WesWorld

Posting for Mac at his request.

I'm going to open a "1937 Peruvian Crisis" OOC thread for all comments, questions, etc.

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Quoted

Excerpt from Political Relations in South America, Volume III (1920-1940)

Hernando Diaz became president of Peru following the HEBCo bombing assassination of the Peruvian government. Diaz was a Social Democrat and, at the time of his assumption of power, was very popular with the lower class and the military.

Unfortunately, Diaz's term proved to be rocky from the start. Within days of his assumption of power, he committed the Peruvian government to aid the Bolivian earthquake victims, with the intent of eventually incorporating Bolivia into Peru. Brazil and Chile dealt his plans a substantial blow in late 1936 when they voted to abolish Bolivian reparations to Peru, but the Peruvian troops aiding the Bolivian People's Brigades stayed in place, and Diaz cherished the hope that Bolivia could still be incorporated into a Trans-Andean Confederation with Peru.

The Chilean government was aware of Diaz's aspirations for a Trans-Andean Confederation, and was opposed to this idea. Although they had tried to blunt Diaz's maneuvers in Bolivia through their quiet support of President Stiles of Bolivia, they failed to act strongly enough to deter Diaz, who came to believe the Chileans would back down rather than face an actual war. The Bolivian Army was too small to reassert control of the regions which now fell under People's Brigade control (and therefore the Peruvian Army's control) and Stiles could not confront Diaz without significant foreign help.

Although Diaz's plans seemed well in hand in Bolivia, his popularity at home was slowly falling. Political opponents in Congress and the rest of the government were suffering 'accidents' or disappearing or resigning under harrassment or blackmail. Diaz and his chief lieutenant, de la Nazca, ably exploited the running nationalist sentiment of the army by providing evidence of foreign plots, but in mid-May, Diaz's opposition announced that a witness intended to testify to Congress against Diaz's activities in Peru.

Diaz delayed as much as possible, but the opposition hardened and persisted with their attempts to discredit Diaz. The President's advisers thus created a plan to start a military confrontation with a local neighbor in order to help rally the people behind Diaz. All of the neighbors had allies - Chile was covered through the ABC Alliance and FAR, Brazil was covered by ABC, and Colombia covered through FAR. Of these three powers, the President's advisers suggested confrontation with Colombia, as they interpreted it as the least likely to respond with war.

By mid-May 1937, Diaz began making nationalists statements regarding the Colombian city of Leticia, which had been disputed until only a few years before. The Peruvian Navy also began searching Colombian merchant ships for "arms runners" with the hope Colombia would start saber-rattling. This evidence of "foreign aggression" would undoubtedly boost Diaz's sagging public support.

Unfortunately, on May 30th, the situation flew out of Diaz's hands as hundreds of well-armed Peruvian irregulars, members of the Peruvian Nationalist Party, marched into Leticia, emboldened by Diaz's rhetoric. The Colombians were outraged and mobilized the Army, and Diaz, believing his northern counterparts would back down short of war, decided to capitalize on the situation. Diaz dispatched his most hardline troops to enter Leticia and expand upon the operations of the irregulars.

Diaz's critics in Congress had no intent to back down either. As the Peruvian and Colombian armies squared off along the Amazon, and diplomats worked overtime, they continued baying for Diaz's resignation. Although the Colombian government, as expected, showed their readiness to negotiate with Peru, they signaled that they also weren't planning to back down...

Excerpt from The Crisis of Peruvian Constitutionalism, 1937
Due to Presidente Diaz's attempts to distract his political opponents with the looming threat of external conflict, Diaz's opponents in the Congresso Nacional del Perú were momentarily stymied in their attempt to introduce their star witness in their case against the President. Throughout late May and early June, Diaz and his aides worked to uncover the identity of the unidentified witness, but when the Congress unexpectedly opened a Saturday session on June 12th to address special political issues, none of Diaz's followers were prepared for the introduction of Colonel Esteban Granda, who had been charged with building an organization inside Bolivia to peacefully incorporate it into Peru. The Colonel brought with him several boxes of ballots printed for a vote for Bolivia to join in confederation with Peru, the ballots already being marked in favor.

Several times, Diaz loyalists attempted to shout down or otherwise drown out the Colonel's testimony. The most notable instant came when four of the members of Congress began chanting "Traitor, traitor, traitor!" In the midst of the assembly, the respected Peruvian jurist Orlando Baylon (head of Congress) stood and silenced them with the demand "¿Por qué no te callas?"

In the moments following this confrontation, Colonel Granda prepared to speak again when a man rushed down the center aisle of and opened fire with a long-barreled "Broomhandle" Mauser automatic. Colonel Granda was struck in the head by two 8mm rounds and killed instantly; Deputies Baylon and Luiz Saca - the latter a staunch proponent of Diaz - were also struck by bullets, Saca being more severely injured than Baylon. Moments later, the assassin was shot by Congress guards belatedly responding to the breach in security. The guards fired eight rounds from their Mauser rifles into the assassin, then bayoneted the man three more times, killing him.

Police and Army troops immediately locked down the Congress area and Diaz took control. The Deputies, most of them shaken by the events, were escorted to their homes by Diaz's security police. The injured Baylon and Saca were both hospitalized, and shortly after midnight, Saca died despite doctors' best efforts. The assassin's identity was never formally determined, the body being cremated two days later on presidential order.

Despite the chaos in Congress, Lima remained in a state of relative calm. Army troops mounted heavy patrols and responded swiftly to gathering crowds, though Sunday Mass was the exception. On Sunday afternoon on June 13th, Diaz announced that the government had survived a coup attempt, and that Diaz had ordered the arrest of eighteen high-ranking traitors, including the head of the Peruvian Air Force, and one Army general. Ten of the men were all executed by five days later following a kangaroo court appearance. Diaz first claimed publicly that the coup was organized and financed by the Colombian government; but by June 15th, Minister de la Nazca commented to a US journalist that the plotters were actually Mexicans financed by the Japanese government. A Mexican report leaked to foreign papers said that the plotters were "solidly linked" to Iberia, while a late-June report from Peru amended their claim again to show Chilean support for the plotters. All parties equivocally denied their involvement with the supposed coup faction, and the Chilean government accused Diaz of inventing the incident to arrest and execute opposition figures. This theory, eventually endorsed by the major intelligence-gathering organs of all involved powers, eventually became the popular and most likely explanation for the events of June 12-13th...

Excerpt from Political Relations in South America, Volume III (1920-1940)

With the original occupiers of Leticia now reinforced by Peruvian Army units - ostensibly to protect Peruvian citizens in Leticia - Diaz played his next card in his deck of tricks. As the Peruvian president was receiving terse criticism from the opposition parties regarding his cavalier treatment of the crisis, Diaz asked the Colombians on June 9th to send an ambassador to join him with a neutral third-party negotiator. The Colombians agreed, suggesting the United States as a suitable neutral, but Diaz declined, based on the US's historical mistrust of Peru's Iberian allies; Diaz indicated he did not think the US was sufficiently neutral.

The Colombian ambassador spent nearly two weeks attempting to negotiate a mutually-agreeable neutral third party to host the discussions, while Diaz refrained from naming any countries preferred by Peru. In the meantime, the Peruvian Army fortified Leticia and deployed to the banks of the Pilcomayo River in significant force, while the Colombian Army faced them across the river. By June 25th, the patience of the Colombian government was wearing thin: of the dozen powers suggested as neutral mediators, Diaz had vetoed or pigeonholed acceptance of all of them, even turning down a last-ditch offer by Colombia to name Iberia as a mediator.

On June 28th, the Colombian government finally lost patience with Diaz's stalling tactics, and issued an ultimatum for Diaz to choose a neutral mediator from a list of candidates acceptable to Colombia [1]; if no neutral moderator could be found, then Colombia was going to declare war and retake Leticia by force. Chile and Atlantis both indicated their continuing displeasure with Peru's invasion and subsequent stalling, and both had mobilized for war.

Diaz found himself on the horns of a dilemma: though the Colombians had agreed to mediation as Diaz believed, they acted perfectly prepared to use force to eject Peru from Leticia. If Diaz backed down and withdrew from Leticia, then he faced the loss of support from the Peruvian nationalists, his strongest backers in the Congress and the Army.

Hours before the Colombian ultimatum expired on July 1st, Diaz finally signaled that he would accept the United Kingdom as a neutral mediator to discuss the situation with Colombia. This was a relief for the Colombian government, who was advised by the Army of the difficulties inherent in any campaign to retake the increasingly-fortified and inhospitable rainforest around Leticia. Other voices in the Colombian government, however, correctly reasoned that Diaz believed Colombia’s willingness to negotiate was a sign of weakness. A Colombian military campaign to retake Leticia was, they argued, inevitable, as Diaz could not afford to lose face due to the political situation in Peru. An immediate counterattack, while aggressive, would spare the Colombian Army higher casualties later, when the Peruvians were dug in.

On June 30th, as Colombia and Peru negotiated for a neutral mediator, political and military representatives of the FAR alliance met in Cayenne, French Guiana, to finalize their campaign plans should Peru refuse to withdraw from Leticia. Iberian diplomats in Cayenne were consulted regarding the political situation. By July 2nd, the allies hammered out a fairly comprehensive war plan for prosecuting a war against Peru.

When the Colombian and Peruvian diplomats finally met in Jamaica on July 11th, the Peruvian diplomats presented in their opening statement a list of demands against Colombia. Included in this list was a Peruvian annexation of the Amazonas Department of Colombia - 109,665 km² of territory – and additional demands for money, the limitation of the Colombian army, navy, and air force, and demands for naval basing rights in Buenaventura, Colombia. The Colombian diplomats were initially stunned by the demands but finally, lead negotiator Manolo Garcia stormed out of the conference in disgust. Attempts by the British to bring the negotiators together again were unsuccessful. Garcia commented to the British diplomats “We came to negotiate in good faith, not to receive terms of national castration.”

