Casto Secundino María Méndez Núñez (1 July 1824 – 21 August 1869) was a Spanish Navy officer. He served in the First Italian War of Independence in Italy in 1849, the Spanish-Moro Conflict in the Philippines in 1861, and the Dominican Restoration War in the Caribbean in 1863–1864. Rising to the rank of contralmirante (counter admiral) he achieved international renown for his command of the Spanish Navy's Pacific Squadron during the Chincha Islands War in 1865–1866, becoming one of the major Spanish naval figures of the nineteenth century. In Spain, he is a popular hero, viewed as an exemplification of good character and Spanish patriotism.
Biography Early life
Méndez Núñez was born in a house on the Plaza de la Constitución in Vigo, Spain, on 1 July 1824. His father was a postal worker. His mother, Tomasa Núñez Fernández, was a member of an old Vigo family which included a number of sailors, and her father, Joaquín Núñez Falcon, had completed his stint as a midshipman in 1785 and rose to the rank of brigadier in the Spanish Navy in 1825.
Méndez Núñez spent his early years in Madrid, but returned to Vigo at the age of 10 and studied at the Colegio de Humanidades (College of the Humanities), where his renowned professor, Elías Pérez Martínez, regarded Méndez Núñez as one of his most brilliant students. Méndez Núñez completed his training at the Nautical School in Vigo. A story exists that as a boy Méndez Núñez saved two children from drowning on the beach at Arenal d'en Castell on Menorca in the Balearic Islands and that an old sea captain who witnessed the rescue told him, "You will be a great man."
After completing his studies at the Nautical School, Méndez Núñez went to Cádiz to take the naval entrance exams, which he passed. He was granted the right to wear the uniform of a guardiamarina (midshipman) on 1 February 1839.
Naval career 1840–1857 Méndez Núñez took up his post as a Spanish Navy midshipman on 24 March 1840 and remained at Cádiz until 4 September 1840, then reported aboard the 14-gun brig at Pasajes on 5 November 1840. In 1842 took part in an expedition to Fernando Po off the coast of Africa and distinguished himself so much by his superior performance during the Spanish occupation of the island in 1843 that his eligibility for promotion was accelerated by a year. Operating along the coast of North Africa, he was promoted to guardiamarina de 1º (first midshipman) and reported aboard the paddle gunboat Isabel II. In April 1846 he was commissioned as an officer after passing another exam, and on 11 July 1846 he was promoted to the rank of alférez de navío (ship-of-the-line ensign), the lower of the Spanish Navy's two ensign ranks.
Méndez Núñez reported to the new 12-gun brig on 31 July 1846 and was named officer in command of the four midshipmen aboard. Volador departed Cádiz on 10 October 1846 to deliver documents to Montevideo, Uruguay. In March 1848 Volador headed for Rio de Janeiro and in June 1848 departed Rio de Janeiro bound for Cádiz, which she reached on 1 August 1848. On 7 January 1849 she put to sea from Barcelona to transport Spanish Army troops to Italy as part of an expedition to protect the Papal States during the First Italian War of Independence. Once the threat to the Papal States had abated, the expedition got back underway on 4 May 1849, participated in the capture of Terracina, then carried out maneuvers as a show of force at Naples, Gaeta, and Porto D'Auro which helped bring the war to an end. On 18 May Méndez Núñez disembarked at Gaeta, and on 29 May Pope Pius IX reviewed members of the Spanish expedition, who displayed for him enemy flags they had captured, and he blessed the Spaniards and gave them thanks by royal order. Pius IX made Méndez Núñez and the other officers of the expedition Commanders of the Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great. Volador subsequently returned to Spain at Cádiz.
Volador arrived at Málaga in early 1850 and became part of the Training Squadron, subsequently cruising between Cape Rosas and Málaga. By a Royal Order of 19 November 1950, Méndez Núñez received a promotion to teniente de navío (ship-of-the-line lieutenant). He became commanding officer of the seven-gun schooner on 14 April 1851. Under his command, Cruz patrolled the southern coast of Spain to prevent the smuggling of arms into the country. Although Cruz was in need of repairs and scheduled for drydocking, Méndez Núñez received orders to carry documents to Havana in the Captaincy General of Cuba, and got underway from Cádiz on 8 February 1852. Méndez Núñez displayed great seamanship in command during what turned out to be a risky and exhausting voyage, and Cruz avoided serious damage.
In 1853, Méndez Núñez took command of the two-gun paddle gunboat , which still was under construction at the Reales Astilleros de Esteiro at Ferrol. He received orders in January for Narváez to proceed to Cádiz that month, but after she put to sea he found that she was unseaworthy due to her poor overall condition, including much rotten wood in her hull, forcing him to return to Ferrol, where Narváez was scrapped. He subsequently saw service with the Spanish coast guard. Shore duty at the Ministry of the Navy followed, during which he translated into Spanish the 1820 book A Treatise on Naval Gunnery by the British Army officer Howard Douglas. His translation was published in 1857.
