Battleship USS Maine

Originally planned as an armored cruiser USS Maine was launched 1890 at Brooklyn Navy Yard as one of the first American warships with more than 6,000 t displacement. After several delays USS Maine was commissioned on September 17th, 1895 as second class battleship. For a battleship she was too light with her four 10 inch and six 6 inch guns. For an armored cruiser on the other hand she was to heavily armored. On top of that she was considered obsolete because of her lengthy construction time she was, also, obsolete when commissioned.

But Maine played an important and tragic role in the American history. On February 15th, 1898 she sank in the harbor of Havana, Cuba after an explosion of the foremost magazine and 251 crew members didn’t survive the accident. This explosion was the triggering event for the war between Spain and the United States. On February 2nd, 1912 the wreck was salvaged and on March 16th, 1912 was towed to open sea and sunk. An examination of the wreck showed that an internal explosion was the cause for the sinking of USS Maine. Spanish and other European experts and some Americans didn’t share this opinion. Until today there’s no proof for a Spanish or Cuban sabotage and among experts the opinion prevails that the explosion was due to overheated coal dust.