THE OREL.

Northland Age, Volume VI, Issue 3, 6 September 1909, Page 2

THE OREL.

AN EPISODE OF THE BATTLE TSUSHIMA. ! The following, which is a passage iin the Earl of Ronaldshay *s new ! hook, "A Wandering Student in the , Far East," is an episode of the na--1 val battle in the Straits of Tsushi • | nia, when Admiral Togo, the Nelson J <>f the Japanese, inflicted more than I a Trafalgar upon his Russian anta--1 gonist. One of the latter's vessels was the Orel. Lord Ronaldshay 1 writes ‘■'The last act played by the Orel j in the passionate drama of the Sea lof Japan has been painted in lurid | colours by eye-witnesses or the scene !—a scene which portrays in all its ! ghastly horror the hideous reality of : modem war. "A third of the crew lay dead or j wounded, the cries of the mutilated and the dying rose shrill above the j storm of shot and shell until human 1 nerves broke down under the terrible | ordeal, and panic aud demoralisai tion reigned supreme, j "Down into this frenzy of human I suffering and despair came the calj lons order from the conning lower—- | ’ Dispose of the wounded ' : "The order was ruthlessly obeyed. , ’ The work (in the words ofl u Japa- | nese eye-witness) was carried out j principally by petty -officers, and no I mercy was shown. Men were picked |up and cast into the sea like so | much useless ballast. . . "The scenes that preceded the i capture of the battleship were inriej scribable, the sea being dotted with j wounded men struggling to keep j afloat.' " | "This is one ot the things that has ! not been "generally ipaused in England," any mom than the fact of j "how Immensely superior is the j Japanese Navy ot to-day to the fleet ! which achieved such memorable suecesses in the late wui"Chroni-