EXPLOSION ON TEE MATSUSHIMA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9107, 5 June 1908, Page 5

EXPLOSION ON TEE MATSUSHIMA.

FULL DETAILS. BRAVE JAPANESE. RECKLESS COOLNESS. Received June 4, 10.6 a.m. SYDNEY, June 4. The "Herald's" Hongkong correspondent supplies the following particulars in connection with the explosion in the after magazine of the Japanese training ship Matsushima, which visited Australia a year or two ago:— The cruiser was off the Pescadores at 4 o'clock in the morning. Nearly all were asleep on board the Matsushima. After the magazine exploded, and within five minutes, the bow rose and she went under water in a smother of foam. "Of 461 officers and men, only 3 officers and 236 men escaped. "A bluejacket whose duty it was to strike the hours on the ship's bell, noticed a thiri wreath of smoke from the deck near the magazine, and at the same instant smelt a peculiar odour. He ran to the officer on duty, who hurried down towards the magazine, asking for a light. Thoroughly alarmed, the sailor ran for a lantern, calling out 'Fire! Fire!' As he reached the fifth gun there was a deafening explosion, and a choking rush of smoke and fumes. He crept on with difficulty to the upper deck, over which the water was already coming. "The rooms occupied by the midshipman were blazing furiously, and the after-part of the cruiser was enveloped in smoke and flame. Explosions followed one another in rapid succession. "Amid volumes of flame and smoke aft, the bodies of officers and man were seen to be blown up into the air, some to a height of a hunderd feet. "The magazine was situated just below the rooms of the junior officers which were surrounded by the senior officers' quarters. The cadets were on the second deck, and the bluejackets amidships. "So terrible was the explosion that the stern was smashed and every officer in the stern killed, a surgeon, a lieutenant (who was in a lavatory), and two officers who were on shore remaining as the representatives of the Matsushima's officer?. "The cadets behaved with coolnnss amounting almost to recklessness. Most of them scorned to fight with friends in order to escape on deck, and quietly awaited results. "If the cadets displayed stoicism, the bluejackets showed a grim exaltation which is probably peculiarly Japanese. "The explosion threw the sailors in the middle 6f the ship out of their hammocks. As they scrambled on to their feet fumes and water rushed in. The stench of gunpowder was suffocating. "Some of the Japanese placed handkerchiefs to their mouths and waded to the portholes. These portholes enabled a few to escape but the water rose so rapidly that me majority were drowned or suffoi ated. "In the few moments sailors shouted a Jspanese war song, and the survivors neard two loud 'Banzais!' then a third one, a faint, hardly perceptible cheer. "After that the cruiser sank. The terrible swiftness of the disaster prevented sufficient help being rendered."