Fictional Story


My name is Juan Martínez, I was a sailor in the Spanish Navy and survived the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1. 1898. This is the story of the Esperanza, a former French passenger ship and its crew, of which I was a member.

At the beginning of April, the Paris was a passenger steamer of the French shipping company CNI in the harbour of Vung Tau. The navy urgently needed reinforcements and so Admiral Patricio Montojo approached the shipping company to acquire the Paris for the Spanish navy. In the end, the shipping company agreed but only lent the ship for a very high sum.
On April 20, the French colonial administration agreed and three days later the Paris anchored in Manila. Until then I had been a crew member of the cruiser Velasco, which was in need of repairs and unfit for war. The Paris was quickly rebuilt to accommodate the armament and crew of the Velasco. Under the leadership of Captain Enrique Sostoa, the work progressed rapidly. The two 6-inch guns, two 3-inch guns and two machine guns together with several hundred rounds were transferred to the Paris, which was now named Esperanza.



Early in the morning of May 1., we sighted the American fleet. We opened fire. But it wasn't until 20 minutes later that the Americans returned fire. We did our best. But as you can imagine, a passenger ship is not suitable for warfare. The first shot hit us at 5:55 in the superstructure between the funnels and killed the MG crew. Soon after, a second shot hit in front of the first boiler room. We were hit by several shots that hit the water in front of us. Then at 6:12 a shot hit one of the 6-inch guns and it detonated and started a fire. The ship could no longer be steered from the bridge and there were several dead and wounded. I and four other men manned the emergency rudder at the stern of the ship.
Captain Sostoa was injured but still able to give orders. The fire quickly got out of control so he ordered us to ground the Esperanza. We headed for the coast. At 6:39 the bow hit the sand, not a minute too soon. We jumped into the water and swam ashore. The Esperanza was completely engulfed in flames and burnt out. We had 12 dead and 32 injured.

The remains of the ship were scrapped in 1900. But small pieces can still be found on the beach today.



Descansen en paz mis camaradas





Technical Data

Land: Spain fromerly France
Company: Armada Espanola fromerly Compagnie de Navigation International, CNI
Year of construction: November 1885
Year of launch: January 1887
Commissioned: 10. August 1887
Fate: Burnt out and grounded after the Battle of Manila Bay, 1900 scrapped
Length: 132,4m (434,4ft)
Beam: 14,5m (47,6ft)
Draught: 7,5m (24,6ft)
Boiler: 4x coal-fired dubbleend Ovalboilers 2x coal-fierd singleed Ovalboilers
Coal bunker: 1267t + 278t
Coal consuption: 180t/day
Engines: 1x tripple-expansion Reciprocating engine
Speed: cruise: 14-15kn (25-28km/h 16-17mph)
   max: 15,6kn (29km/h 18mph)
Capacity: /
Crew:  max. 173






Build by: Cubemann2002

Renders by: Safty, X



Esperanza (ex. Paris 1887) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.