The Battle of Kin-chau.

Manawatu Herald, 17 September 1904, Page 3

The Battle of Kin-chau.

(From the London Times War Correspondent.) The right wing of Oku’s army occupied Kin chan early on the 27th, and meanwhile the gunboats, preceded by a flotilla of torpedo craft,! slowly felt their way into Kin : chau Bay to a nearer range than they had occupied on the preceding day. They had to advance with extreme caution, as there was every reason to apprehend that the bay was mined. General Oku allowed bis men but a brief respite after the leading division had captured Kin-chair His field artillery was massed on the lower spurs of Mount Sampson and in the plain south east of Kin chan, and the fire concentrated on the two Russian works between which the railway passes. But a far more deadly prenaration was In store for the Russians. By continuous sounding the gunboats had been able to work right round past the left rear of the foremost Russian works, and to open a searching shell fire upon the defences they thus unmasked. The little torpedo craft also, creeping in to an annihilating range, fiilled the reverse of the Russian works with rapid fire from their spiteful six-pounders. The inferno of shell fire can well be imagined. But it was not yet a one-sided struggle, and from dawn till dark the Russian, grim and dogged, held his own. And what a mark the Russian gunners had ! It is doubtful, with perhaps the exception of Omdurman, whether the gunners ever had an easier target than was given to the Russians that day. Out in the blue bay the black hulls of the gunboats, and on the isthmus three divisions—that is, between 30,000 and 40,000 and men—were moving southwards across the narrow span. Forty thousand inen massed over six square miles, for Kinchau is only four miles from the summit of the Russian position and is under two miles across. So narrow is it that the stress of the advancing Japanese front pressed the flank battalions into the sea, so that men with their rifles held horizontally on their shoulders were wading chest deep in the water. Two peaks and a rib of hill rise athwart the Kin-chan isthmus. This was the sole cover afforded to the Japanese army. Behind this the leading division massed. About noon, according to the evidence of the officers of the gunboats, two half-battalions of the Ist Regiment of Infantry debouched from the cover of the peaks and the fire of the supporting artillery redoubled. It was to be an attempt to carry the nearest Russian work with the bayonet. Fifteen hundred yards had to be crossed, 800 down a slope to the deceptive cover of a miserable fishing village, and then a final 700, the gentle upward slope of the Russian glacis. Down the slope the line of glistening bayonets swept. Then there crashed the dreaded roll of small-arm fire. The Russian infantry had been waiting for the assault. Scourged, decimated, disordered, the forlorn hope reached the treacherous cover of the village. A moment to breathe, and to enable the officers to pick the line of advance, and then a brief struggle to win a way up the glacis. A gallant effort, a few brave souls butchered in the toils of the wire entanglements, and the forlorn hope had failed had been annihilated, except for the paltry few who found safety amongst the crumbling walls of the fishing village. As the assaulting column melted away, the artillery preparation reopened with increased energy. And thur the afternoon passed into evening. Between the lulls in the prepartion, other desperate assaults were attempted. But, though the field artillery gave respite to the Russian defenders, the ships had no mercy for them. One one the vulnerable points in the line were searched out and rendered untenable. There is a limit to the amount of punishment that the best troops can sustain if the attack is from the rear as well as from the front. That limit will be reached much sooner when the troops have already suffered bombard* ment, as had the Russians in Port Arthur. Just before nightfall the limit came. A heavier assaulting force from the 4th Division found that it could face the diminished fire of the defenders. It struggled up to the entanglements and the abattis. Fresh lines of gleaming bayonets joined. /Ihe chating qplumns of infantry behind it were let loose. The great shout which precedes victory broke out from 10,000 throats, and in a great glittering wave the bayonets were into the nearest work. It was all over. _ The Russians broke and fled’ The Kin-cbau heights were won,