INFERNO OF BATTLE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2416, 23 March 1915, Page 5

INFERNO OF BATTLE

SCENES ON THE DOOMED BLUCHER VIVID PEN PICTURE The following article (published by the London "Times") was written by a correspondent who has had the opportunity of talking with many of the wounded from the Gorman cruiser Blucher, which was 6unk in the recent engagement in the North Sea: —

Tlio fight bewail at 9 o'clock (German time) precisely. The stoker said so, and ho knew because he heard the shot as he went on duty. The British ships were away on the horizon, 6ome 15 or 16 kilometres distant, when they started to fire. Shots came slowly at first. They fell ahead and over, raising vast columns of waterj now they fell astern and short. Tlie British guus were ranging. Those deadly water spouts crept nearer and nearer. The men on deck watched them with a strange fascination. Soon .one pitched close to the ship and a vast watery pillar, a hundred metres high one of them affirmed, fell lashing on the deck. The range had been found. Dann aber ging's los! A Darkness That Could Be Felt. Now the shells came thick and fast with a horrible droning hum. At once they did terrible execution. The electric plant was soon destroyed, and the ship plunged in a darkness that could be felt. "You could not see your hand before your nose," said one. Down below decks there was horror and confusion, mingled with gasping shouts and moans as the shells plunged through the decks. It was only later, when the range shortened, that their trajeotory flattened and they toro holes in the ship's sides and raked her decks. At first they came dropping from the sky. They penetrated the decks. They bored their way even to the stokehold. The coal in the bunkers wa6 set on fire. S'inoe the bunkers were half empty the fire burned merrily. In the engineroom a shell licked up the oil and sprayed it around in flames of blue and green, scarrmg its victims and blazing where it fell. Men huddled together in dark compartments, but the shells sought them out, and there death had a rich harvest.

Tiie terrific air-pressure resulting from explosion in a confined space left a deep impression on the minds of the men or tho Blncher. The air, it would seem, roars through every opening, and tears its way through every weak spot. All loose or insecure fittings are transformed into moving instruments of destruction. Open doors bang to, and jamb— and closed iron doors bend outward like tinplates, and through it all the bodies of men are whirled about like dead leaves in a winter blast, to be battered to death against the iron walls.

There were shuddering horrors, intensified by the darkness or semi-gloom. As one poor wretch was passing through a trap-door a shell burst near him. He was exactly half-way through.' The trapdoor closed with a terrific snap. In one of the engine-rooms—it was the room where the high velocity engines for ventilation and forced draught were at work —men were picked up by that terrible Lnftdruck, like the whirl-drift at a street corner, and tossed to a horrible death amidst the machinery. There were other horrors too fearful to recount. One Continuous Explosion. If it was appalling below deck, it was tnore than appalling above. The Blucher was under the fire of so many ships. Even the little destroyers peppered her. "It was one continuous explosion,"' said a gunner. The ship heeled, over as the broadsides struck her, then righted herself, rocking like a cradle. Gun crews, wore so destroyed that stokers had to be requisitioned to carry ammunition. Men lay fiat for safety. The decks presented a tangled mass of scrap iron. In one casemate, the only one, as they ued to serve the gun. They fired it as Ued toserve their gun. They fired it as the ship listed, adapting the elevation to the new situation. Yet through it all some never despaired of their Eves. Others from the beginning gave themselves np as lost. The disaster came upon them so suddenly that few had time to anticipate their plight or to realise it when it came.

The Blucher had run her course. She was lagging lame, and with the steering gear gone was beginning slowly to circle.' It was seen that she was doomed. The bell that rang the men to church parade each Sunday was tolled, those who were able assembled on deck helping as well as they could their wounded comrades. Some had to creep out through shot holes. They gathered in groups on deck awaiting the end. Cheers were given forthe Blucher. and three more for the Kaiser. "Die Wacht am Rhein" was sung, and permission given to leave the ship. But some of them had already gone. The British ships were now silent) but their torpedoes had done their deadly work. A cruiser and destroyers were "at hand to rescue the survivors. Tho wounded Blucher settled down, turned wearily over, and disappeared in a swirl of water.