The Colombian government and congress, outraged by the demands made in the Jamaica Conference, finally accepted that there was no peaceful settlement to the Leticia Crisis, and President Pumarejo signed the orders to begin combat operations against Peru…

[Note 1]: The countries listed as acceptable neutrals to Colombia is too long to list here - Nordmark, the UK, the US, and Germany were the preferred choices, as they are all large and deemed sufficiently neutral in this particular situation.

July 14, 1936 - Washington, DC

Upon hearing of the demands that Peru has placed upon Colombia in exchange for the seeming invasion of Colombia, the US government had this to say: "The US is extremely disappointed in the behavior of the Diaz government. It is clear that the Diaz regime has no interest in returning to the status quo, and was merely using the prospect of talks to delay the issue. The US government calls on the allies of the Diaz regime and those countries that have influence with the Diaz regime to rein in this loose cannon that is in danger of sparking another war in South America."

[SIZE=1]((OOC note: going to go ahead and post this section even though there's probably something else we can shoehorn in before it... just remember to consult the dates on this. We'll post a timeline when we're done so you can see all the events in the order they occurred.)[/SIZE]

[SIZE=4]Battle of Ilo - July 18th[/SIZE]

Order of Battle:
4th Destroyer Squadron - Capitán de Navío (Acting Commodore) Carlos Litton
- DL-1 Teniente Riquelme
- DL-2 Teniente Videla
- DL-3 Teniente Aldea
- DL-4 Teniente Serrano (Temporary flagship)
- DL-5 Guardia Marina Contrerra (On detached duty)
- DL-6 Guardia Marina Gonzales (In port with engine troubles)

- Ship statistics of the Teniente Riquelme-class

1st Destroyer Squadron/1st Division - Commodore Rufino
- DD Independencia
- DD Capitan Valdes
- DD Capitan Hernandez
- DD Teniente Galvez

- Ship statistics of the Capitan Valdes-class
- Ship statistics of the Independencia-class

Action:
On July 15th, the Columbian Army began its counteroffensive to recapture the city of Leticia from Peru. The Chileans, acting in their role as Columbian allies, launched preparatory operations to interdict Peruvian merchant vessels along the coast. The Fourth Destroyer squadron, consisting of four Teniente Riquelme-class light destroyers, and two Guardia Marina Contrerra-class light destroyers, were one of several units sent out as pickets to patrol the Peruvian coast, to watch the port of Ilo, southeast of Mollendo. Meanwhile, the First Cruiser Squadron, under Contraalmirante Arturo Somavia, moved to investigate the Peruvian naval base at Mollendo, where four Peruvian destroyers were thought to be anchored.

Arriving on the evening of July 17th, Somavia's four cruisers, including his flagship Nevado Ojos del Salado, found the harbor of Mollendo empty of warships, but did seize a Peruvian-flagged supply ship which was unable to outrun the light cruiser Astraea. Unbeknownst to Somavia, the four Peruvian destroyers had sailed the previous evening to escort another supply ship back to Mollendo. These four powerful destroyers were headed back to Mollendo on the 18th when they spotted the 4th Destroyer Squadron cruising off Ilo at 0930 Hours.

The Peruvian commander, Capitan de Navio Rinaldo Rufino, immediately turned his ships eastward in pursuit. The Chilean destroyer squadron, under Capitan de Navio Carlos Litton, had been weakened the previous evening by the departure of the Contrerra and the Gonzales, the later having returned to port due to engine malfunctions, and the Contrerra escorting her. The ships which remained were all Riquelme-class light destroyers of seven hundred and fifty tons, and could only make twenty-nine knots on the best of days. Between them, the four Riquelmes boasted four six-inch and eight four-inch guns, while the Peruvian ships had a minimum of four six-inch guns apiece, and the flagship Independencia had six.

Capitan Litton ordered his outgunned ships to turn northwest, and signalled for the First Cruiser Squadron, which he knew to be about ninety miles away. The Chilean commodore, aboard the Teniente Serrano, ordered maximum speed and radioed the cruisers for help. Rufino, aboard the thirty-six knot Independencia, quickly overtook the Serrano, which was at the rear of the column and only able to make twenty-seven knots.

As the Independencia closed in, Litton determined that only drastic action would save the other ships in his flotilla, and at 1008 Hours ordered Serrano to turn south again and engage the massively superior Peruvian destroyer. As his ship turned south, Litton instructed his first officer, Capitan de Corbeta Frederick Vestergaard, to "fight until she sinks, but never strike that flag." Serrano's gunners opened fire on the Independencia first, scoring a single hit on the Peruvian ship that failed to detonate. The Peruvian destroyer returned fire, landing two 6" shells on the Serrano in her first salvo, wiping out the Serrano's six-inch gun crew and killing Capitan Litton. Within five minutes, the Serrano was dead in the water and her guns had been silenced, and she was sinking by the bow. In a final act of defiance, she managed to fire a spread of five eighteen-inch torpedoes which the Independencia handily avoided. With that, Vestergaard ordered the Serrano's surviving men to abandon ship.

The Serrano's sacrificial death failed to save her consorts, as all four Peruvian destroyers continued to make over thirty-four knots in pursuit. Even as Serrano's crew was abandoning ship, the Aldea came under fire from the Peruvian Capitan Valdez. The Valdez's fire was largely innaccurate, but at 1028 Hours after twenty minutes of irregular shooting, Valdez landed a six-inch hit on the Aldea which destroyed her engines and left the ship dead in the water. Valdez then fired a spread of torpedoes, one of which found the Aldea and blew the small destroyer in half, sinking her nearly with all hands.

The Riquelme and Videla, at the front of the Chilean formation, were able to survive slightly longer, but Independencia rejoined the chase, joining the Capitan Hernandez and Teniente Galvez. Videla's commander, Capitan de Fragada Alejandro Hirsch, turned back to bring his six-inch gun and torpedoes to bear, but the Videla was hit in rapid succession by six-inch shells. At 1037 Hours, the Videla disappeared in an explosion, probably of her ammunition; there were no survivors.

The Riquelme avoided all the fire which came her way until 1034 Hours, when two six-inch shells from Independencia started a blazing fire amidships and cut her speed to twelve knots. The Chilean crewmen, knowing the Riquelme was doomed, abandoned ship at 1040 Hours.

Capitan Rufino immediately shifted to lifesaving operations, recovering fifty-two crewmen from the Riquelme and seven survivors from the Aldea. Rufino ordered the Valdez to double back and search for Serrano's survivors, but was distracted at 1115 Hours by the overflight of a Chilean Latécoère 298 floatplane flying from Arica, which began shadowing the Peruvian destroyers. Rufino quickly realized the floatplane indicated the presence of further Chilean warships, almost certainly heavier than the victorious Peruvians. At 1130 Hours, Rufino's fears were confirmed as the light cruiser CNS Astraea charged down on them from the northeast, trailed by the Maunga Terevaka, Atacama, and the heavy cruiser Nevado Ojos Del Salado. Rufino turned his ships westward and applied all available speed, and quickly outran the slower Chilean cruisers.

Contraalmirante Somavia attempted to continue tracking the Peruvian ships using his floatplanes, but the Peruvians proved too fast to be caught. At 1700 Hours, Somavia broke off the chase and dispatched a floatplane to search for further survivors. At 1830, Nevado's Latécoère spotted a raft floating in the water, and just before dusk, the cruiser Astraea rescued Capitan de Corbeta Vestergaard and all sixteen survivors of the Teniente Serrano.

Even though the battle was as predictable as an execution, the Chileans were shocked by their squadron's defeat. For the rest of the war, many Chilean commanders aggressively sought a surface action in the name of avenging the Battle of Ilo. Contraalmirante Somavia, frustrated at his inability to bring Rufino to action at Ilo, would later aggressively lead his squadron into the Battle of Barranca, with severe consequences for his flagship.

For his sacrifice, Carlos Litton was posthumously promoted to Contraalmirante and was acknowledged as a national hero; Vestergaard, the senior surviving officer of the squadron, was promoted to Capitan de Fragata for his own role in refusing to surrender the Serrano, and received command of the destroyer CNS Capitan Sandoval in time to participate in the Battle of Islay.

Results:
- Riquelme, Videla, Aldea, and Serrano all sunk (0%)
- Peruvian ships lightly damaged

Lima, Peru
Orlando Baylon sipped his coffee and looked around the room at his fellow deputies. Baylon still felt the pain in his shoulder from the bullet-wound he had received a month before during the assassination of Colonel Granda.

"Gentlemen, a very serious situation faces our nation," Baylon said. "Every day our country continue to fight, we court disaster. We cannot hope to defeat alone the forces opposing us; and we have all realized that as our country is the instigator of this crisis, our friends in Iberia and elsewhere are reluctant to aid us and widen this conflict. All so President Diaz can maintain his nationalist hubris."

Heads nodded around the chamber.

"My countrymen," Baylon continued, "A few hours ago, the German ambassador delivered an offer for a ceasefire to start on the 22nd. I've spoken with the Iberian ambassador who urged us to accept the ceasefire, and begged us to convince Diaz to pull out of Leticia. On my way here, I stopped to see the President, and both he and de la Nazca indicated that neither would order a withdrawal from Leticia, nor would they accept the ceasefire."

One of the younger deputies, Luis Castillo, spoke up. "If you will forgive me for playing the devil's own advocate, Chief Deputy, why should we not hold out for better terms against Colombia? We defeated the Chileans at sea, and the Army continues to hold the line of the Putumayo River against the Colombian Army."

"If reports are to be believed," Baylon agreed. "Our victory against the Chileans is rousing indeed, but I must point out that they retain much greater naval forces even after this defeat; let alone the presence of the Atlantean and Colombian navies. Reports from northern Peru are filtering back only through men loyal to the President; and so I venture to state that the news from that quarter may possibly be nothing more than propaganda." Baylon paused. "The fact of the matter is, gentlemen, I do not think we can weather the storm bearing down on us. We need not to ride the storm out, but to evade it."

