A deplorable and tragic disaster has befallen the Japanese Navy.
The 'Mikasa,' Admiral Togo'a flagship, which was anchored at Sasebo, took fire at midnight on September 10th, and, the magazines exploding within an hour, went to the bottom with nearly six hundred officers and men. It is a noteworthy fact that not one of the three battleships lost by the Japanese was destroyed in battle, the Hatsuse ' and Yushima ' having both been sunk by floating mines. But the loss of the Mikasa ' has an added tragedy in that she bad gone right through the war without serious mishap, though struck three times by shells in the battle of August 10th, 1904, and had been at sea without putting in for repairs during the whole of the blockade of Port Arthur. Mr. Seppings Wright, who twice spent some time on the Mikasa ' during the blockade, gives an interesting account in Wednesday's Daily Mail of life on board, com- paring the ship's company to "one large family," of which Admiral Togo, "always worried but never impatient," was the father. To find a parallel one must go back to the sinking of our own Royal George,' the great and sole redeeming dis- tinction in this case being that Admiral Togo was not on board his ship at the time, though probably he himself would have wished it otherwise.
Previous page
