BLUE, Victor, American naval officer: b. North Carolina, 6 Dec. 1865. He was grad uated at the Naval Academy June 1887, and serving through the grades of ensign and junior lieutenant, was promoted lieutenant 3 March 1899. At the outbreak of the war with Spain he was ordered to the gunboat Suwanee, and while on duty off the Cuban coast captured two Spanish patrol sloops having on board a heliographic signal outfit. On 11 June 1898 he landed at Aserraderos, passed through the Spanish lines, proceeded to the hills overlook ing Santiago city and harbor, where he located the Spanish fleet commanded by Admiral Cervera. On 25 June he made a further recon noissance and mapped the position of the Spanish ships. To accomplish these things he traveled a distance of nearly 140 miles, mostly through territoryoccupied by the intrench ments of the Spanish army. Admiral Sampson highly conunended the manner in which these tasks had been performed and recommended that Lieutenant Blue be advanced 10 numbers as a promotion. He was placed in command of
the captured gunboat Alvarado, and on 12 Aug. 1898 bombarded the fortifications of Man zanillo. Subsequently he served in China and the Philippines, and later as flag lieutenant to Rear-Admiral Kempff in the Philippines dur ing the insurrection 1900-01, and in North China during the Boxer insurrection in 1900; was flag lieutenant to Rear-Adm. Philip H. Cooper, commander-in-chief of the Asiatic fleet, 1903-04. He was promoted lieutenant commander 1905; commander 1909; and cap tain 1914; served as executive officer of the Bennington and the North Carolina, and as commander of the Yorktown; chief of staff of the Pacific fleet 1910-11, with Rear-Adm. Chauncey Thomas as commander-in-chief. On duty with the general board of the navy 1911 13, and appointed chief of bureau of naviga tion, with temporary rank of rear-admiral 1913.