Baylon felt the pain in his shoulder spike, and paused. "What I will suggest may be called treason by Diaz and his loyalists. But I beg you, gentlemen, to hear me out. If we continue down the road Diaz lays out for us, Peru will be shamed in the eyes of history if we do nothing to halt it. We have already waited too long.

"Diaz told me he will arrest for treason any Deputy who votes to accept the German offer for a ceasefire. If that is how it must be, gentlemen, then I shall call for the vote, and the first ballot cast shall be mine." Baylon paused and looked around at the nervous faces of the other Deputies, waiting for their answer.

July 19
The Peruvian Congress has voted with a strong majority to accept the German offer of a ceasefire to begin on the 22nd of July.

Immediately upon hearing news of the vote, President Diaz declared martial law and ordered the arrest of the entire Chamber of Deputies, regardless of their actual vote on the issue of the ceasefire. However, Army Colonel Arturo Balta, charged with making the arrests, declined to place the Deputies under arrest and ordered his regiment to escort the leading deputies, including head of congress Baylon, to the air force base at Lima, where they boarded a transport and were flown to Trujillo. For his actions, Colonel Balta was shot without trial. Other deputies attempted to evade arrest on their own, with a group of fifteen seeking asylum with their families in the Iberian embassy, while some forty members of Congress submitted to arrest by an army unit sent by Diaz to replace Colonel Balta.

July 20
As news of President Diaz's actions against Congress spread, riots began in many Peruvian cities. In Trujillo, Baylon and the leading Peruvian deputies were met by Army General Francisco Balta, the brother of Colonel Arturo Balta; General Balta immediately stated that he would not follow any orders received from Diaz, and he stated his belief that Diaz was operating outside the law. This had a calming effect in Trujillo and elsewhere in northwest Peru.

Other regions were not so fortunate. A mob gathered in Lima and for two hours laid siege to the presidential palace; Diaz ordered the Army to disperse them using lethal force, and ordered the execution of an officer who refused to fire on civilians. An unknown number were killed when the riots were finally dispersed by tanks and shock troops loyal to Diaz. A company of Peruvian army soldiers attempted to restrain the shock troops from firing into the civilians, and a short fight developed before the Army forces surrendered to the Presidentialist troops.

Additionally, Presidentialist troops seized the offices of newspapers, radio stations, and the Lima television station, as well as securing bridges and "assets vital to war operations."

General Hernando Sibille, commander of the Army units based in Iquitos and responsible for overseeing the combat zone around Leticia, indicated that he intended to follow the President's orders not to accept the ceasefire approved by Congress, indicating his belief that the chain of command should be maintained in the Peruvian Army.

[SIZE=1]OOC: Hrolf, the German offer of a ceasefire was perfectly timed to fit the timeline for the political split in Peru. There was no way we could have planned it better, so I rewrote what I had in order to take advantage of it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]First battle of Putumayo[/SIZE]

With the failure to find a diplomatic solution to the Leticia crisis at the Cayenne conferance, the Colombian armed forces began making preparations for war. Even before the Cayenne conferance the Colombian navy began making its preparations, firstly by seeking permission to sail the Brazilian portion of the Amazon from the government of Brazil, to which they graciously allowed, much to the shagrin of the SAE. This caused some ruffled feathers between Colombia and the SAE but never the less Colombia had larger matters to worry about.

With permission to sail the Amazon the Colombian navy assembled a riverine force to transport troops, supplys and naval support. A force led by Rear Admiral Andres Valez consisting of 2 subchasers 10 motor gunboats and 4 motor launches along with the Atlantean coastal forces depot ship Orinoco sailed, first to Point Fortin in Trinidad and Tobago then to Cayenne in French Guiana. With permission to sail the Amazon the fleet made its final leg of its trip to retake Leticia. In addition to this force, Colombia was slowly moving a regiment of troops south from Lerida to the outskirts of Laticia.

Aboard the fleet was a company of Colombian troops accompanied by Atlantean and Chilean advisors led by General Gustavo Zancudo. The force would make landfall at the outskirts of a small village north of Benjamin Constant in Brazilian territory, roughly 10 km south of Leticia. Here they would set up a staging ground from which they would launch small raids. The fleet itself with the exception of 4 small motor launches would anchor at Benjamin Constant. It was anticipated that Peru would send its entire Amazon gunboat sqaudron lead by the Americano roughly equal to the Colombian 611 types, the Cuzco class on the otherhand was woefully out classed each ship possessing just 1 machine gun.

Operations began on the evening of July 15th when two 611 type gunboats, GB-5 and GB-9 sailed up river on a reconnaissance mission. Rounding the bend of the river near the border between Tabatinga and Leticia they were immediately met with 3" and MG fire from both the shoreline and several Peruvian gunboats hiding behind the delta and in the tributary near Leticia. Minutes later motar fire from the shore opened up.

The hardest hit was GB-5, in the lead, she received two 3" shells and an 81mm motar shell, she was also raked by Machine gun fire. Under this concentrated fire 8 crewmembers were killed outright and 11 more wounded including her Captain, Jose Villuendas. The MG-5's forward 2.95" gun was hit as well as one of her 7.62mm MG mounts. Villuendas, who would later die of his wounds gave his final order to reverse course and execute a fighting retreat, her quad 20mm beltching fire as she steamed. The MG-5 would travel another 2 km downriver before her XO decided that she was taking on water at an alarming rate and grounded her. Surviving crewmembers were later offloaded to the MG-9 when she retired.

While MG-5 was taking a murderous fire, MG-9 managed to range in on the Peruvian gunboat Requena who was attempting to give chase to the GB-5, first with her 7.62's and then with her 2.95", the later gun inflicting greivous damage on the Peruvian boat and quickly silenced her. When GB-9's captain noticed GB-5's plight he decided to break off his engagement and cover her escape. When it was clear that GB-5 was sinking survivors were taken aboard and the ship retreated down the river under withering fire, ending the engagement.

Losses
Colombia:
GB-5- severly damaged, grounded (15%)
GB-9- minor damage (98%)
Peru:
Americano- undamaged (100%)
Cuzco- undamaged (100%)
Requena- Severly damaged (22%)

Operations in Northern Chile and Southern Peru, July 15th-22nd, 1937
When the Colombian Army began its attempt to recover the Leticia region on July 15th, the Chilean Army in northern Chile was assigned the task of demonstrating in force at the border. Original plans, developed at the Cayenne Conference, called for an immediate cross-border assault into Peru, but the Chilean chiefs of staff substantially modified these plans and started what one German newspaper reporter called "The Atacama Sitzkrieg". Neither the Chilean armies nor the Peruvian armies they faced made any substantial moves aside from demonstrations in force. Part of the reason was political, as the Chilean government was reluctant to order a bloody engagement reminiscent of the Andean War; but the Chilean Army leadership believed their current force was decidedly more capable on the defensive than on the offensive. Additionally, the Chileans made, in early June, an order of new tanks to help strengthen the cavalry divisions; these tanks would not arrive until early August due to shipping difficulties, and the Army leadership was reluctant to commit to offensive combat without them.

In the air, the situation was entirely different. Air Commodore Emilio Aravena, commander of the Arica-based 1 Grupo, launched immediate and aggressive air operations (Operation Atacama Thunder) against the Peruvian forces based in Tacna. Aravena's daylight raid on Tacna, with thirty-two F-12 fighters and an equal number of Vanquish bombers, managed to catch the Peruvians on the ground. Although the Hurricanes of 4th and 8th Escuadra attempted to take off to intercept the bombers, only eight pilots managed to get airborne, and all were swiftly lost to the Chilean fighters already overhead. Three Aves and one Vanquish-II were lost to flak, in exchange for the destruction of twelve Hurricanes (eight in the air, four destroyed on the ground) and several other grounded aircraft, principally Fokker-Avia F.IXs.

On July 17th, 1 Grupo was reinforced by the 103 and 110 fighter squadrons and the 201 and 207 bomber squadrons. Their arrival in Arica proved fortuitous as the Peruvians launched their own dawn raid on the Chilean aerodromes. The Peruvian pilots flew six sorties each on the 17th, holding their own late into the afternoon, by which time 1 Grupo recovered its balance and began to make better use of its numbers.

By the next day, the Chileans reinforced again, adding twelve FMA I-01N Buchons of the Armada de Chile Arma Aerea (Naval Air Force), and resumed their aerial offensive, bombing the airfield at Tacna five times over the course of the 18th, with over sixty Vanquish-IIs in the first raid. The black-painted AdCAA Buchons, with their classy red wingtips and propeller spinners, attracted no small amount of attention from the Peruvians, who remembered the fearsome Black Fighters of the Andean War. This allusion was similarly not lost on the Chileans.

By the end of the day on the 18th, the remaining Peruvian fighters could no longer oppose the attacks of the heavily-reinforced 1 Grupo. However, Peruvian resistance on the 18th had the substantial effect of tying down Chilean aircraft from supporting an offshore naval sweep by the Chilean Navy - an operation which ended with the disasterous Battle of Ilo. Although Air Commodore Aravena was made aware of the Navy's request for fighter and bomber support, he was forced to cancel the vital patrol and support missions scheduled for the morning in order to concentrate his fighters and bombers against the forces at Tacna.

By the 21st of July, the Peruvians had reinforced as best they could, but realized they had largely lost the Air Battle of Tacna. The Chileans, though victorious, were forced to substantially slow their tempo of operations as 1 Grupo's reserves of bombs, ammunition, spare parts and most critically, fuel, was badly strained by preceding five days of operations.

The unforeseen political split in Peru had relatively little effect on the situation on the Peruvian-Chilean border. Both the Peruvians and Chileans paused their operations, waiting to see if the other would respect the German-proposed ceasefire for July 22nd. Though the Peruvian army commander in southern Peru remained loyal to President Diaz, he disregarded Diaz's orders to "capture Valparaiso" and generally remained in static defenses, waiting for the Chilean Army to attack him across the Atacama. The Chilean commanders, for their part, were equally unwilling to attack an enemy they believed had accepted the ceasefire agreement.

