John Louis Lay (January 14, 1833 – April 17, 1899) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

inventor, and a pioneer of the

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, ...

Biography

Lay was born in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. He was appointed 2nd assistant engineer in the

Union Navy The Union Navy was the United States Navy (USN) during the American Civil War, when it fought the Confederate States Navy (CSN). The term is sometimes used carelessly to include vessels of war used on the rivers of the interior while they were un ...

on July 8, 1862, and was promoted to 1st assistant engineer on October 15, 1863. He designed the

spar torpedo A spar torpedo is a weapon consisting of a bomb placed at the end of a long pole, or spar, and attached to a boat. The weapon is used by running the end of the spar into the enemy ship. Spar torpedoes were often equipped with a barbed spear at ...

which was used by Lieutenant

William B. Cushing William Barker Cushing (4 November 184217 December 1874) was an officer in the United States Navy, best known for sinking the during a daring nighttime raid on 27 October 1864, for which he received the Thanks of Congress. Cushing was the youn ...

to destroy the Confederate ironclad ram at Plymouth, North Carolina, on October 27, 1864. After the fall of

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in 1865, Lay was sent in advance of Admiral David D. Porter's fleet to remove obstructions from the

James River The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 to Chesap ...

. Lay resigned from the navy on May 22, 1865, and was then was employed by the Peruvians to fortify the harbor of

Callao Callao () is a Peruvian seaside city and region on the Pacific Ocean in the Lima metropolitan area. Callao is Peru's chief seaport and home to its main airport, Jorge Chávez International Airport. Callao municipality consists of the whole Cal ...

with fixed mines and suspended torpedoes, in order to prevent the Spanish fleet from entering. Lay returned to the United States in 1867, where he began work on the design and building of a locomotive (self-propelled) torpedo.

Lay's first design, the Lay Torpedo or Lay Dirigible (1872) was a surface-running cylindrical vessel with conical ends, powered by a reciprocating engine fuelled by compressed carbon dioxide gas. Two cables were paid out from the torpedo to the controlling ship or shore station which allowed the operator to steer it by means of electrical signals. It had a length of 7.6 m and a diameter of 600 mm and with an effective range of 1.25 miles, speed of 6 knots, 100-pound dynamite load and 2,800-pound total weight. The Lay torpedo was one of several designs tested by U.S. Navy at the

Naval Torpedo Station The Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) is the United States Navy's full-spectrum research, development, test and evaluation, engineering and fleet support center for submarines, autonomous underwater systems, and offensive and defensive weapons ...

at Newport, Rhode Island. It was adopted by the U.S. Navy, that was reluctant to purchase and use

Whitehead torpedo The Whitehead torpedo was the first self-propelled or "locomotive" torpedo ever developed. It was perfected in 1866 by Robert Whitehead from a rough design conceived by Giovanni Luppis of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in Fiume. It was driven by a t ...

es in 1872. Lay torpedoes were also acquired by Peru for use in the

War of the Pacific The War of the Pacific ( es, link=no, Guerra del Pacífico), also known as the Saltpeter War ( es, link=no, Guerra del salitre) and by multiple other names, was a war between Chile and a Bolivian–Peruvian alliance from 1879 to 1884. Fought ...

, but proved unsuccessful. On 28 August 1879 at

Antofagasta Antofagasta () is a port city in northern Chile, about north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. According to the 2015 census, the city has a population of 402,669. After the Spanish American wars ...

the Peruvian ironclad '' Huáscar'', while engaging shore batteries and the Chilean ships , ''Magallanes'' and ''Limarí'', launched a Lay torpedo only to have it reverse course. The ship ''Huascar'' was saved when an officer jumped overboard to divert it. In 1880, he produced an improved version – the Lay-Haight Torpedo. This used a 3-cylinder Brotherhood engine fuelled by carbon dioxide (a mixture of carbonic acid and calcium), to increase its speed to 8 knots, with a range of 2,300 meters. Having passed the initial tests, the governments of the United States and the Russian Empire bought its manufacturing rights. Lay himself set up a manufacturing plant in Russia where more than 10 large torpedoes were reportedly manufactured. However, it never had successful application. Lay's inventions made him a rich man, but he lost it all in speculation, and he spent his final years in poverty. He died at

Bellevue Hospital Bellevue Hospital (officially NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and formerly known as Bellevue Hospital Center) is a hospital in New York City and the oldest public hospital in the United States. One of the largest hospitals in the United States ...

, New York City, in April 1899.

Biography

References

Further reading