me. The sadness it reveals should have made me see, but hope is so sweet." War of the Pacific When the war broke out, Prat was assigned to assistant of the Navy General Command, a position he tried to reject. When Don Rafael Sotomayor Baeza was required to go to Antofagasta with instructions from the Government, he requested an assistant, and Prat was assigned to the job. Being both of them aboard the armored Blanco Encalada, he was assigned to notify Iquique's authorities that they have been blocked by the Chilean army, which he did without letting the hostile position of the people daunt him. He was assigned Covadongas command. On 3 May the corvette Abtao, under lieutenant commander Carlos Condell de la Haza's command, and Covadonga, under Prat's command, set sail towards Iquique arriving on 10 May. To achieve the plan that Admiral Juan Williams Rebolledo had conceived, consisting of attacking the Peruvian squadron in Callao's port, he assigned as Abtaos commander Manuel Thompson, who commanded the corvette until then. Arturo Prat replaced him, and Carlos Condell de la Haza was designated Covadongas commander. On 16 May, the squadron set sail to Callao, with the intention of surprising the Peruvian warships, but the same day Peruvian monitor and armored frigate Independencia set sail from that port, towards Arica, to carry reinforcements, armaments, ammunition and provisions, so both squadrons missed each other on their trips. Battle of Iquique and death It was 21 May 1879, 6:30 in the morning, when the fog cleared, Covadongas lookout shouted: "Smoke to the north!". But, owing to thick marine fog, they were not able to identify the newly arrived ships, but after a few moments they thought it was the Peruvian squadron coming back. At 6:45 a.m., a sailor by Condell's side asked for the telescope, and in a moment of clarity he observed the warships' rigging and said to Condell: "It's the Huáscar and the Independencia". "What basis do you have to assert that?" asked Condell, and the sailor answered "From the shape of the platform on top of the foremast". Immediately Condell ordered a shot to be fired in the air to warn Esmeralda, still anchored in the port. The ships were indeed Independencia and Huáscar. In that same moment, the Peruvian admiral Miguel Grau Seminario addressed his crew: "Crewmembers and Sailors of the Huáscar, Iquique is at sight, there are our