Just outside Yokohama Bay on the night of Jan. 24, 1870 the USS Oneida was run down by the P&O liner
Bombay. Oneida was a 1,488 ton three masted screw sloop launched at the New York Navy Yard on
Nov. 20, 1861. She was 201' long with a beam of 33' 10" and could make 12 knots.
Soon after commissioning she joined Farragut's West Gulf Blockading Squadron and sailed for New Orleans,
her duty in the War between the States had begun. She served in the Gulf and on the Mississippi River for the
rest of the war sinking two enemy ships and helped to capture a third. In 1865 she was decommissioned at
New York. In May 1867 the Oneida was recommissioned and sent to Asia to serve with the Asiatic Squadron, it was during this duty that she was lost.
She sailed from Yokohama on the evening of Jan. 24 when a 18:30 the Bombay rammed he on the starboard
quarter. The Bombay continued on her voyage failing to stop to render assistance to the stricken Oneida, the
Oneida blew her whistle and even fired her guns to get the Bombay to stop, but the Bombay sailed on, her
officers and crew claiming never to have heard any of the signals, however reports state that the gunfire was
heard in Yokohama some twenty miles away. Captain Eyre of the Bombay later claimed that he thought that little damage had been done to the Oneida and he felt that his ship was in danger of sinking.
On the Oneida time was short and there was an additional problem, lifeboats. It seems that all but three of her
boats had been lost in a typhoon earlier and had not yet been replaced by the Navy, one of the three on board
was destroyed in the collision which left only 2 boats for almost 200 men. The Oneida sank in less than 15
minuets taking about 125 men with her.
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