Famous Sea Fights, from Salamis to Tsu-Shima

by A. Hilliard Atteridge

BATTLE OF TSU-SHIMA
diagrams of movements during the fighting of may 27th

The first fair hit was on the side, abreast of the forward funnel. It sent up a "gigantic column of smoke, water, and flame." Then several men were killed and wounded near the fore-bridge, and then there was a crash beside one of the quick-firers, and, the shell bursting as it penetrated the deck, set the ship on fire. In the battle of 10 August the flagship "Tsarevitch," which had borne the brunt of the Japanese fire, had been hit just nineteen times, but now that the "Mikasa" and her consorts had got the range hit followed hit on the leading Russian ships. "It seemed impossible," says Semenoff, "even to count the number of projectiles striking us. I had not only never witnessed such a fire before, but I had never imagined anything like it. Shells seemed to be pouring upon us incessantly one after another.... The steel plates and superstructure on the upper deck were torn to pieces, and the splinters caused many casualties. Iron ladders were crumpled up into rings, and guns were literally hurled from their mountings. Such havoc would never be caused by the simple impact of a shell, still less by that of its splinters. It could only be caused by the force of the explosion.... In addition to this there was the unusually high temperature and liquid flame of the explosion, which seemed to spread over everything. I actually watched a steel plate catch fire from a burst. Of course, the steel did not burn, but the paint on it did. Such almost incombustible materials as hammocks and rows of boxes, drenched with water, flared up in a moment. At times it was almost impossible to see anything with glasses, owing to everything being so distorted with the quivering, heated air. No! It was different to the 10th of August!"

In this storm of fire there was heavy loss of life. A shell-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 ships, were all wrapped in black smoke from the fires lighted on board of them by the Chimose shells.

How was the Japanese line faring? I talked over his battle experiences with a Japanese officer not long after the day of Tsu-shima. 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 Japanese ships. "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 ships 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-shima gave startling proof of it.

Semenoff hoped that the Japanese were also suffering from the stress of battle. From the fore-bridge of the "Suvaroff" he scanned their line with his glasses. 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 shells and burning material. So he could distinguish everything plainly.

"The enemy had finished turning. His twelve ships 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 glasses (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 débris 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 shell 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 mass of roaring flame. Gun after gun was disabled. And all the while a glance at the Japanese fleet showed them steaming and firing as if at peace manœuvres, 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 Semenoff could only see what was happening in the front of the line, but the other ships were exposed to a heavy fire, and had less resisting power. The "Ossliabya," the fifth of the battleships, and Fölkersham's flagship during the voyage,[31] was the first to succumb. 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 shell started an armour plate on the water-line amidships, 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 shell 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 battleship ever sunk by gun-fire. Three of the destroyers picked up some of the crew who had jumped overboard.

As she sank, the three other ships of her division ("Sissoi," "Navarin," and "Nakhimoff"), under the stress of the Japanese fire, sheered for a while out of the line with their upper works ablaze in several places. The four stately battleships 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 shells burst their way into her unarmoured superstructure, and reduced everything on her upper decks to tangled wreckage. Five minutes after the "Ossliabya" sank a shell 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 impassable 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 ship," says a Japanese 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 Japanese 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 ship. 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 manœuvres, his twelve ships turned simultaneously through half a circle, thus reversing the direction and changing the order of the fleet so that the last ship 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 ships.