1959-02-28 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY

.........and a day's history is recorded by

a monocled Briton in a deck-chair

(Contd, from Page 6)

ly when they picked him up, bat made no viher protest as they carried him towards the steel door.

"Go carofully through here, there isn't much room," do Calunguo ondered.

It was impossible to edge his big body through without

wrenching his limbs, and his Jacket was ripped when it caught against a jugged edge of metal..

But it was easier when he just consciousness and went limp in their arms, and they were able to hurry along a cleared path inrough the narrow gangway between the turrois and the side of the upper battery to the bow 'embrasure.

Up at the bows a Ettle group of curious bluejackets, hanging about like idle spectators at an nccident, had gathered to see off their admiral-ll with blackened hands and faces and forn uniforms, and many with Luvall undressed wounds,

"What are you staring at?" Midshipman Werner von Kursel Shoutelt angrily. Kursel was na unpopular youth, He had been

the bult of many jokes. He was to be one of the ship's herocs. He Began directing the little destroyer Bulny around from the Ice Elde, where the flames shot put dangerously, shouting instructions

captain through megaphono,

to her

Human chain

It was a dreadfully hazardous operation. The sens were all running high; the sides of the Suvoroff were a mass of jagged, ripped iron plates, smashed gun barrels and broken torpedo net Looms; and the first shells were already falling from tho Japanese armoured cruisers.

Von Kursel ordered a group of men to climb down over the side, helding on to what evee projections they could find, ond by failering them- selves Brainst the ship's plates, to form a human chule down which Rozhest- vensky could be rolled.

The operation had to be Umed to a split second. Standing on the embrasure above, with his legs wide apart and the mega- phone at his lips, von Kursel waited until the moment before the destroyer began to rise, u towards the Suvoroff on the roll. "Not yet, stendy, here she comes," he shouted above the screeching of fron hull against huil... "Now-let him gol"

At once the waiting sallors released their admiral over the side, and his long, limp body tumbled away, half-feiling, halt- reiling over the bluejackets' hacks into the walling arms ou the Buiny.

'I shall stay...

A few of the parly with Rozhestvensky went with him into the already crowded des- troyer. The faithful Clapier de Colongue WOB stili at his master's side.

From ship to ship

they carried their wounded admiral

VICTOR AND VANQUISHED: Admiral Togo at Rozhest- vensky's bedside, "There is no dishonour in defeat," he said.

Borodino

with a head' wound, was the Just to give an opinion,

"Yesterday we did our duty, air," lic told Nebogatoff, "Today we are no longer in a condition to fight. There is nothing for it but to surrea der." It was the first time the word had been spoken. It deelded the issue,

It took some time to fad a iable-cloth large enough to net as surrender flag, and even when this was raised the Japanese gunners scored more hits and killed a number of men before the fire ceased.

1939.

RUSSIAN SAILORS struggis in the water while Japanese torpedo.boats presa home their attack.

declined Into a coma; and two hours inter his tiny forca was found by a group of Japanese destroyers.

The Groznyl increased speed, and then reduced it again as 'kt became apparent that the carrying Rozhestvensky making no attempt to escape.

Only when the admiral's ship hoisted a flag for parley did the Groznyi turn away to make good her own escape.

The Bedovyl, like the Groznys,

have could

outstripped the pursuers

avoided and

tho humilation of surrender.

The victor

It was Clapler de Colongue's loyal devotion to his C.-in-C for which he was to pay dearly,

that decided otherwise..

correctness.

The reckoning

Veroneye, "looking

would be heard from him after

the two private courts of inquiry. into the surrender of the Bedovyi with himself on board, and Nebogatoffs capitulation— had been heard,

But at the courts moral of second-in-command, the

feat with shame," he told him. On the morning of May 30 "We fighting men suffer either the Bedovy, with Rozhestvensky way, win or lose. The only still aboard, was towed into question is whether or not we Nebogatoff's do our duty. During the battle Barcho harbour. irbuclads were already there, your men fought most gallantly. ship tled up against the harbour wall, and I admire them all and you You performed was each with the Japanese flag in particular.

Doelt your great lask becoleally unit his fying at the masthead.

workers were yard

already you were incapacitated. I pay captains of the captured iron- elads, and his own staff, that clearing the rubble from their you my highest respects."

resulted from these investiga decks.

tions, Rozhestvensky insisted on But Rozhestvensky did not

appearing, first as a witness and see them; he was still lying. unconscious below decks.

On August 28 Rozhestvensky then as one of the accused.