Philippines, 1858–1862 In 1858 Méndez Núñez became the commanding officer of another warship named , this one a screw corvette which, like the previous Narváez, was under construction when he took command, also at the Reales Astilleros de Esteiro at Ferrol, and used the same steam engine that had been installed on the previous Narváez. Narváez was commissioned on 20 November 1858. She departed Cádiz on 10 February 1859, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and headed for the Philippines in the Spanish East Indies, stopping along the coast of Luzon on 21 June before arriving at Manila on 26 June 1859, completing the passage in four months and eleven days. On the Philippines station, Méndez Núñez took command of the paddle gunboat . Under his command, Jorge Juan was off Basilan on 21 August 1860 when she sank five armed boats manned by Moro pirates from Jolo that were headed to the Visayas, took the survivors prisoner, and handed them over to Spanish authorities at Cavite.
Méndez Núñez was promoted to capitán de fragata (frigate captain) on 3 May 1861 and given command of both the schooner and the Spanish naval division in the southern Philippine Islands. He raised his flag aboard Constancia. His first operation after his promotion was against the Sultanate of Buayan, which was in rebellion against Spain. The Sultan was based alongside the Rio Grande de Mindanao at Pagalungan on the southwestern coast of Mindanao in a well-garrisoned and well-equipped fort manned by about 500 men, surrounded by a wall high and thick as well as a deep, wide moat and a mangrove swamp, and armed with short-range guns, including four large-caliber artillery pieces and a number of smaller guns known as lantakas.
Arriving on the scene with his entire division — Constancia, the schooner , the gunboats , , , and , six faluas, three merchant ships serving as transports, and a landing force of 850 Spanish Army and indigenous troops organized into four companies of infantry and an artillery battery of four guns — Méndez Núñez ordered the fort to surrender. It refused, so he disembarked the landing force to attack the fort on 16 November 1861, but the men sank up to their knees in the marshy ground around the fort, making an assault likely to result in high casualties, and he withdrew them. As dawn broke at 04:30 on 17 November he launched a second attack, with the landing force supported by gunfire from Arayat and Pampanga, and the Spanish troops reached firmer ground, albeit at a greater distance from the fort, and managed to emplace several artillery pieces ashore. When that attack stalled, and the Spanish Army commander ordered a retreat amid increasing casualties, Méndez Núñez, who had come ashore to assess the situation, responded, "The Navy is not retreating!", a phrase which became legendary in the Spanish Navy. He ordered small boats to reconnoitre the fort under enemy fire, then, having chosen a point of attack, manoeuvred Constancia — which Moro artillery hit six times – through the mangrove swamp and brought her alongside the fort. He introduced Constancia′s bowsprit into one of the fort's gun ports, bringing her to rest at an angle of about 60 degrees from the fort's wall. The Spaniards laid wooden planks from the ship's side onto the fort's structure, and he sent an assault force into the fort across the bowsprit and planks at 08:15 as if boarding a ship. The disembarked landing force renewed its attack at the same time. After 15 minutes of hand-to-hand fighting, the fort's defenders began to retreat at 08:30 and attempted to take shelter within the fort. However, the swivel gun on Constancia′s bow could bear on the area they retreated to, and they came under heavy fire from shrapnel shells from the gun and rifles. Two hours after the action began, the fort fell to the Spaniards with heavy casualties among its Moro defenders; the Spaniards found 136 bodies in and around the fort and estimated that up to 200 Moros had been killed. In exchange, the Spaniards suffered 18 killed, 98 wounded, and nine injured due to non-combat causes, a total of 14.7 per cent of the expeditionary force. Deeming it impractical to garrison the captured fort, the Spaniards demolished it down to its foundations with explosives and withdrew.
Méndez Núñez's innovation of "boarding" the fort as if boarding a ship probably is a unique event in military history, according to the Spanish historian Agustín Ramón Rodríguez González, and was viewed as having rescued the expedition from near-disaster and made possible a notable victory. For this feat of arms, during which he suffered a bullet wound to the head and two stab wounds, Méndez Núñez was promoted to capitán de navío (ship-of-the-line captain) in January 1862 – his second promotion in less than a year – and recalled to Spain. He arrived at Cádiz on 2 July 1862.
Caribbean, 1862–1864 In October 1862, Méndez Núñez was ordered to command the paddle gunboat Isabel II, on which he had once served, and he took command of her on 1 November 1862. She got underway on 14 November and arrived at Havana on 8 December 1862. From January to March 1863 Isabel II carried out patrols along the coast of Cuba to interdict the flow of arms and other contraband onto the island. During political unrest in Venezuela, he left Havana on 23 May 1863 bound for Puerto Cabello and La Guaira. Upon arriving at Puerto Cabello, local authorities informed him that the port was blockaded, but Méndez Núñez took the position that no recognized government existed in Venezuela, and on that basis ignored the local authorities and entered the harbor, where Isabel II landed a Spanish Marine Infantry force which protected all foreign diplomatic representatives, citizens, and property. He personally negotiated an agreement under which no one opened fire. On 29 June 1863, he departed La Guaira to transport the chargé d'affaires of the United Kingdom and Spain and Venezuelan General José Antonio Páez to Puerto Cabello to sign the agreement, which took effect a few days later. For engaging in diplomacy that prevented bloodshed and defused the crisis in Venezuela, he received the thanks of the Commander General of Havana and the Government of Spain.