Manuel de la Cámara

Vice admiral Manuel de la Cámara y Libermoore (or Livermoore), OCIII, OSH (7 May 1835 – 4 Jan 1920) was a Spanish naval officer. He is most notable for commanding a rescue squadron that made an abortive attempt to relieve Spanish forces in the Philippine Islands during the Spanish–American War.

Early life
Cámara was born at Málaga, Spain, on 7 May 1835.

Early career
After joining the Spanish Navy, Cámara served as an officer in the Caribbean and in the Philippine Islands. He later was chief of the Spanish naval commission in Washington, D.C., and of the Spanish naval commission in London.

Spanish–American War
By the time the Spanish–American War broke out in April 1898, Cámara was a rear admiral. Shortly after the war began, the Spanish Navy ordered major units of its fleet to concentrate at Cadiz to form the 2nd Squadron, under Cámara's command. Two of Spain's most powerful warships, the battleship Pelayo and the brand-new armored cruiser Emperador Carlos V were not available when the war began, the former undergoing reconstruction in a French shipyard and the latter not yet delivered from her builders. However, both were rushed into service and assigned to Cámara's squadron. One mission of the squadron, in the absence of any other direction, was to guard the Spanish coast against raids by the United States Navy.

During a meeting of senior Spanish naval officers in Madrid on 23 April 1898, Cámara voted with the majority to send the squadron of Vice Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete to the Caribbean. Cervera's squadron duly arrived in Cuba, where it was blockaded in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba by the U.S. Navy's North Atlantic Squadron and Flying Squadron beginning on 27 May 1898. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy's Asiatic Squadron under Commodore George Dewey had destroyed the Spanish Navy's squadron in the Philippine Islands under Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasaron in the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May 1898.



Cámara's squadron lay idle at Cadiz while the Spanish Ministry of Marine considered options for redressing the situation in the Caribbean and the Philippines. In late May 1898, Spanish Minister of Marine Ramón Auñón y Villalón made plans for Cámara to take a squadron consisting of an armored cruiser, three auxiliary cruisers, and a dispatch boat across the Atlantic Ocean and bombard a city – preferably Charleston, South Carolina – on the United States East Coast, after which the squadron was to head for the Caribbean and make port in Puerto Rico at San Juan or in Cuba at either Havana or Santiago de Cuba.

On 15 June 1898, Cámara finally received his orders: Plans to raid the U.S. East Coast were cancelled, and instead he was to depart immediately for the Philippines, escorting a convoy carrying 4,000 Spanish Army troops for reinforcement of the Philippines, and destroy Dewey's squadron there. His orders directed him to depart Cadiz with Pelayo, Emperador Carlos V, the auxiliary cruisers Patriota and Rapido, the destroyers Audaz, Osado, and Proserpina, the transports Buenos Aires, Panay, Alfonso XII, and Antonio Lopez, and four colliers carrying 20,000 tons of coal. He was to detach Alfonso XII and Antonio Lopez near Gibraltar after dark so that they could proceed to the Caribbean, then take the rest of his force to the Philippines via Gibraltar, Port Said, Suez, Socotra (at which point the colliers were to be detached to return to Cartagena), the Laccadive Islands, and Ceylon. After that, he was told to coal either along the coast of Sumatra or in Singapore or Batavia, and then either make an optional stop at Labuan, Borneo, or proceed directly to Mindanao. Once in the Philippines, he was to disperse (to places such as Balabac, Jolo, Basilan, and Zamboanga) or concentrate his squadron as best he saw fit to ensure the safe arrival of the troops. Then he was to deal with Dewey's squadron.

Cámara sortied from Cadiz on 16 June 1898, passed Gibraltar on 17 June 1898 (first detaching Alfonso XII and Antonio Lopez for their independent voyages to the Caribbean as ordered), and arrived at Port Said on 26 June 1898. There he requested permission to transship coal. However, intelligence operatives in Spain had made the United States aware of Cámara's itinerary, and the U.S. acting vice consul to Egypt in Cairo, diplomat Ethelbert Watts, had acquired a lien on all coal available in Suez. Further complicating matters for Cámara, the British government, which controlled Egypt at the time, informed him on 29 June that his squadron was not permitted to coal in Egyptian waters, on the grounds that it had enough coal to return to Spain and that any coaling activity it undertook in Egypt would violate Egyptian and British neutrality, and that he would have to return to sea within 24 hours. Cámara complied.

Cámara's squadron passed through the Suez Canal on 5–6 July 1898. By that time, Cervera's squadron in the Caribbean had been annihilated in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba on 3 July, freeing up the U.S. Navy's heavy forces from the blockade of Santiago de Cuba. Fearful for the security of the Spanish coast, the Spanish Ministry of Marine recalled Cámara's squadron, which by then had reached the Red Sea, on 7 July 1898. On the return voyage, Cámara's squadron departed Suez on 11 July 1898 for Spain, where it arrived at Cartagena on 23 July and then made its way back to Cadiz. The 2nd Squadron was dissolved on 25 July 1898.

The Spanish–American War ended on 12 August 1898 in a decisive defeat of Spain without Cámara or his ships having had a chance to see combat.

Later career
Cámara retired from the Spanish Navy as a vice admiral.

Death
Cámara died in Malaga in 1920.