Part 25 (1/2)
In this storm of fire there was heavy loss of life. A sh.e.l.l-burst killed and wounded most of the signallers as they stood together at their station.
An explosion against the opening of the conning-tower killed two officers beside Rojdestvensky, and slightly wounded the admiral. The fight had not lasted more than twenty minutes, and the ”Suvaroff,” the ”Alexander,” and ”Borodino,” the three leading Russian s.h.i.+ps, were all wrapped in black smoke from the fires lighted on board of them by the Chimose sh.e.l.ls.
How was the j.a.panese line faring? I talked over his battle experiences with a j.a.panese officer not long after the day of Tsu-s.h.i.+ma. He told me his impression was that at first the Russians shot fairly well, causing some loss of life at the more exposed stations on board the leading j.a.panese s.h.i.+ps. ”But,” he added, ”after the first twenty minutes they seemed suddenly to go all to pieces, and their shooting became wild and almost harmless.” No wonder that under such a tornado of explosions, death and destruction, and with their s.h.i.+ps ablaze, and range-finding and fire-controlling stations wrecked, the gunnery of the Russians broke down.
One of the pithy sayings of the American Admiral Farragut was: ”The best protection against the enemy's fire is the steady fire of your own guns.”
Tsu-s.h.i.+ma gave startling proof of it.
s.e.m.e.noff hoped that the j.a.panese were also suffering from the stress of battle. From the fore-bridge of the ”Suvaroff” he scanned their line with his gla.s.ses. In the sea-fights of other wars both fleets were wrapped in a dense fog of powder smoke, but now with the new powder there was no smoke except that of bursting sh.e.l.ls and burning material. So he could distinguish everything plainly.
”The enemy had finished turning. His twelve s.h.i.+ps were in perfect order at close intervals, steaming parallel to us, but gradually forging ahead. No disorder was noticeable. It seemed to me that with my Zeiss gla.s.ses (the distance was a little more than two miles) I could distinguish the mantlets of hammocks on the bridges and the groups of men. But with us? I looked round.
What havoc! Burning bridges, smouldering debris on the decks, piles of dead bodies. Signalling and judging distance stations, gun-directing positions, all were destroyed. And astern of us the 'Alexander' and the 'Borodino' were also wrapped in smoke.”
Men were killed in the turrets by sh.e.l.l splinters flying through the narrow gun openings. The fire hose was repeatedly cut to ribbons, and the men fighting the fire killed. The injuries caused by near explosions were terrible. Men were literally blown to atoms, or limbs were torn off. Eleven wooden boats piled up on the spar-deck were a ma.s.s of roaring flame. Gun after gun was disabled. And all the while a glance at the j.a.panese fleet showed them steaming and firing as if at peace manoeuvres, without even one of their numerous flagstaffs and signal yards shot away. The battle had not lasted an hour, and it was already evident that it could have only one ending.
In the smoke and confusion s.e.m.e.noff could only see what was happening in the front of the line, but the other s.h.i.+ps were exposed to a heavy fire, and had less resisting power. The ”Ossliabya,” the fifth of the battles.h.i.+ps, and Folkersham's flags.h.i.+p during the voyage,[31] was the first to succ.u.mb. The firing had hardly begun when a 12-inch projectile penetrated her forward above the water-line. In fine weather the effect would not have been very serious, but the heavy sea flooded her two bow compartments. Then another sh.e.l.l started an armour plate on the water-line amids.h.i.+ps, flooded the bunkers on the port side, and gave her a heavy list in that direction. Unsuccessful attempts were made to right her by opening valves and admitting water on the other side. Then a sh.e.l.l burst in the fore-turret and put all the crews of the two guns out of action. She was now settling down by the head and heeling over more and more to port.
Suddenly the sea reached her lower gun-ports and poured into her. Then, like the unfortunate ”Victoria,” she ”turned turtle,” and sank. It was at 2.25 that she disappeared thus suddenly, the first battles.h.i.+p ever sunk by gun-fire. Three of the destroyers picked up some of the crew who had jumped overboard.
[31] Admiral Folkersham had a paralytic stroke while at Honkohe Bay, and died at sea two days before the battle.