As a result, though neither side agreed in principle to accept the German ceasefire offer, both armies operated as if they had. This situation would last well into the month of August, when the political situation had changed.

Excerpts from Political Relations in South America, Volume III (1920-1940)
The late July political split between President Diaz and the Peruvian congress showed decisively the level of internal dissent Diaz faced. Increasingly, even Diaz's support from the armed forces was proving insufficient to maintain control in many regions, and entire portions of the army began to discuss Diaz's removal. Diaz found safety largely in the ranks of Peruvian extreme nationalists and expansionists, and the clever use of some Communist-Socialist rhetoric gained him support from these groups as well.

With Congress now openly opposing him, Diaz felt he had to take the strongest action possible to retain his presidency. His declaration of martial law and the arrest of much of congress, however, infuriated most Peruvians, and those members of Congress who escaped to Trujillo voted on July 25th to impeach Diaz. This resulted in Baylon's appointment to the Presidency of Peru on the same day.

Baylon quickly moved on the diplomatic front to outmaneuver the Presidentialists. He quickly published orders asking for Peruvians in the armed forces to respect the ceasefire of July 22nd, and publicly refuted any Peruvian claim to the Leticia region. More startling was the Iberian government's recognition, on July 26th, that they viewed the "Congressionalist" faction as the legal government of Peru, and expressed their intent to support the Peruvian Congress and Baylon as the President of Peru.

This action put Diaz in a nearly impossible spot, as Baylon was very well-respected as a member of congress, and already showed himself to be more politically savvy. Additionally, public opinion was turning against him both in Peru and abroad. To defeat the threat to his presidency, Diaz determined he needed to make an example of the "congressional traitors". The city of Trujillo, which currently hosted the Congressionalist faction "capital" and the "Congressionalist Army" commanded by General Balta, was determined to be one of the hotbeds of the rebellion, and Diaz ordered the Peruvian Army, Navy and Air Force to "make an example" of Trujillo.

On July 29th, the Army began marching a column towards Trujillo with the intent to seize the city, and shortly before dusk on the same day, the battleship Huascar raised steam and got underway. Huascar and her four escorting destoyers (Pantera, Jaguar, Ocelote, and Margay) evaded the Chilean Battle Force under Vicealmirante Arellano [1], recently arrived to blockade Callao, and steered for Trujillo. At the same time, the large cruiser Almirante Grau sailed with orders to intercept Atlantean, Colombian, and Chilean merchant shipping.

[1] Vicealmirante Diego Arellano commands, from his flagship CNS Almirante Latorre, a force composed of two dreadnoughts, two battlecruisers, and six destroyers. The Scouting Force (two armoured cruisers) is in direct support of his operations. In addition, the Battle Force has nearby elements of the Flota de Logística, with two fleet tankers, one light aviation cruiser, and three destroyers.

[SIZE=4]Bombardment of Trujillo and Battle of Tortugas - July 30th-31st[/SIZE]
In July of 1937, the Presidentialist battleship Huascar sailed from Callao with four destroyers of the 2nd Destroyer Squadron, with orders to raid the Congressionalist capital at Trujillo. Slipping away from Callao while the watchdog Chilean "Battle Force" was refueling, the Huascar arrived off Trujillo without warning on the afternoon of July 30th. Huascar's Captain de Navio Ramon Diaz, a distant cousin of Presidente Diaz, sent a boat ashore with an order to surrender "the traitors of the Congress" and submit to the President's authority. When Capitan Diaz's ultimatum went unanswered after two hours, the captain decided to bombard the town with Huascar's twelve and six-inch artillery.

The bombardment caused significant damage to civilian sections of Trujillo, and a twelve-inch shell demolished a historical building of the National University of Trujillo, established in 1824 by Simon Bolivar. Organized resistance, in the form of quickly-placed shore batteries, proved ineffective in driving away the dreadnought, and only ammo constraints caused the Huascar to turn back for Callao. Trujillo burned for three days, with a sizable portion of the port left in ruins, and some four hundred dead and three thousand homeless.

As the Huascar plodded back towards Callao, three hundred miles (four hundred eighty kilometers) to the south, word of her outing had reached both the Atlantean Pacific Fleet under Rear Admiral Orlin Desala, as well as the Armada de Chile's Battle Force, under Vicealmirante Diego Arellano. Arellano's Battle Force had been conducting underway refueling when Huascar slipped out of Callao, and they had not realized the battleship's disappearance until late on the 30th; Desala's battleships had been operating further north, and sailed in hot pursuit.

Arellano wielded the numerically-superior but older ships of the Battle Force, composed of the dreadnoughts Almirante Latorre and Almirante Cochrane, and the battlecruisers Valparaiso and Santiago, to make the intercept. Arellano believed - erroneously - that the entire Peruvian battleship force had sailed, and he was reluctant to detach any portion of his force to find the supposedly lone Huascar, only to risk being ambushed by the entire fleet. Desala, on his behalf, had left Buenaventura the day before, sailing with the much newer and larger battleships Memnon and Eumelos, as well as several cruisers and destroyers.

Meanwhile, the carriers of Rear-Admiral Isadore Montero (an Atlantean) - the Atlantean Alioth and the Chilean Mapuche - were operating independently to the north. Montero, acting on his own initiative, prepared a strike to attempt to catch the Huascar at sea. Montero hoped to slow the battleship sufficiently to permit one or the other of the allied battleship squadrons to find and sink the Huascar.

At 0845 hours, a Chilean Latecoere Late-298 floatplane launched from the aviation cruiser CNS Marina Guardia Hyatt spotted the Huascar thirty miles west of Chimbote, and reported the battleship's position. Minutes later, Montero authorized the strike and Alioth and Mapuche began launching their planes. The Atlantean "Corsair-II" fighters of VF-4 squadron escorted the first wave towards the Huascar, while the Chilean FMA I-01N Buchons of I Grupo remained over the carriers operating as a CAP. Altogether, the two carriers launched eighteen dive bombers and twenty-four torpedo planes, escorted by eighteen fighters.

At 0945 Hours, the first flight of dive-bombers spotted Huascar through the clouds. The Peruvian dreadnought was steaming southeast at fifteen knots, and as the planes began their dives, her crew hurriedly went to action stations. The nine Banshee dive-bombers of the Atlantean VB-4 squadron met no anti-aircraft fire as they attacked. Atlantean pilot Kirman Mantola scored a very close near-miss, his bomb exploding less than a dozen feet from the Huascar's starboard side, and starting a severe leak in the battleship's fuel tanks. The Chilean dive-bombers, a minute behind the Atlanteans, ran into a more organized defense, with two Banshees being shot down by 3" and 25mm AA fire. With the pilots rattled by the flak, most of the Chilean bombs fell wide of their target.

Teniente Garcia Susa, piloting a Chilean DBN-1 at the rear of the formation, held his bomb until the last possible moment. Susa's bomber was struck numerous times by anti-aircraft fire, but Susa's five hundred pound bomb hit the Huascar just aft of her funnel, and penetrated a weak spot in her deck armor before exploding just above her engine rooms. As Susa pulled his badly-damaged aircraft out of his dive, the plane was struck again by AA fire, and Susa was mortally wounded. The pilot ordered his rear gunner to bail out with the raft, and once the gunner was away, attempted to loop around to ram the Huascar with his plane. Susa's last attack fell short as the bomber crashed into the sea. He would be hailed as a Chilean hero.

Huascar's damage was not yet critical, as her watertight integrity was not compromised; however, the bomb hit amidships had started a severe fire and caused damage to the engine uptakes, preventing her from reaching her top speed. At this moment, the torpedo bombers began their attacks.

The Atlantean TBN-8s of VT-4 squadron made their approach directly from the west, attacking Huascar's starboard side, where smoke from the fires partially obscured the view of the Huascar's AA gunners. Capitan Diaz immediately put his ship into a hard turn to port to avoid the torpedoes and clear the smoke away, but an Atlantean torpedo dropped from Commander Edgar Batista's TBN-8 hit the Huascar just aft of the TDS belt, blowing a twenty-foot hole in the ship's hull. Huascar's engine-spaces immediately began flooding and she lost way, slowly taking on a twenty-degree list to starboard. Three Atlantean torpedo planes were shot down in the attack, with two of the crews bailing out before crashing. The third, piloted by VT-4's executive officer, Lt. Com. Abraham Azoulay, crashed just short of the Huascar moments after dropping its torpedo, with the loss of all three crewmen.

The Chilean TBN-8s of AE-07 squadron, who were supposed to participate in a scissors attack with the Atlanteans, did not find the Huascar until a few minutes after the Atlanteans finished their run. The TBN-8s weathered the flak without loss, and scored two torpedo hits against the Huascar. The first, striking just forward of the battleship's TDS, failed to detonate (possibly due to a short run); the second, striking directly starboard amidships, detonated directly against the ship's TDS in its strongest location. The warhead failed to damage the inner holding bulkhead, but apparently caused damage to the surrounding bulkheads, which would have grave consequences later.

Admiral Montero immediately ordered the bombers to be rearmed and refueled for a second strike, as Admiral Arellano's Battle Force was still eighty miles south of Huascar's last known position. Meanwhile, the Huascar's crew rushed to save their ship from sinking, aided by the destroyer Pantera, which came alongside and began lending aid to the battleship. The damage was now seen to be severe; even though only one bomb and two torpedo hits had been scored, it significantly cut into Huascar's propulsion capabilities. Captain Diaz called for air support from Lima, and prepared to tow the Huascar into Huarmey, where there was a strong Presidentialist presence and the Huascar could hopefully be repaired.

As the Huascar's crew prepared for towing, the Allied aircraft launched their second attack. Escorted this time by the Buchons of I Grupo, the planes closed in on the stricken and motionless dreadnought. The Chilean fighter escort engaged a squadron of fighters sent to provide air-cover to the Huascar, while the dive-bombers began their attack. Two bombs, both dropped by the Atlantean VB-4 squadron, struck the Huascar. The Chilean dive-bombers failed to score any hits. The first struck the ship's forecastle and wiped out the crew preparing the battleship for towing, while the second hit just forward of the funnel and wrecked most of the starboard 75mm guns, detonating the ready ammunition and threatening the 15cm secondaries nearby.

