V. I. Semenov

“ After six months with the Port Arthur squadron I had grown indifferent to most things. Shimose and melinite were to a certain extent old acquaintances, but this was something new. It seemed as if these were mines, not shells, which were striking the ship’s side and falling on the deck. They burst as soon as they touched anything—the moment they encountered the least impediment in their flight. Handrails, funnel guys, topping lifts of the boats’ derricks, were quite sufficient to cause a thoroughly efficient burst. ”

“ The next shell struck the side by the centre 6-inch turret, and there was a tremendous noise behind and below me on the port quarter. Smoke and tongues of fire leapt out of the officers’ gangway; a shell having fallen into the captain’s cabin, and having penetrated the deck, had burst in the officers’ quarters, setting them on fire.
And here I was able to observe, and not for the first time, the stupor which seems to come over men, who have never been in action before, when the first shells begin to fall. ”

“ The Ural and Almaz were swift, but had only toy guns. Besides, each moment we were expecting to meet our formidable opponent, when every gun and shell would be of value. If the issue of the battle were to be decided by a duel between our three armoured squadrons and the twelve best Japanese ships, the whole of the rest of the enemy’s fleet would fall to the lot of our cruiser squadron. A struggle for which we must indeed reserve our strength! Rozhdestvensky decided accordingly to ignore the Idzumi’s daring sally, and sent no one in pursuit of her. ”

“ We all waited, holding our breath, watching the Japanese fire, which was apparently concentrated on the Alexander. At times she seemed completely enveloped in flames and brown smoke, while round her the sea literally boiled, throwing up great pillars of water. Nearer and nearer she came, till the distance was scarcely 2,000 yards. Then—one after another, we saw a whole series of shells strike her fore-bridge and port 6-inch turret, and turning sharply to starboard she steamed away, having almost reversed her course, while after her went the Borodino, Orel, and others. ”

“ Few who read his account of the heroic signalmen “standing silently and outwardly calm,” unwilling to go below the armoured deck, wishing only for orders, and feeling “themselves indispensable to the fight,” will be inclined to accept the recent theory that partly-trained and half-disciplined men are fit to find a place on board ship in modern naval war.
Upon a correct understanding of the lessons of Tsu-shima the expenditure of millions of public money and the efficiency of the Navy in the near future must mainly depend. ”

“ Why is it that until the signal has been actually hauled down every one looks at it, silently and intently, as if real words, instead of motley-coloured pieces of cloth, were fluttering in the breeze, and becoming wet with rain? ”

“ Even if the Almighty did bring us through all this, what was beyond?—the meeting with the Japanese fleet which from Tsu-shima could always come out across our course while our fleet would have already been harassed in the Straits by torpedo-boats as well as every conceivable type of mine.
“Gentlemen—Gentlemen! let me speak!” exclaimed the first lieutenant and senior navigating officer, Zotoff, who was always fond of discussions and liked making his voice heard. “It is quite clear that the best course for us is up the eastern side of the gulf of Korea. ”

“ The boatswain and some sailors were at work on the embrasure, sweeping144 overboard the burning débris which had fallen from the spar-deck above. Lying off our starboard bow, and some three or four cables distant, was the Kamchatka. Kamimura’s cruisers were pouring as heavy a fire into her as into us, but she was an easier victim.
The Buiny kept close alongside, dancing up and down. Her Captain, Kolomeytseff, shouting through his speaking trumpet, asked: “Have you a boat in which to take off the Admiral? We haven’t!” To this the flag Captain and Kruijanoffsky made some reply. ”

“ We can take it that the night has passed all right. Up to the present we haven’t been discovered. They are still calling each other up, and now, even though they do find us, it’s late. It will be daybreak in a couple of hours. Even if their torpedo-boats are near us, they won’t be able to collect. Besides, how can they find us in weather like this? Look! you can’t even see the rear of the fleet! It’s 200,000 to 1 against any one running into us accidentally! But I don’t like the breeze. It’s freshening. Let’s hope it won’t break up the mist. ”

“ There are no spare men on board a warship, and a reserve does not exist. Each man is detailed for some particular duty, and told off to his post in action. The only source which we could tap was the crews of the 47 millimetre, and machine, guns, who from the commencement of the fight had been ordered to remain below the armoured deck so as not to be unnecessarily exposed. ”

“ Later, in the hospital, when carried there on a stretcher, I understood why it is that during a fight one hears neither groans nor shouts. All that comes afterwards. Apparently our feelings101 have strict limits for receiving external impressions, being even deeply impressed by an absurd sentence. A thing can be so painful that you feel nothing, so terrible that you fear nothing.
Having passed through the upper and lower batteries, I descended to the mess deck (under the armoured one) , to the hospital, but I involuntarily went back to the ladder. ”

“ Togo may tell off some of his smaller mining vessels to go there, but he, with his main force (I would even go so far as to say with the whole of his fleet) —where will he be? No, I will put another question: Where ought he to be? Why! nowhere else but off the northern point of Tsu-shima. He can gain nothing by loitering about at sea, so he will be lying in some bay.”
“In Mazampo, for instance?” asked Sub-Lieutenant Ball, the junior navigating officer.
“Mazampo—if you like—but let me finish. It is childish to hope that the21 Japanese main fleet will be out of the way. ”

“ Firstly:—If we have already been discovered, or are discovered in the course of the day, we shall certainly be subjected at night to a series of torpedo attacks, and in the morning shall have to fight the Japanese fleet, which will be unpleasant. Secondly:—If we are not discovered till to-morrow we shall be able to commence the fight at full strength, without casualties, which will be better. ”

