Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XV. October
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OCTOBER 181
shot was fired, being directed against the Russian
battleship Peresviet, lying in the west harbour.
The fifth shot was successful. The fire was next
turned against the forts on the eastern ridge.
The range here was also speedily found, and the
effect seemed most satisfactory. The huge shells
came sailing in a large curve, so slowly that we
could easily follow their flight if we stood behind
the guns ;
on striking, they threw up an immense
cloud of dust and smoke, and it appeared as if it
would not be a very difficult task to smash up the
forts altogether with these powerful shells. The
Japanese were very pleased, as well they might
be. Their practice had been excellent, and, from
all they could observe, their calculations seemed
to prove correct.
During the following days, when several more
of the ii-in. howitzers were mounted, the bom-
bardment with these big guns increased, as each
of them had to find the exact range for the dif-
ferent positions of the enemy. Several of the war-
ships were hit and damaged, and after a few days
the Russian fleet took refuge under Paijushan
hill, where they were out of sight from any part of
the Japanese lines. The bombardment evidently
told on the forts also. Their walls crumbled under
the reiterated heavy blows, and, with tons of earth
thrown up for every shell that struck, it seemed
as if it could only be a question of time when the
strong forts would be reduced to huge, shapeless
mud-heaps, where nothing could live and where no
serious resistance could possibly be offered when
the psychological moment arrived for an infantry
advance.
The largest and strongest of the forts on the
eastern ridge was Erhlung, the “ Double Dragon.”
It was a newly completed structure, of nearly
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