In a brief but highly dramalle For several days after he was left hospital and was carried in carried

ut ashore

Rozhestvensky stood Sasebo. a rickshaw to the quayside in hearing,

he loyally by | his harbour, where

subordinates, - The Japanese had seen the

Rozhestvensky lay half-conscious Sasebo white cloth, but they could not

and in pain in a private word in embarked on a Japanese steamer accepting full responsibility for everything that had occurred at for Osaka. understand why four enemy

the naval hospital.

Tsu-Shima. "I was A month later he sailed for

in full As soon as he was off the ships, three of which appeared

danger list, surgeons operated home in the Russian merchant-

possession of my senses," he to be in fighting trim, should

en him, removing the sliver of man

claimed when the prosecuting give up without firing a shot.

counsel attempted to pass the For them the net of surrender

He knew that the vibration bone from his broken skull, and vigorous," an observer reported.

Tho wiinesses who have declared did not exist; there was no word of the ship at full speed would by the end of the first week in though he has grown thin from blame on to his staff. for it in their service.

be certain to kill his master, if June it was clear that his sturdy hardships and worries. But the "It was utterly beyond our the enemy his

constitution had won and that docior says that is a trifle: his that I was delirious are mis- મમ shells expectations," Togo wrote later. succeed in doing so.

he would soon be convalescent. nerves aro bron, and they will taken." We had opened fire with the

A few days later Admiral sustain him so that he will out- But in spite of all his efforts, strongest

Clapler de Colongue, too, had determination

Toro

calted

it was he who was acquitted, 1071 hion to live us l in dimculty persuading the Annihilate them at once, but all enemy that the fight was over.

apologise for the somewhat It required only a single call while Nebogatott and Clapier do in vain,

in It really was

the at the Russian Admiralty to Colongue, who behaved through- spartan conditions the The St Andrew's ang ut the strangest occurrence, and western had to be hauled

hospital and the absence of make clear to him his future out with dignity, were sentenced down, were astonished and somewhat and the sirens set to send out

comforta due to such a role. He was to be the scape to be shot. disappointed."

Zinovi Petrovitch Rozhest- distinguished patient."

goot, д Ecapegoat to bo

survived for a further a continuous high-pitched wall

Sitting at Rozhestvensky's bed- treated gently, bearing in mind vensky of distress before the Japanese side, the dignified little man his rank and the wide know four years in retirement. He gunners at last ceased fire,

died on January 14, 1909. Then

boat manned by now more than ever the object ledge he possessed of the work- Д But it was true enough, On Japanese bluejackets was rowed of adulation in his country ing of the Higher Naval Board.

Rozhestvensky

THE END It was a cold, dour morning:

attempted also to console bim. decks of the Orgol there were

quietly The men were dead tired, the

the Russlan railors, in their at top speed, the destroyers. There is no need for a warrior retired on a tenerous pension,

od commander, Leutenant Ayiba, to associate an honourable do and it was hoped that no more Copyright: Richard Hough 1259 maximum speed of the ships dirty uniforme, was seven knots, and the shelter ragged rows, Hike herds of tired, standing croct at the stem. or Vladivostok harhour was grey sheep calmly awaiting still more than three hundred their fate. miles away.

Lo

blew up with a One of the Japanese com tremendous eruption that left manders discovered only a black cloud broading over astonishment only 20 dead and the place where she had been. some 40 wounded on a battle- But for the cruisers under ship with a complement of 900, Admiral Enkvist, the story was the decks of which wero a different.

shambles of twisted Ironwork, At first light on the second day of the battle, Admiral Nebogatoff in the Nicholas I. found himselt leading the Oryol, two of his old const-defence ships and the Izumrud in a grey, choppy sen,

Enkvist's nerver succumbed to the shattering noise and the bewildering sights of the sea battle. He was over- whelmed by it all.

Amazement

And

New flagship

to

His fast light cruisers were supposed to be looking after the transports at the rear of the column. Buy at one stage when the Japanese opened desultory long-range fire, Enkvist's ships were disposed in tight, huddled formation surrounded by sercen of the vessels they were supposed to be protveling,

They received more damage from one another than from battered Russian contingent

Somehow the Buiny's captain Japanese shells.

was surrounded by the might of managed to drive his way north ward in the darkness through Enkvist claimed that several the Japanese Navy, apparently the swarming Japanese torpedo- times he tried to break through undamaged and In Impeccable the Japanese battle line (though formation for the final illling beats, and at dawn, just as hils engines were faltering and his this was long after the Japanese battleships had left the area and

fuel running low, he chanced on three of the few Russian ships

They handed over to their torpedo

fi boat, cruiser Donskoy destroyers Groznyi and Bedovyl, making their way north towards Vladivostok at full speed,

Rozhestvensky spont a feverish, restless night in the nd 5 am. smudges destroyer Buiny, lying in a bam- appeared on the horizon. These mock slung in the commander's grew in size and number until cabin, by nine o'clock the shaken,

Craft).