As she sank, the three other s.h.i.+ps of her division (”Sissoi,” ”Navarin,”
and ”Nakhimoff”), under the stress of the j.a.panese fire, sheered for a while out of the line with their upper works ablaze in several places. The four stately battles.h.i.+ps at the head of the line had then to face the concentrated attack of the enemy. The ”Orel” was suffering like her consorts. Though her armour was nowhere penetrated, the sh.e.l.ls burst their way into her unarmoured superstructure, and reduced everything on her upper decks to tangled wreckage. Five minutes after the ”Ossliabya” sank a sh.e.l.l wrecked the after-turret of the ”Suvaroff,” tearing the after-bridge to pieces with the flying fragments. Her steering gear was temporarily disabled, and she drifted from her station at the head of the line. One by one in quick succession the heavy steel masts and two huge funnels crashed down. The upper deck was impa.s.sable from end to end. In the midst of the confused wreckage handfuls of brave men fought the fires with buckets as they broke out now here now there. Most of the guns were silent. ”She no longer looked like a s.h.i.+p,” says a j.a.panese account.
When the ”Suvaroff” swerved out of the line at a few minutes before three o'clock her steering gear had been disabled, and probably for a few minutes before the crisis she had not been answering her helm. The course of the fleet, while she led it during the fight with the j.a.panese armoured fleet, had been due east, but, as she lost her direction, it turned slightly to the south. When she drifted away from the line the ”Imperator Alexander III” became the leading s.h.i.+p. Captain Buchvostoff, who commanded her, led the fleet in a circle round the disabled ”Suvaroff,” first running southwards, increasing the distance from the enemy, and then sweeping round as if trying to break through to the northward. Togo followed on a parallel course until the Russian fleet seemed to be going due south, then he signalled an order, and, as accurately as if they were performing a practice evolution at manoeuvres, his twelve s.h.i.+ps turned simultaneously through half a circle, thus reversing the direction and changing the order of the fleet so that the last s.h.i.+p in the line became the leader. As the Russians swept round to the north Togo was thus ready to cross their bows, and the ”Alexander” received the concentrated fire of several s.h.i.+ps.
She turned eastwards, followed by her consorts in a straggling line, and then drifted out of her place at the head of it, leaking badly, and with her upper works ablaze. On a smoother sea the ”Tsarevitch” had been hit once below the armour belt on 10 August.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RUSSIAN BATTLEs.h.i.+P 'OREL'
_Taken after the battle of Tsu-s.h.i.+ma, showing effects of j.a.panese sh.e.l.l fire_]
The ”Borodino” now had the dangerous post at the head of the line. It steamed eastwards for nearly an hour, followed by Togo on a parallel course, the j.a.panese fire only slackening when fog and smoke obscured its targets, and the fire of the Russians dwindling minute by minute, as gun position after position became untenable or guns were disabled and dismounted.
Long before this the divisions of protected cruisers under Admiral Dewa and his colleagues had worked round to the southward of the Russians. Dewa and Uriu, with their swift s.h.i.+ps, were in action by a quarter to three. The slower s.h.i.+ps of Takeomi and the younger Togo's squadrons, united under the command of Rear-Admiral Kataoka, came into the fight a little later. In the heavy sea that was running the light cruisers afforded a less steady platform for the guns than the big armoured s.h.i.+ps, and their fire was not so terribly destructive. But it was effective enough, and that of the Russian rear s.h.i.+ps was hopelessly bad. The j.a.panese cruisers drove the transports and their escort, in a huddled crowd, north-eastwards towards the main Russian fleet. The great wall sides of the German liner, now the auxiliary cruiser ”Ural,” were riddled, and the giant began to settle down in the water. The cruiser ”Svietlana,” hit badly in the forepart, was dangerously down by the head. The transports ”Kamschatka” and ”Irtish” were both set on fire, and the latter was also pierced along the water-line. She sank at four o'clock. The ”Oleg” and ”Aurora” were both badly damaged. But the j.a.panese unarmoured cruisers did not escape scathless. Dewa's fine cruiser, the ”Kasagi,” was badly hit below the waterline, and was in such danger of sinking that he handed the command of his squadron over to Uriu and, escorted by the ”Chitose,” steamed out of the fight, steering for the j.a.panese coast. Togo's old s.h.i.+p, the famous ”Naniwa Kan,” was also hit below the water-line, and had to cease firing and devote all the energy of the crew to saving the s.h.i.+p.