The Peruvian destroyer Pantera immediately came alongside and turned firehoses on the flames, a brave act which doomed the destroyer. The Allied torpedo bombers, taking advantage of Huascar's obvious starboard list, started a scissors attack from the south and west. The Chilean torpedo planes launched first, and a fish intended for the battleship struck the Pantera squarely amidships. The destroyer snapped in two and sank in less than five minutes.

Three more torpedoes struck the Huascar even as the Pantera was sinking alongside. The Chileans scored a single torpedo hit well aft, exacerbating the flooding in the engine spaces, while the Atlanteans of VT-4 hit the dreadnought twice amidships, the first torpedo causing even more damage to the TDS. The second torpedo also hit amidships, most probably in against a section of the TDS already deformed by earlier hits, and the warhead blew a massive hole in the interior bulkhead and caused immediate and massive flooding throughout the Huascar. The battleship swiftly took on a sharp list to starboard, rolling all the way onto her starboard side. The Peruvians rushed to abandon ship. Fifteen minutes later, the Huascar capsized and sank twenty-three miles dead west of Tortugas Bay. The destroyers picked up 718 survivors from both the Huascar and the Pantera.

Aug 1st 1937- The Bharati Foreign Ministry delivered this short note to the press: "Due to the current situation in South America the delivery of our former cruiser Pondicherry to Peru will not be completed at this time, as well as the delivery of three destroyers expected for later this month. We refuse to recognize the current government of Peru as a responsible one and as such we will only deliver the above mentioned ships at such time a responsible government is in place in Peru."

[SIZE=1]An amusing little tale I wrote up rather on the spur of the moment. The Grau left port at the same time as the Huascar, and we had originally intended for her to wander around the South Pacific for a few weeks getting nothing accomplished besides burning fuel. When Hood dispatched the Argentine force, though, I thought up a better idea. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]"Battle" of the Tropic of Capricorn - August 3rd[/SIZE]

In the scramble following the escape and sinking of the battleship Huascar, the Chileans and Atlanteans did not immediately realized that the heavy cruiser Almirante Grau had also evaded the blockade of Callao and was loose on the sea-lanes. The cruiser, under the command of Capitan de Navio de Soto, had orders to raid Atlantean, Colombian, and Chilean commerce in the Pacific; but this task proved much harder than predicted, as the Chileans instituted a convoy system early in July, and the Almirante Grau completely failed to find any ships, let alone belligerent merchants.

The situation changed for the Almirante Grau on the morning of August 3rd, when the ship's floatplane spotted a convoy of merchant ships steering northwest approximately 340 nm off the coast of Antofagasta. As the floatplane spotted a destroyer in attendance, this was presumed to be a Chilean convoy. In fact, though the merchant ships were Chilean or Atlantean vessels, the escort was the Argentine "Force D", composed of the carrier Independencia, three cruisers, and three destroyers, all under the command of Almirante Peablo. Force D had recently arrived to help patrol the eastern Pacific.

Capitan de Soto, however, quickly closed the convoy and prepared for action. At roughly 1010 hours, with Grau approximately 125nm from the convoy, a Tucan T-18 dive bomber from the Independencia spotted the Peruvian raider steaming to make an intercept. Peablo immediately arranged his ships to deal with the nearby threat, and spotted his planes for an airstrike in case the Almirante Grau should attack the Argentine ships. The convoy commander also ordered evasive action. Unfortunately, the Grau steamed into a low-lying cloud bank and was quickly lost to sight.

Admiral Peablo did not presume he'd seen the last of the Peruvian cruiser, and radioed his superiors for permission to return fire if the Peruvians started shooting at him. A non-committal reply came back at 1430 hours, and Peablo was uncertain what his superiors intended for him to do.

At 1513 Hours, the Grau appeared on the horizon some 25,000 yards away from Force D. Peablo immediately turned the carrier away and began launching planes, while the escorting cruisers, led by Almirante Storni, raised their largest battle-flags and began signaling their nationality with semaphore and radio. The Almirante Storni, leading the Argentine cruisers, transmitted an open message addressed to the battlecruiser Patagonia to join them; the Independencia's radiomen replied using Patagonia's name.

Aboard the Grau, the identity of the supposed "enemy" ships immediately became a subject of intense debate between the Grau's first officer, Capitan de Corbeta Eduardo Rivera, and her chief gunner, Lieutenant Jorge Baca. Baca believed the ships were actually Chilean vessels attempting a ruse. Rivera suggested holding fire, as the Peruvians knew Force D was in the area, and Rivera had strong respect for the Argentines. As the Argentine fleet did not have orders permitting them to fire first, the ships continued closing, with both crews at action stations.

At 1527 Hours, Capitan de Soto apparently lost his nerve at the sight of the Argentine cruisers and their halo of bombers steadily closing his ship, (and perhaps more so at the supposed presence of the unseen Patagonia) and abruptly ordered a full speed turn to the north, running flat-out away from Force D. As Grau turned away, she dipped her flag in respect to the Argentine ships. Eighteen hours later, the Grau dropped anchor in Pisco, Peru, some 576 nm away from the scene of the confrontation.

As the faceoff had taken place almost precisely on the Tropic of Capricorn, the Argentine carrier pilots later dubbed the confrontation "The Battle of the Tropic of Capricorn".

Capitan de Soto's performance in the confrontation was widely ridiculed by his officers aboard the Grau and by the rest of the Peruvian Navy, and the bridge crew on duty at the time described their captain's behavior as "embarrassing". Despite his performance, De Soto remained in command as he was deemed politically reliable and irreplaceable; but Contralmirante Mattias Aramburu immediately made the Almirante Grau his flagship with the stated intent of overseeing the "cowardly" de Soto.

August 1, 1937

This is a general notice to all Western Pacific maritime traffic interests.

In light of ongoing hostilities between Peru and Columbia, As of August 1, NATO will begin conducting a Neutrality Patrol to protect the rights of neutral shipping through international waters near the zone of conflict. This patrol is regarded as uninvolved and uninterested in the ongoing conflict, but will respond to any threats presented to neutral maritime traffic that requests assistance.

-Lester B. Pearson, Deputy Secretary General, North American Treaty Organization


Background info:
This patrol will be centered around USN Scouting Group 1, augmented by Battlecruiser Repulse, Cruisers Hermosillo and Merida, and USN Scouting Group 2, augmented by Battlecruisers Renown and Pancho Villa. It will essentially patrol the approaches to the Panama Canal, and will not violate any territorial waters without request from the government in question, and will not seek any engagement with combatant units unless there is a threat to a neutral noncombatant.

[SIZE=3]The Grand Mutiny[/SIZE]

In late July of 1937, the morale of the Peruvian armed forces was undergoing a roller-coaster cycle. President Diaz's increasingly aggressive and dictatorial behavior was becoming well-known and feared, and the Peruvian congress's attempt to stop the war in mid-July highlighted the increasing schism in the Peruvian government. Though most of the armed forces remained loyal to President Diaz, much of this was due to the lack of information and the orders flowing down through the chain of command.

The Peruvian Navy had scored an early triumph at the Battle of Ilo, announced in Peru as "the greatest victory since Iquique", but the high morale was dashed by late July. The sailors and officers of the Peruvian Navy became aware through rumor of the virtual civil war that now took place ashore. More ominous was the line of survivors from the sunken Huascar and the destroyer Pantera, brought ashore at night on August 2nd and wisked away to hiding; an attempt at secrecy which proved to be anything but. Accompanying this was the rumor of Diaz's order to bombard Trujillo. The official denials of Trujillo's destruction by naval guns failed to quiet the rising unrest in the fleet.

On the evening of August 4th, the crews of the battleships Manco Capac and Atahualpa met ashore and marched to the army barracks at Callao, where the survivors of the Huascar had been hidden at Diaz's order. The small number of Peruvian army soldiers tasked to keep the Huascar's men quarantined were forcibly disarmed by the sailors (but not otherwise harmed) and the entire company returned to the battleships. Once they returned, they gathered on the fantails of their ships, singing patriotic songs, denouncing "Diaz, the diabolic dictator", and shouting "Viva Congress, Viva Baylon!"

The battleship captains, men chosen mainly for their loyalty to the current regime, attempted to restore order to their ships, but the majority of senior officers demurred for various reasons. Many officers felt the seamen were correct in their assertions; others noted that any attempt to initiate violence against the mutineers would undoubtedly result in the offended seamen returning the violence tenfold. Undeterred and determined to impose order, the captains of the Manco Capac and Atahualpa sent for Peruvian marines to join the crews and enforce discipline.

Shortly before midnight, the seamen became aware that their commanding officers had requested marines to take control of the ships. Led by a number of their junior officers, the enraged seamen locked the battleship captains in their cabins, and rounded up the other senior officers. These men were given the choice to be locked in their cabins or to join the mutiny against Diaz's control, and most chose to join the mutiny, to the cheers of the seamen. The first group of Peruvian marines who approached the Atahualpa at 0325 hours found themselves facing a wall of well-armed sailors, and the Marines' officers decided to wait for serious reinforcements before attempting to board the battleships.

Shortly before dawn, the mutineers saw the First Destroyer Squadron, under Commodore Rufino, come up alongside the battleships and anchor. The mutineers were concerned at the presence of the eight destroyers, but Rufino himself immediately came over to the Atahualpa in his personal boat. Rufino addressed the mutiny leaders and asked them why they had arrested their officers; once their reasons were made known, Rufino announced that his squadron commanders had determined to join the Congressionalist faction, and he had come to convince the battleship crews to join him. This shocking statement from an acknowledged hero of the Navy solidified the resolve of the battleship crews.

