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Appendix 5.2. The Japanese Attack at Port Arthur, 8 February 1904
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IT SEEMS THAT EVERY secondary source in the English language gives different totals with reference to the number of destroyers and torpedoes in this attack. For example, according to the British Official History, Vol. 1, p. 47, the 1st Torpedo-Boat Destroyer Flotilla mustered the Akatsuki, Asashio, Kasumi, and the Shirakumo; the 2nd TorpedoBoat Destroyer Flotilla the Akebono, Ikazuchi, Inazuma, and the Oboro; the 3rd Torpedo -Boat Destroyer Flotilla the destroyers Sazanami, Shinonome, and the Usugumo. On p. 57, however, it states that the ten (not eleven) destroyers of these flotillas left Round Island for the attack, and on encountering Russian units outside Port Arthur the lead Japanese destroyer turned away to starboard while those astern “became separated from the leaders,” and that the three attacks numbered nine destroyers (p. 58). Warner, The Tide at Sunrise, p. 15, states that in the course of the approach to Port Arthur the Ikazuchi and Oboro collided but in the account of this action (pp. 16–17) gives the number of Japanese destroyers in formation as ten and the numbers as four and three for the first two attacks but no overall number. Westwood, Russia against Japan, p. 39, states that there were four attacks, the first two both by four destroyers, the third by “a stray destroyer (which) made an individual attack ,” and the fourth by “the final destroyer,” which had been damaged in a collision. Steinberg et al., The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective, Chapter Two: The Immediate Origins of the War, by David Schimmelpenninck van de Oye, p. 26, and Chapter 11: The Russian Navy at War, 1904–05, by Pertti Luntinen and Bruce W. Menning, p. 233, give a total of nineteen torpedoes being fired, the latter page citing five destroyers: these totals cannot be reconciled; all eleven Japanese destroyers carried two 18-in./457-mm torpedo tubes. Toyama, Nichiro Kaisenshi no Kenkyu—Senkiteki Kousatu wo Cyuushin toshite, p. 441, via e-mail from Kobayashi Go of 16 October 2006, indicates that the units and formations involved in this operation were the Akatsuki, Asashio, Kasumi, and the Shirakumo of the 1st Torpedo-Boat Destroyer Flotilla; the Ikazuchi, Inazuma, and the appendix 5.2. the japanese attack at port arthur, 8 february 1904 104 from port arthur to bucharest Oboro of the 2nd Torpedo-Boat Destroyer Flotilla; and the Sazanami, Shinonome, and the Usugumo of the 3rd Torpedo-Boat Destroyer Flotilla. Kaigun Gunreibu hen/ Naval General Staff history (written in 1909), Meiji 37–8 nen Kaisen Shi, Vol. 1, p. 77, states that the Akebono was involved in a collision with the transport Nikko Maru on 7 February and was unable to participate in this operation. The last matter that defies ready understanding is the fact that three Russian units, two 12,902-ton first-class battleships and a 6,823-ton first-class protected cruiser, should have been so badly damaged as a result of single hits by 18-in./457-mm torpedoes. One would acknowledge that underwater protection, compartmentalization, and damage-control arrangements at this time may best be described as being in their infancy, and given the lack of readiness of the Russian ships the fact that many doors must have been opened undoubtedly added to problems. But the fact remained that the Type 37 torpedo—which was installed in cruisers and destroyers as opposed to earlier types (such as the Type 32) that had been installed in pre-dreadnought battleships—was small. The Type 37 was 16.25 ft./4.97 m long and weighed 1,193 lbs./542 kg. It had a warhead of 198 lbs./90 kg and a maximum range of 1,100 yards/1,010 m at 28 knots or 3,300 yards/3.030 m at 15 knots. The point of comparison must lie with losses in the First World War, where major units, even dreadnoughts, were lost to either single torpedoes or mines. ...