Sinking of the ''Merrimac''

This is the firsthand account of one of the most daring naval operations in American history. Richmond Pearson Hobson, a young naval constructor, conceived and executed a plan that seemed almost suicidal: sink a collier in the narrow channel of Santiago harbor, trapping the Spanish fleet and ending the war in Cuba. What follows is his minute-by-minute recollection of that impossible mission, from the tense preparation aboard the Merrimac to the moment his vessel began to settle in the channel, and then the harrowing hours spent drifting in the water, waiting for capture by the Spanish. Hobson writes with the precision of an engineer and the passion of a man who knew he was betting his life on a gambit that might change the course of history. The narrative extends through his imprisonment, his daring escape attempts, and his eventual return to American shores as a celebrated hero. This is military memoir at its most visceral: not the sanitized official report, but the raw, human document of a man who looked into the face of impossibility and proceeded anyway.