"I therefore decided to make But von Kursel stayed aboard for Mantia," continued Enkvist's "Aren't report blandly. There, peaceful the doomed battleship,

gnominious internment de f shouted

awaited him, his crews, and his

you

coming???

L'olongue

"No, sir,” he called back, ships. shall alay by the ship." He was The only

unwounded officer board: one

midshipman in command of a hundred or so bluejackets and one 75 mm. Ku.

The Suveroff went down at

„seven that evening blaai

by zone torpedoes are her simultaneously. No Uscaped. A few minutes later, the workshopship Kamchatka, which had strayed by chance to within a mile or two of her flagship during her last minutes, exploded and followed her to the bottem.

The Alexander III went down Buon after the flagship,

The

Throughout the fleet the pic ture was a confused patchwork of herolem and cowardices

The ironclads Monomakh and surrendered at Sisoy Veliy dawn without firing' shot, while the Oushakoff was fought to a blazing wreck,

Surrender...

"What is the enemy's range?" the Flag Nebogato usked Gunnery Omeer standing beside him. Already the first Japanese shells were "faling, sending up tall fountains in the sen along- side.

"Twelve thousand yards, sir, There was not a Russian gun

The

wero and

the the

not

He had his sword sheathed when he leaped on board the Bedovy), and for one moment the crew lined up on deck feared the worst.

do Colongue.

But the lieutenant was con~ cerned only with the rudle serial; with quick stashes ha tore it down, and then turned to

"Arc you the

captain?" he asked in English. "I am now la command of the ship."

The only one among the staff with a knowledge of Japanese, explained

his that amang prisoners there was an admiral the commander-in-chief of the moment before the lieutenant, Russian force, but it was a could be made to understand.

Vico - Admirai Razhestvensky

cant little vessel? Lieutenant his prisoner? In this insignift- oriental colm พอง utterly shattered. "Where is your admiral?" he demanded,

**UL the commander's cabin he was told. "But the aft" surgeon says he must on no account be disturbed."

The captain asked Rozhest- vensky much improved In strength and spirit, to which of the vessels he wished his flag Ayiba's to be transferred. left that could shoot above

admiral chose the 11,000 yards. It was clear that the Japanese, with a long day Bedovyl, which was undamaged before them, could continue to sad hud sufficient coal to carry fire on them at leisure and in her to Vladivostok,

Carefully Rozhestvensky was complete security.

carried up Tere Iron

- rflimona-in

turn Nebogatoff put the ques tion, "What are we to do?"

#

stretcher and lowered over the side into a boat and taken

„Bledovzi.

Ch

regarded as weak and ineffectual by their men went down firing

A 12-inch shell exploded with their ship's last workable gun.

Crews with good

good records and force then thei who had given the C-in-C. pmidships; the old battleship

•

FOUR D. JONES

"I won't disturb him, gentle-

the anxious staff officers, "but at least I must have a look at him? Having satisfied himself, There he gave the order to Lieutenant-Ayiba leti e guard on the door and returned to his

little trouble on the voyage, shivered from stem to stern as steam for Vladivostok. crumpled at the first broad- another crashed on the deck alde "and concealed them aft. selves to avoid duty on the upper deck."

'ANEW POSTER NOW JUST LOOK AT US-WHAT A

SHOCKING STATE THAT ADORYS THE WALLS

OF THE 1984 STATE JONES BLOKE HAS GOT US TIMES HAVE CHANGED INTO NOW-RUN BY FEMALE

WOMEN AND WOMEN RYLE THE

ROOST

BIG BERTHA

FERDINAND

Captain Smirnoff, who had Iain all night in the sick-bay

HOWEVER, THE FROLES ARE NOT ALONG IN THEIR SUFFERING.

It was his last command. own ship with de Colongue and Before he could bo carried the rest of the statt. The whole 10 baye his wounds operation was carried out with below dressed again, he more speed, efficiency and the utmost

once

by MADDOCKS NOW, I'M OFF TO THE WOMENS GUILD.

DON'T YOU FORGET WHAT YOU HAVE

DU'RE SO RIGHT, IFMYOLD WOMAN KASS MEKUCH (MORE,ILL BE A FIRM

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"NOVY I LONOW!" WHY NO MAN EVER RETORNED FROM ROOM (01.

Jour

STOP THAT MOVING TO YOURSELF AND GET ON WITH THOSE DISHES. YOU HAVE A LOT MORE

WORK TO DO YET,

MY BOY

By Mik

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