History

The USS Maine is one of a handful of US Naval vessels that have reached an iconic status. Much like the Arizona at Pearl Harbor, she is remembered not for her deeds in life but for the manner of her death.

The USS Maine was dispatched to Havana, Cuba in an early example of US Gunboat diplomacy. It was hoped that her presence would help quell the Cuban unrest directed at Spanish authorities that threatened to spill over and endanger the lives and property of US citizens in Cuba. She sailed into Havana Harbor on January 25th, 1898.



On the evening of February 15th, 1898, an explosion ripped through the forward portion of the vessel. An actual photo of the explosion is possibly recorded below. You can read more about that photo here.



Regardless of whether she was sunk by Spanish or rebel action or simply through a coal fire, 266 American sailors dies aboard her.



Her loss was thought to have been at the hands of Spanish treachery and so the rallying cry,"Remember the Maine." helped start the Spanish American War.

In 1910 her hulk was raised, the bodies removed and interred at Arlington, and she was towed out of Havana.



She was scuttled at sea.