The Peruvian Marines, at this moment, prepared to retake the battleships by force, moving in a variety of artillery to cover the ships. A negotiator from the president led a company of heavily-armed Marines up the pier to the Manco Capac and ordered the mutineers to "submit to justice, in the name of the President". He was met by shouts of derision and the battleship's crew rotated and depressed the Capac's main guns to cover the pier. The Peruvian Marines were promptly impressed with the need to be elsewhere, and bolted for heavy cover.

Commodore Rufino, now acting as fleet commander, suggested they unmoor the battleships and move them away from shore. As the Atahualpa was getting underway, one of the loyalist artillery batteries opened fire on the battleship from less than two hundred yards range. The battleship's armor completely rejected the Army artillery, and the Atahualpa's gunners replied with their own 150mm and 105mm guns, a barrage which Commodore Rufino quickly halted due to the threat of civilian casualties. Manco Capac, mored inboard of the Atahualpa, unmoored under fire and got underway, holding her fire the entire time. Both battleships suffered inconsequential damage as the army gunners aimed all their shots towards the solid armoured belts, and not the upperworks.

Rufino and his officers moved the two battleships and the First Destroyer Squadron's eight destroyers, the creme of the Peruvian destroyer fleet, further into the harbour, finally stopping near the prison island of El Frontón, where a number of the arrested members of Congress had been imprisoned. The mutineers sent boats ashore and relieved the island of virtually all it's political prisoners. During this maneuver, the loyalist captains of the Atahualpa and Manco Capac were taken ashore, along with those few crewmen who declined to participate in the Mutiny.

While El Frontón's prisoners were being released, Commodore Rufino continued acting as the fleet commander, ordering the squadron to get underway in good order. Rufino began dispatching uncoded wireless signals indicating that the Peruvian Navy was no longer accepting orders from Diaz, and requesting that the Chilean and Atlantean navies not fire on them as they steamed to Trujillo.

The squadron then steered northward and approximately a hundred kilometers northwest of Lima, was intercepted by the Chilean Scouting Force under Contraalmirante Laport. The two fast Oyama-class cruisers began shadowing the Peruvians from approximately 30,000 yards range, but neither side fired.

At 1230 Hours, the lookouts aboard the Atahualpa reported "capital ships with tripod masts" bearing down on the fleet from the west. This resolved into two Almirante Latorre-class battleships and two Valparaiso-class battlecruisers, screened by the First Cruiser Squadron and the First and Second Destroyer Squadrons. The Chileans remained beyond gunnery range and continued shadowing the Peruvians until an hour before dusk, when the Almirante Latorre signaled and asked for a personal meeting with the Peruvian commander.

After some short exchanges by semaphore, the Chilean destroyer Capitan Thompson and the Peruvian destroyer Independencia rendezvoused between the two fleets, and the Chilean commander, Almirante Arellano, met with Commodore Rufino on the fantail of the Chilean destroyer. Arellano explained that he was faced with a moral quandry at the presence of the Peruvian fleet, as the Chilean government had yet to recognize the Congressionalist faction as the legal governing body of Peru, and as such, Rufino's force still had to be considered a belligerent fleet, which he had orders to sink. However, Arellano also explained that he recognized Rufino's own goals and realized their importance to the course of the war, and so he was reluctant to sink the Peruvian fleet. Arellano proposed that the Peruvians sail to Guayaquil, Ecuador, and accept temporary internment from Iberia until the political situation could be resolved.

Rufino pointed out that his fleet had made no hostile moves towards the Chileans, and categorically refused to accept internment, "temporary or otherwise", even if it meant fighting the Chilean fleet. Arellano signaled his understanding, and offered Rufino an hour's time to return to his flagship.

When Rufino returned to the Atahualpa, he ordered battlestations across the fleet, but ordered that no Peruvian ship was to fire the first shot; he furthermore called for twenty-six knots, which he felt would be sufficient to outrun the slightly slower Latorres. Unfortunately, Manco Capac at this moment developed a problem with her steam lines which limited her speed to eighteen knots; rather than leave her behind, Rufino grimly matched speeds and continued to steer north-northwest, expecting the Chilean battleships to open fire on him at any moment.

To his surprise, the Chilean dreadnoughts remained silent, though the entire fleet continued shadowing the Peruvians. As night fell, Rufino attempted to shake them in the darkness, but unbeknownst to Rufino, the Chileans used DRADIS [1] aboard the cruiser Astraea and the battlecruiser Santiago to track the Peruvian ships as they tried to evade. Throughout the night pursuit, Arellano masterfully maintained a range of between 25,000 and 30,000 yards.

With Manco Capac's turbines still causing problems, Rufino was sorely disappointed to discover at dawn that the Chilean battleships had cut across his stern during the night and positioned themselves between the Peruvian ships and the coast. Rufino had hoped that the lack of action during the night had indicated he had shaken the Chileans. Now, his crews were tired from the long night of high alerts, and Rufino himself had been awake for overtwenty-four hours. However, to Rufino's confusion, the Chilean ships continued shadowing outside gunnery range, and the Peruvians were confused to note that the Chileans still had their guns trained fore-and-aft.

An hour after dawn, the Latorre again signaled for a parley under the same terms as the previous day, and Rufino warily accepted, again taking the Independencia out to meet Arellano in the Chilean destroyer Almirante Condell. Rufino expected another ultimatum, but instead Arellano announced that the Battle Force was prepared to disengage from the chase, as the Chilean government had voted on the morning of August 6th to accept a ceasefire with the Congressionalist faction, and noted that he had delayed closing the range until he knew his government's decision on the ceasefire. Arellano hinted slyly that his fleet was low on fuel [2] and would be withdrawing, permitting the Peruvian ships to enter Trujillo without further harassment.

Arellano provided Rufino with the terms of the ceasefire, and noted that the Battle Force had six Peruvian prisoners of war, captured after their reconnaissance bomber ditched near the fleet. These Peruvians claimed to want to join the Congressionalist faction, and Arellano was prepared to repatriate them under the terms of the ceasefire. Rufino noted that he also had aboard his destroyers fifty-nine survivors of the Battle of Ilo, and the two commanders arranged for a prisoner swap.

True to his word, at 0900 Hours Arellano disengaged and turned south, opening the way into Trujillo for the Peruvian warships.

Rufino's arrival at Trujillo and it's port of Salaverry did not turn out to be a triumphant entry. Although the citizens had extinguished the fires, the damage from Huascar's bombardment eight days earlier remained, with wreckage and sunken merchant ships littering the waterfront. The sailors were welcomed with distrust and suspicion, as the people of Trujillo still remembered their last encounter with the Navy.

The citizens met the sailors with such hostility that within two days, Rufino, now promoted to Contraalmirante, raised anchor and took the fleet north to the port of Paita, which the Congressionalist Navy would use as their primary base until the end of the conflict.

[1] DRADIS is the Atlantean acronym for radar, which the Chileans also use.
[2] Arellano's statement is a lie. The Latorres and Valparaiso had refueled two days previously from the tanker Península Tres Montes. The Santiago had not refueled, but had much larger bunkers. The Chilean destroyers were running low on fuel, but would be tanking up at the tender Lago General Carrera later that day.

[SIZE=3]Second battle of Putumayo[/SIZE] .
In the early morning hours of July the 16th, 10 Atlantean type Infantry launches arrived at the Colombian basecamp with an additional company of troops, ammo and supplys. While this was occurring Alpha company, second Battalion proceeded from the base camp just upstream from Benjamin Constant and made their first foray into Peruvian territory, proceeding along a dried up riverbed and capturing a small village to the Northeast after a brief firefight with a few Peruvian troops stationed there to observe Colombian movements. Once the village was searched and secured they were to be relieved by Bravo company and proceed up the series of dried riverbeds until they reached the Peruvian town of Ramon Castilla. As they did this the gunboats GB-4, 8 and 10 would patrol the shoreline.



GB-10, in the lead was steaming slowly up the river, roughly 400 meters from the shoreline when she came under small arms fire. She quickly replied with her quad 20mm and 50 cal guns followed shortly by her 2.25" gun. GB-4 and 8 were steaming 600 meters behind her but much closer to the shoreline and were not initially detected in the early dawn light. When they were finally discovered they were close enough to inflict serious damage on the few MG nests the Peruvians managed to set up. While this was occurring 4th rifle platoon, Alpha company heard the disturbance and made their way towards the river only to find that most of the Peruvian troops there had been killed or quickly surrendered, surprised when the Colombians emerged from the jungle. Once the observation post was cleared Colombian troops transferred their charge of prisoners to 3rd platoon, Alpha company who took them back to their base camp south, as did the small gunboat flotilla. Meanwhile 1st and 2nd platoons proceeded to their objectives, 1 km up the river and set up concealed observation posts, with them Atlantean advisers equipped with what would later be discovered to be crude portable two way radio devices.

It wasn't long before Peruvian movements were being reported to the basecamp. The removal of the observation posts coaxed the Peruvians to investigate, sending the gunboats American and Cuzco, now joined by the Puno and Oreliano, south to seek out what they thought was a lone gunboat. When they were roughly 6 km down the tributary leading to Benjamin Constant a force of three Colombian gunboats (GB's 2,6 and 7) had managed to circle round the large river delta and possition themselves in the seaward tributary while further down the river from the Peruvians, GB-1 and 4 steamed north to meet the Americano and her four consorts. GB-s 3,8,9 and 10 along with the rest of the riverine force remained further upstream covering the smaller northern tributary where they assumed the Peruvians had positioned additional gunboats. The Colombians had effectively trapped the Peruvian gunboats.

