Chinese Fleet’s Damages.

The Chinese flagship was an ironclad of 7000 tons displacement, the Ting Yuen. The first thing that hit her was a big ricochet which flew up and knocked the mast, carried it over the side, and killed all the men in the fighting-top. She was peppered all over by the Japanese, and hit something like 300 times, the result of the 300 hits being 14 men killed and 25 wounded. She was set on fire practically continuously all through the action. As soon as one fire was put out she was set on fire again in another place; but the Chinese managed to get these fires out without any bother, and no harm was done to her that way.

The second principal Chinese ship was the Chen Yuen. She was hit 400 times. The photograph of her in dock is how she appeared shortly after the battle. The funnel was peppered over everywhere. All the men in the fighting-tops were killed. The fore 6-in. turret was hit; it is only about an inch thick, and this shell went through and killed or wounded the gun’s crew, but did not hurt the gun. The only gun that was disabled at all in the battle was one of the 12-in., and it appears to have been disabled by something very big—probably one of the Japanese 12.6-in. shell hit the barbette of the ship, and the concussion upset the training gear of the guns in some way. Nothing could be done with them for about ten minutes. After that they were got in working order and fired again: This ship was also set on fire all over the place, but was perfectly able to fight when the battle was over.

The Chen Yuen had on board her the famous Captain McGiffin, who wrote a great deal about his adventures in the fight. He was an American, who was usually described as commander of the ship and as having fought the battle. He was photographed against the hits in a desperately wounded condition, but afterwards it was surmised that he was not blind to dramatic effect. His narratives can hardly be accepted as historical evidence, save in a general way.

The next ship of interest at the battle of Yalu was the Elswick cruiser, Chih Yuen. She is described in most accounts of the Yalu as having very gallantly charged the entire Japanese fleet, attempting to ram; a tremendous fire was poured into her till she went down, and there was an end of her. According to Japanese officers, what really happened was that at an early stage in the action her steering-gear got disabled; she was simply wandering about unable to do anything. She was simply a cloud of white smoke drifting along. The Takachiho, one of the Japanese cruisers, had a 10-in. gun. She waited until the Chih Yuen was within something like 400 yards, when they could not miss, then let drive with this 10-in. They did not attempt to pick out any particular part of the Chih Yuen; they simply fired “into the brown.” They hit her somewhere rather high up near the funnel; there was a tremendous cloud of white smoke, which became red, and when that cloud went the ship was gone. There is no idea that any magazine was hit, or that there was any ammunition on deck to account for it, and the favourite theory of the Japanese officers is that this particular hit upset her stability in some way and did the finishing touch, and thus caused her to capsize.

[Sketch by a Japanese Officer.

SINKING OF THE KING YUEN ([p. 139]).

Opposite is a sketch by a Japanese officer of the sinking of the King Yuen, which was a small Chinese ironclad. There is a great deal of mystery in all the histories as to how that ship really did go down. The Japanese account of it is that “she was on fire, and apparently the fire could not be put out; she began to roll very much indeed—first very heavily over one way and then very heavily over the other way; she continued rolling like that, and one time she rolled and did not come back.”

She had a sister ship, the Lai Yuen. This ship was set on fire at an early stage of the action, and the Chinese apparently did not trouble to put the fire out. The consequence was it got a large hold and burnt every scrap of woodwork in the ship. But the extraordinary thing is that her people managed to go on fighting. Of her deck nothing was left but twisted beams. The ship was nearly white-hot, and a number of men got roasted to death in her; but she was still in fighting condition when the battle ended. Probably only Chinamen could have fought in such conditions.

The Ching Yuen was set on fire, but not badly hit in any way.

