Hammerton Killick
Hammerton Killick (born April 18, 1856 , † September 6, 1902 in Gonaives , Haiti ) was an admiral and Commander in Chief of the Haitian Navy .
Live and act
Little is known about Killick's life. He was a mulatto of Haitian- Scottish or Irish descent, his mother Haitian. On the so far only known and undated photo he is shown in a very simple navy uniform .
It is not known when Killick took over command of the Haitian Navy, but he appears to have held this position as early as 1894. Since the gunboat Crête-à-Pierrot was put into service as the flagship in 1896 , it can be assumed that Killick was usually on it as soon as the ship went to sea.
Due to the political tensions in the summer of 1902, a revolutionary party was formed under Anténor Firmin , who Killick joined out of sympathy with the fleet, which at that time only consisted of two units. However, this allowed Killick to exercise maritime domination in Haitian waters and prevent weapons from being imported from abroad for the Provisional Government and the troops of General Pierre Nord Alexis . Thus, Killick played an important role in the civil war , since the weak forces of General Firmin's troops at sea could be balanced.
The marcomannia incident
The civil war situation escalated on September 2, 1902, when Killick off the port of Cap Haitien the HAPAG - steamer Markomannia stopped and searched. The steamer was in regular service and was on the routine return journey from Port-au-Prince to Hamburg . The admiral confiscated a load of weapons on board for Nord Alexis, which was to be unloaded in Cap Haitien. Killick later handed the weapons over to the Firminian troops.
The sea blockade declared by Killick was not recognized by the German government and Killick was immediately declared a pirate , but by the provisional government on July 25th. The officers of the Crête , all British mercenaries had to later statements to the Daily Mail Killick before applying the Markomannia warned that the blockade was not effective and therefore not recognized internationally. Killick was not deterred, however, and insisted on bringing the German steamer.
However, the admiral was not aware that the German gunboat SMS Panther was operating in the Caribbean . At the request of the Foreign Office, their commandant , Corvette Captain Richard Eckermann , was immediately instructed by the Admiralty to either raise the crête and hand it over to the provisional government recognized by the German Reich, or to sink it. Although the Crête was much more heavily armed than the Panther , the units of the Haitian Navy were not considered to be equivalent to European or US-American units due to a lack of financial contributions and insufficiently trained personnel .
In fact, after three months of continuous use , the crête was in poor technical condition. She entered the port of Gonaïves on September 4, 1902, where the rebel government of Firmin resided. Killick had the boiler fires extinguished for maintenance. The commander of the Crête , a British mercenary named Reed (other spelling Read), was sick and had to be disembarked. The 150-strong crew was also landed. On September 6, 1902, the Panther entered the port ready for action. Killick was completely surprised by the appearance of the German gunboat, as he had been informed shortly before that the United States and the Reich would be neutral in the civil war.
Killick immediately ordered the crew back to the gunboat and was apparently ready to fight the Panther . According to the British officers, however, he decided to sink the Crête himself in order not to provoke the German Reich through a battle and to avoid reprisals for Haiti. However, the fact that the crête was not maneuverable, let alone roadworthy, due to a lack of steam , spoke against a battle recording. According to the surviving British, Killick poured out paraffin and set it on fire with a revolver in a gunpowder keg. The crew left the ship in the dinghies, while Killick, allegedly wrapped in a Haitian flag , remained on board.
After the explosion on board the Crête and the resulting fire on the Panther had been noticed, Eckermann opened fire. The crête sank badly to the bottom of the harbor basin; In addition to Killick, three other crew members were apparently killed on board. Killick's cause of death is unknown; his body was recovered from the wreck the next day and buried on land.
Culture of remembrance
- In 1923 the poet and playwright Charles Moravia (1875–1938) published the play "L'amiral Killick", the stage script of which was reissued in 1943 and 1988.
- 1943 appeared Killick honor a 10- Gourde - stamp the Haitian Post.
- In 1955 the former tender of the US Coast Guard Blackrock , built in 1924, was sold to Haiti and taken into service in the Haitian Navy as Amiral Killick .
- Apparently after the decommissioning of the Amiral Killick , the naval base Port-au-Prince was named "Amiral Killick". Today it serves as the "killick" of the Haitian coast guard , the "Commissariat des Gardes-Côtes d´Haiti", as its headquarters.
literature
- Untitled : The destruction of the Haitian rebel cruiser "Crête à Pierrot" by SMKbt. "Panther" , in: Marine-Rundschau , 13th year, 1902, pp. 1189–97.
- Robert L. Scheina: Latin America. A Naval History 1810-1987. Annapolis, MD (Naval Institute Press) 1987. ISBN 0-87021-295-8
- The Sunken Gunboat. In: Timaru Herald of December 12, 1902, based on a report in the Daily Mail of Port-au-Prince of September 20, 1902, online version
- Killick Went Down With His Warship. In: New York Times, September 11, 1902
- Gerhard Wiechmann: The Prussian-German Navy in Latin America 1866-1914. A study of German gunboat policy , Bremen (Hauschild) 2002, pp. 73–79. ISBN 3-89757-142-0
- Charles T. Willamson: The US Naval Mission to Haiti 1959-1963 , Annapolis, MD (Naval Institute Press) 1999, pp. 149f. ISBN 1-55750-941-7
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Killick, Hammerton |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Haitian admiral and naval commander in chief |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 18, 1856 |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 6, 1902 |
| Place of death | Gonaives , Haiti |