Whatever was intended, the Chinese boats made no attack on the Japanese cruisers; escape was their only objective. Only two succeeded in getting away.
On the night of the 4th the third torpedo attack was made. The boats went in in three divisions of four each, though only the second and third divisions went in—the first being employed to create a diversion at the western entrance.
The eastern boats crept in slowly, in a cold so intense that an officer and two men were frozen to death. Two boats (8 and 21), their steersmen frost-bitten, grounded as they tried to enter.
By four o’clock a boat had got quite near the Chinese, and fired two torpedoes without result; a second boat was no luckier with three. Not till then did the Chinese open fire, and this boat ran ashore immediately afterwards.
CELEBRATING SURRENDER OF THE CHINESE
FLEET, AT THE NAVAL CLUB, TOKIO.
Two more boats collided in the confusion, another had her boilers burst, yet another was badly hit. Only one boat came out unscathed. As mentioned further on in “Personal Characteristics,” the real truth of the attack has never been known, and never will be, save vaguely.[27]
Its result, however, is well known, the battleship Ting Yuen was hit in the stern and sank in the mud, where she lay with her upper works above water and guns still firing.
Throughout the 5th the bombardment continued unabated, and though no harm was done, the ceaseless worry told heavily on the Chinese.