There were two other Chinese ships lost, the Tchao Yung and the Yang Wei. These were set on fire at a very early stage, and most of the accounts that we hear of the danger of fire in action are based upon these two particular ships. It appears that their captains were economical men, who liked to make a little money; so when the ships were painted they did not scrape off the old paint, and as the ships were about twelve years old the paint got very thick. Moreover, as they found kerosine cheaper than linseed oil, they mixed the paint always with kerosine. The ships, therefore, were of a somewhat inflammable nature. When they got hit, the men trying to put the fire out got hit also, and the ships were then simply left to blaze away. That is the true cause of most of the fire scares that happened just after Yalu.

The Chinese shell were very defective indeed. They had very few shell with any charges; nearly all they had to fire with were solid shot or cement shell, the very worst possible thing for firing at cruisers with; and this fact that they had no good shell must, perhaps, account for the survival of the Japanese fleet. For although just after Yalu the Japanese said that their shooting was 15 per cent. and the Chinese 10 per cent., they have since stated that the Chinese hits were something like 25 per cent. and their own about 12 per cent., and they say that in the early stages of the battle the Chinese never missed a single shot with their big guns—they hit every ship that they fired at; and they describe them as being some of the best gunners in the world—that these No. 1 Chinese gunners were born shots; but gradually, as the battle went on, the Japanese 3-pounders and machine guns playing on the Chinese ships took off the heads of those men, and they were replaced by other men who were not such good shots, and this went on until, towards the end of the battle, practically no hitting at all was done by the Chinese. But in the early part of the fight their shooting was very good indeed.

BATTLE OF YALU:
FOURTH STAGE.

The Japanese in their fleet had three enormous guns, each of 66 tons, which would penetrate something like double the thickness of any armour opposed to them. Only one of those guns seems to have been in a condition to fire. In the excitement of the battle the Japanese got something wrong with the gear, and had to manipulate them by hand; and the consequence was that two of those guns fired about once each, and the third once an hour. It is unfortunate that these guns did not secure at least one fair and square hit—the data of it would have been extremely valuable.

After the battle of Yalu the Chinese ships were patched up. The Tche Yuen, which had already taken part in the battle of Asan, took part in Yalu, but was then knocked about and ran away. Although she had been so badly hit in the battle of Asan, when she was doing the strategical movement at the rear, she only took eight days to patch up, and she was then able to go out to sea again. After Yalu she was very quickly got ready once more.

The first conclusion one is forced to is that penetration does not seem to have done anything in this battle. Where a gun was matched against some very inferior armour, it went through and smashed it up, but wherever the armour that it ought to penetrate was anything like equal to the gun, the result was failure.

The second point is the astonishing amount of hitting that all these ships seem to have been able to stand. There are many cases of quite little ships that in theory one single shell would finish, but it has taken five or six shells to disable them at all, and in a week or two they have been fit to go out fighting again. The Saikio-maru, and the way she was hammered and still managed to go on fighting and remain in a fairly good condition, is a particular case in point. Although the upper works may be knocked about and splintered, and so on, it does not seem much good splintering the upper works and making a mess of the ship unless there is a gun near it, and somebody to be disabled. Now, this conclusion is dead against the “moral effect” theory. It is almost a gospel that if the upper works are shelled enough the crew somewhere else will get demoralised. I do not believe it; they will not in a modern war be aware of it. I think this point should be laid to heart and thought over by those who have 6-in. guns to attack ships with. To do harm, they must fire those guns with all the intelligence they can bring to bear.

On the other hand, it is well to remember, as in the case of the King Yuen and Chih Yuen, that hits in the upper works caused the loss of these ships by affecting stability, so far as can be gathered in the absence of the hulls now at the bottom of the Yellow Sea.

[Official photo.

ON BOARD THE TING YUEN AFTER
THE SURRENDER AT WEI-HAI-WEI.

