Issued 1942). New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1942.

Documento descargado de Cuba Arqueológica www.cubaarqueologica.org
Mey Murdoch, Carlos. Marina de Cuba – 1930. Historia y Arqueología Marítima.
Histarmar. http://www.histarmar.com.ar/ArmadasExtranjeras/Cuba/Cuba-1930.htm.
Parkes, Oscar, and Francis E. McMurtrie, eds. Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1924. Reprinted
by Arco Publishing Company Inc., New York.
Parkes, Oscar, and Maurice Prendergast, eds. Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1919. Reprinted
by Arco Publishing Company Inc., New York.
Scheina, Robert L. Latin America: A Naval History, 1810-1987. Annapolis: Naval
Institute Press, 1987.
Wright, C. C. The Cuban Navy as Seen from the United States, 1910-1946. Warship
International, vol. XXXIV (1997), No. 2, pp. 143-156; vol. XXXIV (1997), No. 4, pp.
333-359.