Japanese Fleet’s Damages.
The Japanese flagship, Matsushima, went through the battle without any particular harm for a considerable while, when one of the Chinese ironclads fired a 12-in. common shell at her, which hit her, making a big hole. It went in and wiped out practically the entire battery, disabled two or three guns completely, and exploded some spare ammunition. Altogether 100 men were killed or wounded by that one shell, and she had to be hauled out of action. When that 12-in. shell hit, the majority of the men were in working dresses, in cotton things and so on, and a great many of them were men with beards, and a Japanese officer who was on board the ship at the time tells me that every single one of these men with cotton dresses was set on fire, and all the men with beards and long hair also had their beards and hair set on fire, and were rushing all over the ship, whereas several officers, who happened to be in serge uniform near by, were comparatively little hurt. The ship was set on fire to a certain extent, but a few buckets of water very easily put the fire out.
This ship was also hit by a 10.2-in. shell a little earlier in the action. It hit her torpedo-room, glanced up, and knocked up against the barbette; but as the shell was loaded with cement its burst did not do very much harm.
The second ship in the Japanese line was the Chiyoda. She was also hit by a 12-in. shell, but that was another cement or coal-dust shell, so did not burst. It went through just above the belt. Had it hit the belt it ought to have sunk her; above, it simply made a large hole through and went out again, and the ship was none the worse; there was not a single man killed or wounded.
The Naniwa was hit by an 8.2-in. on the water-line, which went into the coal bunkers, but it did no particular harm there. The shell was afterwards picked up and pieced together, and a photograph taken of such sections as were got. Twenty-seven pieces were recovered, and they say there must have been a great many more. But that 8.2-in. shell practically did no harm whatever to the ship. The coal bunkers acted very efficiently.
In the Itsukushima there were shells in the torpedo-room, but none of the torpedoes exploded—if there were any there with war-heads, which is rather uncertain. There was also a shell in the engine-room, which, curiously enough, did no harm.
The Hashidate had a 6-in. shell burst right up against the barbette of a big gun, which was not hurt at all by it.
BATTLE OF YALU:
THIRD STAGE.