At 16:30 hours the observers on American spoted the two gunboats and opened fire but no sooner had the fired their first volley the gunboat Puno, at the rear of the flotilla spotted the other three gunboats, chasing them at best speed, and the realization that they had been trapped sunk in. The Peruvian captain decided to turn his ships back, deciding he didn't want to sail in Brazilian waters, with disastrous consequences. Steaming up stream the faster Colombian gunboats to the south managed to slowly close the distance while the other 3 quickly intercepted them upstream. American began firing on the GB-2 but was on the receiving end of all three boats and quickly took several hits forward. The Puno and Oreliano desperately tried to assist the Americano but lacked the stoping power with their machine guns, while to the rear the Cuzco was being hit hard by GB-1 and 4. The older Cuzco class gunboats were also struggling to fight the current and started to fall behind the Americano, a situation that was soon to be irrelevant as American recieved a hit to her engine room bursting several steam pipes and causing her to lose speed. By this time the GB-2, 6 and 7 were almost right on top of the American who was now trading MG fire with the Colombians, and were hellbent on sinking her, so much so that the Puno and Oreliano sailed past them seemingly un-noticed in the confusion.

By this time the Colombian gunboats were now turning in the current in an attempt to pursue the American still steaming but at a snails pace, with only so much room in the river things were becoming constricted and GB-2 grounded herself trying to position herself out of the firing line of her sisters. By now however American was a wreck topside with her guns knocked out and dead crew members littering her decks, now running red with blood and river spray. Her engines finally lost all power and she started to drift towards the other group of ships, a blazing and barely afloat Cuzco among them.

Further upstream, GB's 6 and 7 shifted their fire to the fleeing Puno and Oreliano scoring hits on both, the later being harder hit. Oreliano like the American lost power to her engines and began to drift downstream only to be beached. The badly damaged Puno managed to escape when, like GB-2, GB-7 accidentally beached herself. With two gunboats beached, another damaged (the GB-4) and the Peruvian fleet effectively taken out the Colombians broke off the engagement, mercifully for the Puno who retreated to Leticia to join her badly damaged sister Requena.

The Colombians then shifted their efforts to pluck survivors from the river and attempt to extracate the grounded vessels. GB-6 was the first to remove herself from the banks but GB-2 needed help from the GB-7. The undamaged gunboats then proceeded to pursue the now drifting American and rescue any survivors, in all 28 survivors of the flotilla were plucked from the river. Americanwas taken in tow but was taking on a great deal of water and sank in shallow water at the small delta near Benjamin constant, clearly visible by the Colombian basecamp.

Thus, at the end of the 16th, the Peruvian riverine force was effectively neutralized and the way cleared for offensive operations to soften up the Peruvian defence at Leticia.

August 2-3, 1937
The Chilean government informs the League of Nations that Chile intends to recognize the "Congressionalist" faction of Peru, with Orlando Baylon as acting president, as the legal government of Peru. Chile also informs it's FAR allies that a Chilean diplomat has been sent to Trujillo to discuss terms by which a ceasefire between Allied and Peruvian Congressionalist forces may be arranged. Chile notes that any ceasefire conditions will by necessity conform to Article II of the FAR Treaty of Alliance (ie, Chile intends to continue making war on the Peruvian Presidentialists, and will not accept any ceasefire with the Congressionalists until they forswear any and all claim to Leticia and violence against another FAR member).

August 6-7
The Chilean government, represented by Francisco d'Alarche, the Intendent of Potosi, has agreed to a temporary ceasefire agreement with the "Congressionalist" Peruvian government. The terms of the agreement detail the repatriation of Allied and Peruvian prisoners of war, Chile's recognition of Orlando Baylon as the rightful president of Peru (joining Iberian recognition), and, most notably, an official statement by the Peruvian congress renouncing all claims to the Colombian city of Leticia. The Chilean government, for its part, agreed not to seek territorial aggrandizement at Peruvian expense, but noted that would not release the Peruvian government from any claims by the Colombian government. D'Alarch specifically noted to Baylon in the final round of discussion that Chile "remains firm in its commitment to continue making war against the Presidentialist Rebels."

August 8
The Chilean battlecruiser CNS Santiago is hit by two torpedoes from a Peruvian submarine. Both weapons completely fail to detonate and caused minor damage to the battlecruiser's paint job. Ironically, two more torpedoes detonated in the battlecruiser's wake, but likewise caused no damage. The Chilean destroyer Capitan Lira dropped a number of depth-charges on the submarine, but the Peruvian sub escaped.

The torpedoes which struck Santiago were recovered by an escorting destroyer and were determined to be manufactured by the organization "HEBCo". The incident with the Santiago is the latest in a string of reports of ships being torpedoed by Peruvian submarines, only to have the torpedoes go "Bonk".

To date, neither the Chilean nor Peruvian submarine fleets have any confirmed kills.

August 9
President Diaz announced in a radio speech that the "valiant Peruvian submarines sank two Chilean battleships". To date, Diaz has claimed eighteen Chilean and twelve Atlantean battleships have been sunk by Peruvian "Loyalist" forces.

Almirante Moore, commander-in-chief of the Armada de Chile, replied to a British reporter "It is increasingly apparent that Diaz lives in a fantasy world and not the asylum he so clearly belongs in."

[SIZE=3]Battle of the Gulf of Guayaquil, August 10 [/SIZE]

Order of Battle
Colombians
Colombian Escort Squadron
- BB Libertad
- CL Zerberus
- CL Carabobo
- DD Caldas
- DD Evigado
- DD Corozal
- DD Cordoba
- 7 Merchant Ships in Convoy

Joint Covering Force
- ACR Capitan Oyama (Ch)
- ACR General O'Higgins (Ch)
- DD Basilone (A)
- DD Furse (A)
- DD Borum (A)
- DD Avarice (A)

Peruvians
Peruvian Raiding Squadron #1
- CAH Almirante Grau
- CL Colonel Bolognesi (ex-Indian Colombo)
- DD Libertad
- DD Teniente Vasquez
- DD Capitan Garcia

Peruvian Raiding Squadron #2
- ACR Callao
- DD Terror
- DD Terrible
- DD Torbellino
- DD Temerario

Tactical Situation
With the defection of the Peruvian battleships Atahualpa and Manco Capac, along with many of the newest and most potent destroyers, to the Congressionalist faction, the Peruvian Presidentialists were left with a scattering of warships of cruiser size and smaller. Nevertheless they retained one of the Navy's most potent warships, the cruiser Almirante Grau, and the much older but still formidable armoured cruiser Callao.

The Presidentialist naval commander, Almirante Aramburu, was slightly obsessed by the reports of Allied merchant ships moving in convoy from Chile to the Gulf of Panama. Convoy movements were being tracked by the Peruvian naval intelligence service through decrypted Chilean naval codes; and Aramburu believed he could strike a telling blow against the Allies through destruction of a convoy.

The Allied convoy system had puzzled many foreign naval observers, who correctly reasoned that the convoys were a waste of resources against the relatively small numbers of the Peruvian submarine fleet. However, the Chileans had insisted upon convoys, as they knew the Chilean convoy codes - Codigo Marron, or Code Brown - had been cracked by Peruvian intelligence, and they hoped the presence of the convoys would draw out the Peruvian forces. The Chileans formed several convoys from a number of old transports subject to military requisition, and spread rumors that they were carrying vital war supplies, then attempted to leak the convoy routes to Peruvian agents.

By and large, this effort proved to be a complete failure, and in early August, with the risk of Peruvian Navy operations slowly fading with the divisions of the civil war, the Chileans finally accepted that their convoy system wasn't working. The last convoy, however, which left Valparaiso on August 4th, still received an escort composed of the Third Destroyer Squadron (now strengthened by the two Contrerra-class light destroyers) and the Coastal Battleship Division, with the CNS Almirante Gideon serving as flagship. A naval reserve officer, Capitan de Navio Humberto Balmes (who had been elected to serve in the Chilean Senate), commanded the convoy itself.

On the afternoon of August 9th, the Chilean escort squadron handed over duties to a Colombian squadron built around the predreadnought Libertad, two cruisers, and four destroyers, commanded by Almirante Belisario De la Calle. The convoy also picked up a distant covering force in the form of the Chilean Scouting Force, reinforced by a quartet of Atlantean destroyers.

Unbeknownst to the Allies, Admiral Aramburu had elected to avenge the Peruvian Navy's loss of face following the Battle of Tortugas and the Grand Mutiny. He managed to piece together a small raiding squadron and left Pisco on the morning of August 8th. As the convoy was still using the insecure "Codigo Marron", the Peruvians were able to triangulate the position of the convoy and overtake it shortly after midnight on August 10th...

First Contact
Around 0300 Hours local time, the Peruvian Second Squadron, led by Callao, made contact with the Colombian destroyer Cordoba, operating as one of the convoy escorts. Callao and destroyer Terrible opened fire on the Cordoba, with Callao scoring a single 6" hit after eighteen minutes of firing. The Cordoba radioed a warning to the convoy and laid smoke. The Peruvian lookouts believed they spotted incoming torpedo tracks, causing the Peruvians to make repeated high-speed turns; altogether, the Peruvians believed they had spotted and evaded some ninety-three torpedoes. The Colombian logbooks, however, demonstrate that no torpedoes were launched.

The second part of the squadron, with the DDs Terror, Torbellino, and Temerario, turned westward and attempted to attack the convoy. They instead encountered the Colombian predreadnought Libertad, the anti-aircraft cruiser Zerberus, and the light cruiser Carabobo. Libertad's gunnery, although it created spectacular flashes in the night, hit nothing; but Zerberus with her crew suplemented with Colombian crewmembers opened a rapid and accurate fire on the Peruvians, landing eight 5.1" shells on Terror in the space of four minutes. The Peruvians disengaged behind a hail-mary salvo of torpedoes (which hit nothing) and left Terror burning and barely able to make 4 knots.

Capitan Hearse of Callao, in tactical command of the Second Raiding Squadron, continued to seek out the convoy. Instead of finding merchant ships, however, he blundered into the Colombian convoy escort three different times during the next two hours, twice exchanging fire with the battleship Libertad, and once engaging both Libertad and Zerberus. No further hits were scored on either side, though both sides claimed a cruiser sunk. With dawn approaching, and under the impression that he had badly crippled the Colombian escort squadron, Capitan Hearse turned for the safety of the Peruvian coast due to the fuel situation of his remaining destroyers.

