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Juan Jose Latorre

Juan Jose Latorre (24 March 1846-9 July 1912) was a Chilean Vice Admiral during the War of the Pacific and commander-in-chief of the Chilean Navy from 1886 to 1887 (succeeding Domingo Toro Herrera and preceding Luis Uribe Orrego).

Biography[]

Juan Jose Latorre Benavente was born in Santiago, Chile in 1846, and he was raised by his father's family in Peru after his father's death; one of his brothers would later serve in the Peruvian military during the War of the Pacific. Latorre graduated from the Naval Academy in 1861 and became a midshipman aboard the Esmeralda during the Chincha Islands War. he became captain of the Tolten and then the Magallanes in 1873, and he commanded the Magallanes at the 1879 Battle of Chipana, the first naval engagement with Peru during the War of the Pacific. Latorre became commander of the ironclad Cochrane after the Battle of Iquique, and he captured the Huascar at the Battle of Angamos, turning the tide of the naval war. On his retun to Chile, he was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1884 and Commander General of the Navy in 1886, servbing until 1887. He remained loyal to President Jose Manuel Balmaceda from his official mission in London amid the Chilean Civil War of 1891, and he remained in exile after the Congressional triumhp. He later returned to Chile and served as a Balmacedista senator from 1894 to 1906, and he served as Foreign Minister in 1898. He died in 1912.

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