The staff of the Coast-commander at once hurried to Fort Hu-Chuin-Huk; and I also followed in my motor-car.
Still under the impression of the terrible spectacle of the bombardment, we were most surprised on our arrival to see the whole garrison merrily tearing round, collecting splinters and admiring the huge craters which the enemy shells had dug in the ground.
What luck! Not a man wounded, not a gun injured, not a hit on the bomb-proof rooms!
The whole result of the heavy bombardment amounted to a broken biscuit-tin and a soldier’s shirt, which was hanging out to dry, and was torn to shreds! It was strange to think that 51-and 30½-centimetre guns were used to such purpose!
A heavy shell had passed clean through the thin steel turrets, and lay peacefully near the gun on the iron plates!
Now we learned the secret of our lucky hit—our guns had in reality only a carrying range of 160-100. But the gunners had with infinite pains succeeded in raising the gun several sixteenths of a degree higher, and so it carried 200 to 300 metres farther.
Having loaded the breech at its highest angle, the brave gunners and their gallant Battery-commander, Oberleutnant Hasshagen, had quietly stuck to their guns under the heaviest shell-fire, until at last one of the ships came within hitting distance. And the best of it was that it hit the right target! It is a pity that the Triumph ran away so quickly, otherwise she would not have escaped her fate on that day. But, for all that, it overtook her a little later.
What we could not achieve was accomplished in the spring of 1915 by our friend Hersing, when he, with his U-boat, sent this same Triumph to the bottom of the sea in the Dardanelles, thus avenging the garrison of Kiao-Chow. We owe him a debt of gratitude for this service.
Ties of sincere friendship bound me to the officers and the garrison of Fort Hu-Chuin-Huk.
I did not really belong to them, for in the first place my aerodrome lay close to the fort, and, in the second, they regularly watched my start, and, above all, my endeavours to get clear of their guns. And more than once the men stood ready to jump into the sea and to save me, for they thought I was falling into the water with my machine.