The covering force however was rushing to close the distance to the convoy. Laport had been informed by Commodore Balmes that the convoy was zigzagging, but Balmes failed to inform Laport that the convoy only zigzagged during the daytime. The convoy had thus sped ahead of the zigzagging Scouting Force in the darkness, and Laport spent most of three hours attempting to rejoin the convoy to participate in the action. Around 0435 Hours, the covering force spotted the Peruvian destroyer Terror. Though her fires had been put out, she could still only make ten knots, and Laport dispatched the destroyer Avarice to issue the coup d'grace. Avarice closed to 2,000 meters before illuminating her opponent with spotlights, sinking her with twelve rounds of 4.5" and two 21" torpedoes. Avarice then rescued seventy-two survivors from the water.

Second Contact
The other Peruvian raiding squadron, built around the Almirante Grau, had drifted far to the west due to faulty radio direction-finding readings. Aramburu unknowingly passed fifteen kilometers ahead of the convoy in the darkness, but returned just at dawn and spotted the destroyer Evigado, steaming at the head of the convoy. Colonel Bolognesi and the Peruvian large destroyer Libertad (not to be confused with the Colombian battleship) fired on the Evigado, which laid smoke before being crippled by a salvo of 6" shells from Libertad.

As Aramburu began closing in on the Evigado, the Zerberus and Carabobo abruptly appeared from the destroyer's smoke and opened fire with all guns at intermediate range. Zerberus scored a critical hit with her 5.12" guns which disembowled the Grau's main optical rangefinder, but caused no further damage. With Grau's shooting performance falling off drastically, and Zerberus’s gunfire lighting up the dawn with rapid and innumerable muzzle flashes , Admiral Aramburu ordered the Grau to turn away to effect repairs, and the rest of the Peruvian ships followed the Grau's lead, ignoring Aramburu's orders to continue the action. As the Peruvians turned away, a 21" torpedo from the Carabobo detonated in the wake of the Colonel Bolognesi, loosening some of her hull plates aft and causing minor flooding which limited her speed to 23 knots.

As the Colombian escort force resumed station, Contraalmirante Laport and the covering force finally appeared. Laport received word from the trailing ships in the convoy that the convoy escort had engaged "one Independencia-class DD" at the head of the convoy, but that Callao had last been seen an hour earlier. Thinking he had passed the Callao just before dawn, and not being informed about the presence of the Grau much closer at hand, Laport turned back to the southeast and attempted to find the Callao. Only days later did Laport learn that the Scouting Force had probably been less than 20,000 yards from the Almirante Grau, with the Peruvian and Chilean ships obscured from each other by a rainstorm.

Result
Contraalmirante Laport was heavily criticized by Commodore Balmes for failing to be on scene for any of the fighting, and also for turning south to seek out the Callao when the Colombian escort force was still engaging the Grau and her task force. Contraalmirante Laport and the Colombian escort commander both in turn blamed Commodore Balmes' for his own performance in command of the convoy, noting that he had done a poor job of maintaining communications with the escort forces.

Summary
Peru:
- Grau: 95%
- Colonel Bolonesi: 92% (damage to propellers)
- Ocelot: sunk
Columbia:
- Cordoba: 86%
- Evigado: 57%, requires towing

Postscript to the Battle of the Gulf of Guayaquil:

Contraalmirante Laport was heavily criticized by Commodore Balmes for failing to be on scene for any of the fighting, and also for turning south to seek out the Callao when the Colombian escort force was still engaging the Grau and her task force. Contraalmirante Laport and the Colombian escort commander both in turn blamed Commodore Balmes' for his own performance in command of the convoy, noting that he had done a poor job of maintaining communications with the escort forces.

The personal rift between Balmes and Laport grew so great that Balmes resorted to criticizing him from the floor of the Chilean Senate, to the intense dissatisfaction of Laport's friends in the Navy. In January 1938, Almirante Moore finally ordered a courts-martial of Laport and Balmes, which in March found Laport had acted well using the information at hand, but heavily criticized Balmes for his behavior before, during, and after the action. Balmes then arranged a Congressional investigation into Laport's actions and Moore's handling of the courts-martial. The investigation ended abruptly when Almirante Foxley, while testifying to Congress in his role as the leader of the Laport-Balmes Court Martial, called Balmes "a blundering embarassment to the Armada and the Chilean Senate" and said that "he should not command anything bigger than a bathtub battleship". An enfuriated Balmes jumped out of his seat and hit Foxley three times with the senate minority leader's gavel. Almirante Foxley shrugged off the hits and broke Balmes' jaw with his return punch, then had Balmes arrested for assault, later noting that Balmes "hits like a girly man". The Chilean Senate voted to expel Balmes shortly thereafter, although he avoided prison time. Contraalmirante Laport, though he was completely cleared of wrongdoing in the Battle of the Gulf of Guayaquil, and performed very well during the following Battle of Barranca, never held a seagoing command after October 1937, and retired shortly after Balmes was expelled from the Senate.

[SIZE=3]Raid on Pisco[/SIZE]

At the beginning of August the FAR allies prepared to take the war into Peru, attempting to take advantage of the sudden flare-up of the Peruvian Civil War. Among the operations was an attack on the Presidentialist naval and air base at Pisco, Peru, some 120 miles southeast of Lima. Pisco had gained importance quickly in the conflict as the Peruvian Navy had sent its submarines there, with the intent to evade Chilean, Atlantean, and Columbian ASW patrols. Moreover, Pisco was known to be a town fiercely loyal to President Diaz and the Presidentialist forces in general.

The Armada de Chile evaluated all its available targets and determined that of the available options, Pisco was second only to Callao in importance, and much less heavily protected. The airstrip with its fighters and bombers lay right next to the beaches, and there were few coast-defense guns placed to cover the harbor. Two battalions of security troops constituted the town garrison, and reinforcements of any significant size were known to be days away.

The task of raiding Pisco fell to two Chilean "Marine Detachments" or Destacamento de Infantería: the DIM No. 3 "Aldea" and DIM No. 4 "Cochrane". The two detachments would be carried aboard the ships of the Marine Raiding Flotilla, the Patrol Squadron, and the Third Destroyer Squadron, under the overall command of Capitan de Navio Patricio Fitzpatrick. Overall command of the operation, however, was assigned to Contraalmirante Esteban Maturin, the newly-promoted commander of the Chilean Second Cruiser Squadron. In addition to his own four cruisers, Almirante Maturin had at his command the coastal battleship Almirante Gideon and the six new destroyers of the First Destroyer Squadron, under Capitan de Navio James Fitzpatrick - the cousin of the Marine Raiding Flotilla's commander.

The raid began with "Operation Nightclub", a series of heavy air raids on Presidentialist strongholds. On the afternoon of August 16th, thirty-six Chilean B-3 Vanguards attacked Lima, Peru, bombing the docks but failing to hit either the Callao or the Almirante Grau, which had freshly returned to port following the Battle of the Gulf of Guayaquil. Five Vanguards were downed by the Peruvian warships' heavy AA and Peruvian fighters, and damage to the target was light. However, as the heavy bombers turned for home and the Peruvian fighters returned to their bases, an airstrike launched by the carriers Mapuche and Alioth arrived over Lima, attacking the airfields and the ships in port. Two merchant ships docked near the Almirante Grau were sunk by torpedoes, temporarily blocking the Grau from making a sortie. Fighters and bombers targeted the Peruvian planes returning to their airfields, and caused significant losses. The carrier aircraft, however, suffered nine losses of the seventy aircraft participating.

The same afternoon, thirty-six Chilean "Vanquish" medium bombers flowing from Potosi hit the Presidentialist city of Arequipa, while another two squadrons of medium bombers attacked Pisco. A simultaneous deception operation using double agents run by the Chilean "Black Chamber" informed the Presidentialists that the Chilean Army was preparing to invade and occupy Tacna province while the Navy and Marines seized Mollendo. Additionally, the Chilean intelligence services leaked news that they had bought off the Presidentialist army commander responsible for guarding Mollendo. (Though this was untrue, it threw suspicion on an officer staunchly loyal to Diaz, causing his immediate imprisonment and replacement.)

Almirante Maturin's flotilla of warships and transports left Iquique on August 15th and arrived off Pisco four hours before dawn on the 18th. A Peruvian patrol boat was sunk by the cruiser Tierra del Fuego before it could raise the alarm. The destroyers, led by Capitan Fitzpatrick in the Capitan Thompson, charged into Pisco harbor and sank the submarines P-3 and SC-1 with guns and depth charges. An armed merchant ship, the freighter Juliaca, opened fire on the destroyers with a four-inch gun, but fell quiet when the General Lagos replied with guns. Minutes later, the Juliaca was destroyed by a torpedo launched from the Lagos.

The battleship Gideon and Maturin's cruisers followed the destroyers into the harbor, firing on shore batteries, troop concentrations, and the military airfield with everything from fourteen-inch to five-inch guns. At the crack of dawn, covered by the guns of the naval flotilla, the Chilean marines boarded their assault boats and went ashore, meeting limited resistance from the Presidentialist troops. Resistance proved sparse and the Chileans advanced off their landing zones with significantly less trouble than they expected.

By midafternoon, the fighting in Pisco was ended, with some seventy-five Peruvians of the Presidentialist security troops dead, and another hundred captured; the airfield and its planes were carefully demolished, and a large quantity of naval stores, including a fuel-oil depot and a stock of torpedoes, was set alight. Eighteen Chilean marines, including Teniente Miguel Estrada, were killed in the attack.

In the port itself, the Chilean Navy was able to destroy or seize a significant amount of Presidentialist shipping, though Almirante Maturin elected not to scuttle or capture any of the privately-owned fishing boats, and limited his destruction to military ships or merchant ships with military cargoes.

Summary of Damage:
- P-3: 0% (sunk)
- SC-1: 0% (sunk)
- Merchant cruiser Juliaca: 0% (sunk)

[SIZE=1]Comments welcome. [/SIZE]