Late in the afternoon the fire became extremely heavy. The Germans seemed to be making sharp resistance to the Japanese, lest they advance within the quarter-mile zone of the redoubt walls. The Japanese infantry, however, were sapping away, and as dusk settled over the field we saw the bright flash of bursting shrapnel from the German forts. It was the first shrapnel sent out by the Germans during the siege.
Ten, twelve, fifteen, and sometimes even twenty shrapnel shells could be counted bursting at one time, all in a straight line, over the Japanese front line, and then the big German searchlights would flash about the field. They would fall on fifteen or twenty Japanese sappers on the top of their trenches placing sandbags, and then the flash would disappear.
Thursday, Nov. 5, seemed only a repetition of what we had seen the day before. All night long the firing kept up, and it was evident that the German garrison at Tsing-tao was making stubborn and gallant resistance.
That night the Japanese forces advanced 200 yards under a heavy shrapnel fire from the Germans. A snowstorm, followed by rain, had filled the trenches with water a foot deep, and it was in these that the Japanese and British forces found themselves during the closing days of the siege.
Friday, Nov. 6, was a bitter morning. A forty-mile gale was blowing off the Yellow Sea, and with the thermometer at 2 below zero it was not any too comfortable, even for those of us who were fortunate enough to get near a charcoal burner.
Toward midnight Gen. Yamada, whose men were intrenched in front of Forts 2 and 3, sent out a detachment to learn the condition of the German garrison opposing him. The men approached the redoubt walls of the forts, climbed ten feet to the bottom, and found themselves face to face with wire entanglements twenty yards wide and running the length of the wall. No Germans were seen. Reinforcements were called for while the scouts were cutting the entanglements. At 1 A.M., Nov. 7, Gen. Yamada with more than 300 men was behind the redoubt walls of Fort 3.
In the meantime, heavily protected on all sides by planks and sandbags, a detachment of 200 Germans with machine guns was watching the approach of Gen. Barnardiston's men, who had been stationed to the right of Gen. Yamada. The Germans were unaware that the Japanese had gained the wall, when suddenly a sentry heard Japanese voices. The signal was given and the Germans rushed from their sandbag houses into the shadow of the wall, hoping to reach their comrades, stationed 500 yards back along the casement walls. Some, perhaps, reached their destination, but the majority of the men were shot down by the Japanese infantry.
The capture of Forts 2 and 3 by Gen. Yamada was quickly reported to Gen. Horiuchi, and within an hour his men had captured Forts 4 and 5 with very little resistance. Gen. Johoji, on the extreme left, with Gen. Barnardiston of the British force, also advanced with the news of the capture of the positions, but the Germans put up a stubborn resistance, and it was not until 6:30 A.M. that the attackers gained the coast fort and Fort 1.
With the capture of the redoubt fortifications there still remained the mountainous forts, Iltis, Bismarck, and Moltke, a quarter of a mile back toward Tsing-tao. With detachments of engineers and infantrymen, Gens. Horiuchi and Yamada ordered the general attack. The men rushed from their trenches for the base of the forts. It was to be a hand-to-hand bayonet attack.
But two guns on the Iltis fort had already been silenced, the four big 28-centimeter mortars on the same fort were useless for use at the base of Iltis, while the other guns had been so placed and sandbagged at the rear of the fort that they could not be quickly brought forward and utilized for work along the steep slopes leading to the forts. Rifles and machine guns were resorted to.