224
[9th witness Yeung Yat-bei.]
26-
658. I am asking during the night time. You obviously could not see the lighthouse
at night? At night I could not see the lighthouse.
659. Did you see the light? Yes.
660. Was it the light or the reflection of the light in the sky? I saw the reflection
in the sky, not the light itself.
661. When you started fishing that morning on the 22nd were you fishing in a pair
with another junk? Yes, sir.
662. And what was the name of the junk master of the other junk? Chan Kau was
the master of that junk.
663. Whilst you were fishing that morning did you notice anything unusual happening?
No.
664. How long did you go on fishing that morning? We had been fishing for about
three hours only.
665. Yes, and then why did you stop fishing?
junks and fired at the junks.
Because a steamer came towards the
666. About what time was this? Are you asking about the time when they opened fire? 667. Yes. About 9 a.m.
668. What was the first thing that you noticed about the steamer as you call it? First my attention was drawn to the firing of the guns and I then saw fishing junks being hit.
669. Now, which was the first fishing junk you saw being hit?
Some of the fishing junks were very far away. There were about ten fishing junks altogether, and which was first hit I cannot say, At least Chan Kau's junk was hit. 670. How far away was this steamer when you first saw it? I did not see this vessel
until I heard the firing of a gun,
671. How far was she away? Very far away.
672. And then, did she come nearer? Yes, drawing nearer and nearer.
673. And how near did she come to your junk? She was at a distance of the length
of our coil of rope.*
674. Will you tell us comparing it with the distance of our
fifteen times the length of this court.
court here?
About
675. Chairman: When you first saw her? More than that when I first saw her. 676. Mr. Whyatt: This fifteen times the distance of the court, is that the nearest
distance she came to your junk? That was the nearest she came. 677. Have you ever seen a vessel that looked like this before? Never before. 678. Can you describe to us what sort of ship it was? That steamer was like a sub-
marine.
679. Why do you say it was like a submarine? Because I had previously seen
submarines and they look exactly the same.
680. Where have you previously seen submarines? One could always see such kind
of vessel going in and out of the harbour.
681. Did you see any men aboard this submarine? I did not pay any attention
to see if any men were on board.
682. What did you do then? She was coming along and I was sailing away and
later my junk was hit.
683. Why were you sailing away? We tried to escape.
Length of a Chinese coil is roughly 400 fathoms.
27
[9th witness Yeung Yat-hei.]
684. Why did you want to escape? We were afraid she might fire at us. 685. What made you think she might fire at you? Because I saw several junks had
been hit.
686. Did she fire at you? Yes.
687. How many shots? Three shots.
688. Just tell me when the shots struck your junk, what happened? Did the shells go right through your junk or did they make a noise and explode? Whether the shots went through the hull of the junk I cannot say, but it made a hole in the hull of the junk because the water came in.
689. Chairman : Was that the first shot fired or the second? When the second
shot was fired water came in through the hole made by the shot.
690. Mr. Whyatt: Do you know whether the shell exploded into fragments when it hit your junk? I was in the hold: I did not see that. It made a noise like an explosion-boom. I did not see it explode.
691. Was that noise made before the shut struck your junk or after it struck your junk? One firing made two explosions. When the shot left the gun it made an explosion-boom-and later on it made another explosion.
692. Was the second one very loud? The first was like this-boom-and, then a louder
one (witness indicates the sound of splintering wood).
693. Mr. Whyatt: What happened after those three shots had been fired? The bow
went down first.
694. Chairman : How many shots struck your junk? Three.
695. What about the other two, did they strike you too? Yes, all three. The first shot hit our junk, but the water did not go in so quickly. Directly after the second shot hit us the water poured in very quickly.
696. Mr. Whyatt: After your junk started to settle down at the bow, what did you
do? I ran to the stern, as also did the others; we ran aft.
697. And then what did you do? As the ship was going down we went on to a
sampan.
698. Did all the crew get into the sampan? Yes, all the crew got into the sampan. 699. Chairman : How many were there? I think altogether 22 went into one sampan. 700. Mr. Whyatt: Did you do anything to your mainsail before your junk sank?
No, we did not do anything to the mainsail at all before the junk sank. 701. Before this firing started you had your sail up, hoisted? Yes.
702. When the shell struck your junk was your sail still hoist? The submarine opened
fire after we had lowered the sail,
703. Why did you lower the sail? Because I was afraid if we did not lower the sail before the firing we would get hit. And if we got hit the junk might swerve on one side.
704. After you lowered the sail did you cut it from the mainmast? As the ship was
sinking we severed the sail from the mainmast.
705. What was the object of doing that? Because I was afraid that the sampan might
sink also; we could then hold on to the mainsail.
706. What happened to the mainsail eventually, after the junk had sunk?
floating.
707. Did any of your crew get on to the mainsail? Most of them got on
mainsail.
708. Chairman : From the sampan? From the sampan to the mainsail.
It was
to this
709. Mr. Whyatt: Was the sampan tied up to the mainsail in any way? Yes, that
sampan was tied up to the mainsai!.
710. When these shots struck your junk did they injure any member of your crew?
Three fokis got wounded.
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