The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-18
FEARFUL WORK OF HowIrznRs..
Japanese Artillery Compelled the Sur
 render of Port Arthur. tcabls Correspondence of the Associ-

render of Fort Arthur tcable Correspondence of the Associ-
 ated Pfess.l
 Headquarters Of the Japanese Army at Port Arthur. Ian. ,, via Tientsirl. Jan. 16.--When the Kwantung peninsu- Ia was bisected by the second Japanese army, the entire Russian force in tho military district of Fallen, which in- cluded Port Arthur and Dalny, was 35,0O0. The Russian force at the bat tie of Nanshan Hill was 4.O00. and 2,0O0 of these were lost. There have actu- ally surrendered at Port Arthur be- tween 5000 and 10000 soldiers and sailors, of whom many were unfit for duty. The sick and wounded number 16,O00. Fifty per cent of the officers of the garrison were killed and only twenty-eight (probably means. per oent) went through the siege un- scathed.
 The fortress could have held out for some time longer. but for the fire of the Japanese 11-inch Howitzers, which destroyed the food depots. the work shops and the ammunition stores and made the repair of the defensive works impossible.
 The last news received by the garri- son from General Kuropatkin was in the middle of October, when he said he had done his best to break through Japanese lines for the purpose of sue coring Port Arthur, but that he had not been successful
 A close examination of the main line of the defense of the west half of the eastern fortified ridges from East Kekwan Mountain to the destroyed Sunshu Mountain fort, where the Ja- panese infantry assaults and lombard ments were concentrated during the last days of the siege. demonstrated the tremendous effectiveness of the H. inch Howit2ers. The Chinese wall on the slopes, the battery positions upon the crest of the ridge and the captured guarding forts in the rear were liter ally torn to pieces by the heavy shells.
 It Is difficult to understand how the infantry remained in the trenches be- hind the Chinese walls, In which great breaches were made. The traversers and bomb proofs of the battery posi- tions on Eboshiyama. in the rear of East Rihlung Mountain fort "H." and the new Banjusan and Wantai Hill po- sitions In the rear of the Penlung Noun tain forts presented an awful scene. Not a single gun escaped damage by the Japanese bombardment
 In the crest of the ridge great holes were torn and the gun supplements were converted into heaps of debris.
  ed from their carriages down the ob- verse side of the hill by the shell fire. Between wantai Hill and "H" fort battery of 10-inch Howitzers had been placed, and every one of these guns was damaged while some of them were totally destroyed.
 One gun, which was evidently being loaded with shells, was in carrier ready to be put in a breach when
 aIN -l,F kEa carrier chain and exIA ded. The en- tire gun squad was killed by the ex- plosion and the gun was torn from It's position, while all around were the manvled remains of the gunners
 The efYect of this last bombardment of the siege proves to have been much greater than any one on the Japanese side imagined at the time. The garri- son made It's last resistance on Christ mas day against the Japanese infan- try which, by a spirited rush. captured Wantai Hill. At 2 o'clock on the fol- lowing morning the Russians explod- ed mines under the battery positions on the crest of the big East Kekwap forts These positions, wliich were well constructed of concrete. are now an awful wreck, strewn with broken guns and debris of all kinds Not vestige of the former works Is left and the entire crest of the hill, one of the most powerful battery positions Of the fortress. is now a complete wreck.
 The Japanese always maintained hat there was a strong Russian trench line in the gorge between the East Kek- wan and North Kekwan mountain forts. This they called "the ghost" trench because they could never find 1t, though hundreds of them were kill ed every time they attempted to do so. It Is now evident. however. that there n@rar was a trench line at this point