“ More than ninety years have elapsed since the British Navy was called upon to fight a great fleet action, and meanwhile technical progress of all kinds, advancing by giant strides, has opened out new possibilities tending toviii bewilder the imagination and to invite mistakes and impolicy.
Even when, as now, valuable war experience is available, there is always a risk of false deductions. Conditions differ so greatly that generalisations based upon special episodes may be misleading and even dangerous. ”

“ Of the gun’s crew two lay huddled up in a curious manner, while one sat motionless, staring with wide-open eyes, holding his wounded side with both hands. A gun captain, with a worried, business-like look, was extinguishing some burning cloths.
“What are you doing here?”
“I want to go to the conning tower.”
“Why? There’s no one there.”
99 “No one! What do you mean?”
“It’s a fact. Bogdanoff has just passed through; he said it was all smashed to pieces—had caught fire, and they’d abandoned it. He went out just as the bridge fell in—right on to me—I wasn’t touched—lucky!” ”

“ And now, far ahead of us in the distance, could be dimly seen approaching through the mist the Japanese main force. Their ships were crossing our bows from starboard to port, following on an almost south-west course. The Mikasa, as soon as she crossed our bows, at once altered course to the southward,49 followed by the Shikishima, Fuji, Asahi, Kasuga, and Nisshin.
Meanwhile, though the flag-ship was already being worked from the conning tower, Rozhdestvensky was still standing with his staff on the upper fore-bridge. ”

“ A chance shot struck the hatchway, and when the smoke cleared away neither ladder, nor Commander, nor men with him, were in existence!
But even this bloody episode did not damp the men’s ardour. It was only one in a hundred others.
In the lower battery where, owing to insufficiency of hands, fires momentarily126 became more numerous, men came, and work went merrily. Of the ship’s officers, besides Bogdanoff, there came Lieutenant Vuiruboff, junior torpedo officer, a robust-looking youth, who, in an unbuttoned coat, rushed about everywhere giving the lead, while his shout of “Tackle it! ”

“ My readers who are landsmen will not realise all the danger of what we were to attempt, but sailors will easily understand the risk. Kolomeytseff brought his vessel alongside and to windward of the mutilated battleship, out of whose battered gun ports stuck her crippled guns, and from whose side projected the broken booms of her torpedo-nets.27 Dancing up and down on the waves the torpedo-boat at one moment rose till her deck was almost on a level with the embrasure,149 then rapidly sank away below ”

“ Running along the fore-bridge I almost fell, slipping in a pool of blood (the chief signalman—Kandaooroff—had just been killed there) . I went into the conning tower, and found the Admiral and Captain both bending down, looking out through the chink between the armour and the roof.
“Sir,” said the Captain, energetically gesticulating as was his wont, “we must68 shorten the distance. They’re all being killed—they are on fire!”
“Wait a bit. Aren’t we all being killed also?” ”

“ Part of the shield over the port gun had been torn off and bent upwards, but the turret was still turning and keeping up a hot fire.
The officer commanding the fire parties71 had had both his legs blown off and was carried below. Men fell faster and faster. Reinforcements were required everywhere to replace casualties, even at the turrets into which splinters could only penetrate through the narrow gun ports. The dead were, of course, left to lie where they had fallen, but yet there were not enough men to look after the wounded. ”

“ Times without number we had hotly16 discussed the question,—would we meet the whole of the Japanese fleet at Tsu-shima, or only part of it?
Optimists asserted that Togo would be misled, and would patrol to the North to look out for us, as the Terek and Kuban had on the 22nd gone round the eastern shores of Japan endeavouring to attract as much attention there as possible.9
Pessimists declared that Togo was as well able as we were to understand the conditions, and would know that a single coaling was not sufficient to enable us to steam all round Japan; we should have to coal again. ”

“ The enemy’s fleet having turned sharply to starboard, bore off to the east, and in its place was a group of torpedo-boats, which now surrounded us in a semicircle from the north, east, and west. Preparing to receive their attacks from astern, our cruisers, and we after them, gradually inclined to port,—and then bore almost direct to the west—straight towards the red sky. ”

“ In all wars, whether by sea or land, some few general lessons stand out unmistakably; but the difficulty of arriving at a just estimate of the relative significance of the causes which have led to victory or to defeat is always extreme. ”

“ Torpedo-boats astern! To the guns!” was shouted on deck.
It was easy to say, “To the guns!” but of the twelve 12-pounder guns in the lower battery only one, on the starboard side, was now serviceable, and there was no chance of using it. The torpedo-boats carefully came up from astern (according to the Japanese, this was about 4.20 P.M.) , but in the light gun battery aft (behind the ward-room) there was still one uninjured 12-pounder. ”

“ Instances could be multiplied, and theix obvious moral is the vital necessity for the most careful study by the clearest available brains before translating any so-called lesson of war into national policy. In a single year a navy of the magnitude of our own may be committed to many millions of expenditure, the result of which will affect its fighting efficiency for nearly a quarter of a century. ”

“ This is how a Japanese report describes her last moments:
“In the dusk, when our cruisers were driving the enemy northwards, they came upon the Suvoroff alone, at some distance from the fight, heeling over badly and enveloped in flames and smoke. The division (Captain-Lieutenant Fudzimoto) of torpedo-boats, which was with our cruisers, was at once sent to attack her. ”

“ This being so he can easily calculate that, if we steam round Japan, deciding in the face of our knowledge to brave the mines before meeting him, it would still be possible for him to intercept us on the road to Vladivostok, if, at the same time as we come out of the ocean into the Straits, he starts from ... Attention, gentlemen! ... from the northernmost point of Tsu-shima. There is no doubt20 that arrangements have been made to organise a defence of the Straits by mines. The naval ports of Aomori and Mororan are on either side. If any one doesn’t know it he ought to be ashamed of himself. ”