A third point is, that the danger from fire in action is grossly exaggerated. As to the Japanese, they one and all say that they had no trouble with fire at Yalu. They have not entirely done away with woodwork in their ships. Following the fashion set by the Germans, they have done away with a fair amount, but their ships are by no means without wood, like German ships and others which have not been in action—though even Germans are now reverting to a certain amount of wood. The Japanese say that they had buckets of water standing round; the men ran to the buckets of water, and the fire was under. The Chinese had exactly the same system, and they had no trouble till about the end of the action, when they got demoralised, and then the fire began to get headway. Hose pipes seem to have always been untrustworthy, too liable to be holed by splinters. Wet sand proved excellent. It may be noted that hits on the sea near the ships deluged all the exposed parts of ships at Yalu with water. The loss of life was returned as follows:—

Details (official) of the losses are:—

JAPANESE.
Killed. Wounded.
Officers. Men. Officers. Men.
Matsushima 2 33 5 71
Chiyoda 0  0 0  0
Itsukushima 0 13 1 17
Hashidate 2  1 0  9
Hi-yei 3 16 3 34
Fusoo 0  2 2 10
Yoshino 0  1 2  9
Takachiho 0  1 0  2
Akitsusu 1  4 0 10
Naniwa 0  0 0  1
Akagi 2  9 2 15
Saikio 0  0 1 10
Total 10 80 16 188
CHINESE.
Killed. Wounded. Drowned. Total.
Ting Yuen 14 25 39
Lai Yuen 10 20 30
Chen Yuen  7 15 22
Ching Yuen  2 14 16
Tche Yuen  3  0  3
Ping Yuen  0 12 12
Kuang Chi  0  2  2
Chih Yuen ? ? 200 200
King Yuen ? ? 200 200
Tchao Yong ? ? ?
Yang Wei ? ? ?

During the battle both the Tche Yuen and Kuang Chi ran away. The first reached Port Arthur, and her captain was beheaded; the other ran ashore at Talienwan, and remained there till she was found on the 23rd by the Naniwa and Akitsushima, which destroyed her. The Yang Wei was finished by a spar torpedo on the 18th.

The remaining Chinese ships reached Port Arthur without adventure, and “victory” was celebrated by the draping of all guns, save those of the Tche Yuen, in red. They refitted very slowly.[25]

The Japanese, on the other hand, kept the sea, repairing ships—except the Matsushima—in secluded bays. The least damaged cruisers watched Port Arthur and Wei-hai-wei.

On October 20th the Chinese were all repaired, and went to Wei-hai-wei, whence Admiral Ting meanwhile cruised aimlessly; but no action took place, and on November 7th he returned to Wei-hai-wei. Here the Chen Yuen ran ashore while entering harbour, and did not get off for three weeks. She was not repaired till the middle of January, a great hole in her bottom having to be mended. This was done with cement.

Meanwhile the Japanese, ignoring Ting, concentrated efforts on Port Arthur, the Lao Tung Peninsula being invaded while the Japanese fleet lay blockading the enemy in Wei-hai-wei. On the 20th he returned to Port Arthur, leaving a few cruisers to watch Ting, and the rest of the fleet took part in the fighting there.

The fleet was in four divisions:—

I.
Matsushima. Itsukushima.
Hashidate. Chiyoda
II.
Fuso. Hi-Yei.
Takao. Yayeyama.
III.
Yoshino. Naniwa.
Akitsushima. Takachiho.
IV.
Two divisions of 5 torpedo boats each,
and some gunboats inshore.
[This fleet moved parallel with the army on
shore, and occasionally shelled the Chinese.]

On the 21st the fleet steamed past the harbour entrance, about seven miles out. They then detached the Chiyoda, which went to Pigeon Bay, and shelled Port Arthur at extreme range till 4 p.m.

At that time the Chinese fired at the fleet without result, till a heavy squall came on, in the midst of which the torpedo boats rushed the harbour. Excellently manœuvred, they got in untouched, and shelled the disorganised Chinese in the town. Outside, the Japanese soldiers were carrying fort after fort, the defence being poor, as the Chinese grew panic-stricken.