Although the Japanese air fleet gave a good account of itself during the operations before Tsing-tau it developed no surprises, and accomplished no exploits to confirm rumors prevailing before the war that in Japan naval aviation had reached a special and advanced stage. The Japanese Flying Corps conducted itself upon lines made familiar by the British, German and French aviators in Europe.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER IX
BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES—ATTACKS ON TSING-TAU FORTS
Having reviewed the military and naval situation in the Far East at the outbreak of war, we come now to the beginning of actual belligerent operations.
Japan's declaration of war against Germany was dated August 23, 1914. The morning of the preceding day witnessed the departure from Japanese war ports of the greatest fleet of warships and transports the Empire had sent to sea since the Russian War. It comprised the Second Squadron, embracing battleships, cruisers, destroyers and hydro-aeroplanes, a dozen in all. The transports carried land forces numbering 22,980 officers and men and 142 guns to be put ashore as soon as the landing forces had ground for their advantageous location.
The Japanese troops included the Eighteenth Division, under Lieutenant General Mitsuomi Kamio, who was Commander in Chief of the expedition; the Twenty-third Brigade of Infantry (Major General B. Horiuchi); the Twenty-fourth Brigade of Infantry, commanded by Major General Hanzo Yamanashi, Chief of Staff, and other divisional troops. The Twenty-ninth Brigade of Infantry (Major General G. Joholi). Siege Artillery Corps (Major General Y. Watanebe), the Miyama Heavy Artillery Regiment, the Yokosuka Heavy Artillery Regiment, the Shimonosoki Heavy Artillery Battalion, and the Tadanoumi Heavy Artillery Battalion. Detachments of Engineers and Army Service Corps from the Sixth and Twelfth Divisions. Two Railway Battalions. Railway Guard Troops, the Eighth Infantry Regiment. Detachment of the Flying Corps. Marine Artillery Detachment. Being intended for siege work this army carried no cavalry, horse artillery or light field artillery.
In command of the fleet was Vice Admiral Hikonojo Kamimura, whose reputation as one of Japan's war idols was established when his squadron had defeated three Russian warships, the Rurik, Gromoboi and Rossia, off the east coast of Korea. Later his squadron had taken a commanding part in the great battle in the Japan Sea, which put an end to Russia's naval power in the East. Admiral Kamimura was sixty-five years old, and had spent the greater part of his life in naval service. After the final Russian defeat he was rewarded with the title of Baron and invested with the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun and the first-class of the Golden Kite.
On September 23, 1914, the Japanese were joined by a British force of 1,369 men under command of Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Walter Barnardiston, commander of the British forces in North China, including Wei-hai-wei. Although the British did not arrive until a month after the forces sailed from Japan, the distance that separated Laoshan Bay, where the former made their landing on the original leased territory and thus avoided the breach of neutrality against China committed by the Japanese, was so much shorter and the landing place presented so much less difficulty than the Japanese encountered in their preliminary advance, that the British really arrived on the scene of actual operations just as the Japanese were finishing their first engagements in force, on September 28, 1914.
Colonel Barnardiston's command consisted of 910 noncommissioned officers and men of the Second Battalion South Wales Borderers, and 450 noncommissioned officers and men of the Thirty-sixth Sikhs, besides nine staff officers.
The bombardment of the Tsing-tau forts began on August 26, 1914, and on September 1, 1914, the Japanese bluejackets seized several small islands in Kiao-chau Bay, which the Germans were unable to defend except by long range fire from their shore batteries, and by mines with which the harbor had been thickly sown. Mine sweeping therefore occupied the first activities of the fleet. This operation was signalized by one of the many acts of patriotism and bravery that characterized the siege on both sides. One hundred Japanese women who made their living by diving for pearls in these waters offered to enter the water and release the mines from their moorings so that they would be carried away by the tides. Their courageous offer was declined, not because the Japanese admiral believed it could not be carried out, but because the Japanese law expressly prohibited the employment of women in warlike operations. When one of the small boats that acted as mine sweepers was blown up during the dragging that followed the women renewed their offer, but again it was declined.