Banzai! by Parabellum

by Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

The Americans had been able to distinguish, with a fair degree of certainty, that Kamimura's squadron consisted of the Shikishima, the battleships Iwami (ex Orel), the Sagami (ex Peresvjet), and Tumo (ex Pobjeda), all three old Russian ships, and of the two new armored cruisers Ikoma and Tsukuba. Then there were the two enormous battleships which were not included in the Japanese Navy List at all, and the two huge cruisers Yokohama and Shimonoseki which, according to Japanese reports, were still building, while in reality they had been finished and added to the fleet long ago.

The circumstances connected with these two battleships were rather peculiar. The report was spread in 1906 that China was going to build a new fleet and that she had ordered two big battleships from the docks at Yokosuka. This rumor was contradicted both at Pekin and at Tokio. The Americans and everybody in Europe wondered who was going to pay for the ships. The trouble is, we ask altogether too many questions, instead of investigating for ourselves. As a matter of fact, the ships were laid down in 1908, though everybody outside the walls of the Japanese shipyard was made to believe that only gunboats were being built. We have probably forgotten how, at the time, a German newspaper called our attention to the fact that not only these two battleships—of the English Dreadnought type—but also the two armored cruisers building at Kure ostensibly for China, would probably never sail under the yellow dragon banner, but in case of war, would either be added directly to Japan's fleet or be bought back from China.

And so it turned out. Just before the outbreak of the war, the Sun Banner was hoisted quietly on the two battleships and they were given the names of Nippon and Hokkaido, respectively; but they were omitted from the official Japanese Navy List and left out of our calculations. How Pekin and Tokio came to terms with regard to these two ships remains one of the many secrets of east Asiatic politics. The generally accepted political belief that China was not financially strong enough to build a new fleet and that Japan, supposedly on the very verge of bankruptcy, could not possibly carry out her postbellum programme, was found to have rested on empty phrases employed by the press on both sides of the ocean merely for the sake of running a story. There has never yet been a time in the history of the world when war was prevented by a lack of funds. How could Prussia, absolutely devoid of resources, have carried on the war it did against Napoleon a hundred years ago, unless this were so?

In the redistribution of our war vessels in the Atlantic and the Pacific after the return of the fleet from its journey round the world, the Navy Department had calculated as follows: Japan had fifteen battleships, six large new ones and nine older ones; in addition she had six large new and eight older armored cruisers. We have one armored cruiser and three cruisers in Manila, and these can take care of at least five Japanese armored cruisers. Japan therefore has fifteen battleships and nine armored cruisers left for making an attack. Now if we keep two squadrons, each consisting of six battleships—the Texas among them—off the Pacific coast and add to these the coast-batteries, the mines and the submarines, we shall possess a naval force which the enemy will never dare attack.

Japan, on the other hand, figured as follows: We have two squadrons, each consisting of six battleships, among which there are six that are superior to any American fighting ship; these with the nine armored cruisers and the advantage of a complete surprise, give us such a handicap that we have nothing to fear. As a reserve, lying off San Francisco, are the ironclads Hizen (ex Retvisan), Tango (ex Poltawa), Iki (ex Nicolai), and the armored cruisers Azuma, Idzumo, Asama, Tokiwa, and Yakumo. Besides these there are the two mortar-boat divisions and the cruisers sent to Seattle, while the armored cruiser Iwate and two destroyers were sent to Magdalen Bay. All that remained in home waters were the fourth squadron, consisting of former Russian ships, and the cruisers which would soon be relieved at the Philippines.

The enemy had figured correctly and we had not. The two battles of the seventh and eighth of May were decided in the first ten minutes, before we had fired a single shot. And would the Japanese calculation have been correct also if Perry had beaten Togo or Crane Kamimura? Most decidedly so, for not a single naval harbor or coaling-station, or repairing-dock on the Pacific coast would have been ready to receive Perry or Crane with their badly damaged squadrons. On the other hand, the remnants of our fleet would have had all the Japanese battleships, all the armored cruisers and a large collection of torpedo-boats continually on their heels, and would thus have been forced to another battle in which, being entirely without a base of operations, they would without a doubt have suffered a complete defeat.

Our mines in the various arsenals and our three submarines at the Mare Island Wharf in San Francisco fell into the enemy's hands like ripe plums. It was quite superfluous for the Japanese to take their steamer for transporting submarines, which had been built for them in England, to San Francisco.

Nothing remained to us but the glory that not one of our ships had surrendered to the enemy—all had sunk with their flags flying. After all, it was one thing to fight against the demoralized fleet of the Czar and quite another to fight against the Stars and Stripes. Our blue-jackets had saved the honor of the white race in the eyes of the yellow race on the waves of the Pacific, even if they had thus far shown them only how brave American sailors die. But the loss of more than half our officers and trained men was even a more severe blow than the sinking of our ships. These could not be replaced at a moment's notice, but months and months of hard work would be required and new squadrons must be found. But from where were they to come?

Only a single vessel of the Pacific fleet escaped from the battle and the pursuing Japanese cruisers: this was the torpedo-destroyer Barry, commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Dayton, who had been in command of the torpedo flotilla attached to Admiral Perry's squadron. He had attempted twice, advancing boldly into the teeth of the gale, to launch a torpedo in the direction of the Satsuma, but the sea was too rough and each time took the torpedo out of its course.

The badly damaged destroyer entered the harbor of Buenaventura on the coast of Colombia on May eleventh, followed closely by the Japanese steamer Iwate, which had been lying off the coast of Panama. Grinding his teeth with rage, Dayton had to look on while a Colombian officer in ragged uniform, plentifully supplied with gilt, who was in the habit of commanding his tiny antediluvian gunboat from the door of a harbor saloon, came on board the Barry and ordered the breeches of the guns and the engine-valves to be removed, at the same time depriving the crew of their arms. The Japanese waiting outside the harbor had categorically demanded this action of the government in Bogota. This humiliating degradation before all the harbor loafers and criminals, before the crowds of exulting Chinese and Japanese coolies, who were only too delighted to see the white man compelled to submit to a handful of marines the entire batch of whom were not worth one American sailor, was far harder to bear than all the days of battle put together. And even now, when Admiral Dayton's fame reaches beyond the seas and the name of James Dayton is in every sailor's mouth as the savior of his people, yes, even now, he will tell you how at the moment when, outside the Straits of Magellan, he crushed the Japanese cruisers with his cruiser-squadron, thereby once again restoring the Star Spangled Banner to its place of honor, the vision of that grinning row of faces exulting in the degradation of a severely damaged American torpedo-boat appeared before him. It is only such men as he, men who experienced the horrors of our downfall to the bitter end, who could lead us to victory—such men as Dayton and Winstanley.