At five o'clock the Russian fleet, battles.h.i.+ps, cruisers, and transports, were huddled together in a confused crowd, attacked from the eastward by Togo and Kamimura with the heavy squadrons, while from the south the line of light cruisers under Uriu and Kataoka poured a cross-fire into them.
Away to the westward lay the disabled and burning ”Suvaroff” with the Russian naval flag, the blue cross of St. Andrew on a white ground, still flying from a flagstaff in the smoke. The admiral had been twice wounded, the second blow slightly fracturing his skull, and making it difficult for him to speak. Her captain, Ign.a.z.ius, had been simply blown to pieces by a j.a.panese sh.e.l.l while, after being already twice wounded, he was directing a desperate effort to master the conflagration on board. The decks were strewn with dead, the mess-deck full of helpless wounded men. Most of the guns were out of action, but a 6-inch quick-firer and a few lighter guns were kept in action, and drove off the first attempt of the j.a.panese destroyers to dash in and sink her. Still there was no thought of surrender. The few survivors of her crew fought with dogged Russian courage to the last. A torpedo destroyer, the ”Buiny,” taking terrible risks, came up to her, hung on for a few moments to her shattered side, and succeeded in getting off the wounded admiral and a few officers and men.
Rojdestvensky sent a last message to Nebogatoff, telling him to take over the command and try to get through with some part of the fleet to Vladivostock.
About half-past five some of the Russian s.h.i.+ps struggled out of the press, led by the burning ”Borodino,” with the ”Orel” next to her. In the straggling line battles.h.i.+ps and cruisers, armoured and unarmoured, were mingled together. The ”Alexander” had succeeded in stopping some of her leaks and had rejoined the line. She was near the end of it. The ”Ural,”
deserted by her crew, was drifting, till one of Togo's battles.h.i.+ps sank her with a few shots.
The Russians were now steering northwards, and for the moment there was no large s.h.i.+p in front of them. The j.a.panese could have easily headed them off, but Togo now regarded them as a huntsman regards a herd of deer that he is driving before him. The j.a.panese squadron steamed after them at reduced speed, just keeping at convenient range, the heavy s.h.i.+ps on their right, the light squadrons behind them. At first the armoured s.h.i.+ps concentrated their fire on the ”Alexander.” Sh.e.l.ls were bursting all over her, and throwing up geysers of water about her bows. Then the merciless fire was turned on the ”Borodino.” A few minutes after seven the ”Alexander” was seen to capsize and disappear. A quarter of an hour later there was an explosion on board of the ”Borodino.” Next moment a patch of foam on the waves showed where she had been. About the same time a division of torpedo-boats came upon the unfortunate ”Suvaroff,” torpedoed her, and saved some of the crew, who were found floating on the water after she sank.
As the sun went down, and the twilight darkened into night, the firing died away. What was left of the Russian fleet was steaming slowly into the Sea of j.a.pan, some of the s.h.i.+ps isolated, others holding together in improvised divisions, all bearing terrible marks of the fight, some of them still on fire, others leaking badly.
Togo had been hit during the fight, but it was only a slight bruise. The losses of his fleet had been trifling. Of the armoured s.h.i.+ps the only one that had been badly hit was the ”Asama.” She was struck by three sh.e.l.ls aft near the water-line, her rudder was disabled, and she was leaking badly.
She left the fighting-line for a while, but was able temporarily to repair damages, and rejoined later in the day.
At sunset Togo ordered his squadrons to steam north-eastward during the night, and unite at sunrise at a point south of Matsu-s.h.i.+ma or Ullondo Island. They were to keep away from the Russian s.h.i.+ps in the darkness. The victorious admiral was about to let loose his torpedo flotillas, to complete the destruction of the flying enemy, and meant that his torpedo officers should have no anxiety about hitting friends in the dark.
He had with the main fleet twenty-one destroyers organized in five squadrons. In the bays of Tsu-s.h.i.+ma nearly eighty torpedo-boats had been sheltering all day. The destroyers had been directed to pursue and attack the beaten enemy during the night. No orders had been given to the torpedo-boats. The sea was going down, but it was still rough, and Togo had doubts about risking the smaller craft. But without orders, sixteen groups of four boats each, sixty-four in all, got up steam and sallied out into the darkness.