The Battle of Manila Bay took place on 5/1/1898. Commodore George Dewey's flagship Olympia led 7 U.S. Navy cruisers & gunboats into Manila Bay. By 8 AM that morning Dewey's Asiatic Squadron had located & destroyed virtually the entire Spanish naval force in the Philippines. Dewey had eliminated any threat that the Spanish Navy might pose to U.S. commerce in the Far East.