Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-04-07
to him. and this before the catastrophe wAs
known to q soul.

known to q soul.
On board the Victoria persisted 1913 Off,
GERS and men. OF those who escaped alive.
Rear Admiral Jeiiicoe Is today director OF
naval ordnance. The Camperdown suf-
fered great damage in the collision. and.
had the weather been stormy, would prob
ably have gone down. too. The great fea-
ture OF this disaster was. however. the
order and discipline displayed by all-the
caimness of officers and men in the face
OF death-the heroism OF the engineers and
stokers. who never stirred from their posts
and died to a man in her engine rooms.
Five years passed after the loss of the
victoria before the explosion which de-
stroyed the American battleship Maine in
Havana harbor. She was lying there when,
on the night of February 10. 1898 noise
was heard like shot. Observers in other
ships looked out over the water and saw
the bow of the Maine lift. Thea came an
uprush of smoke and flame and a pro-
longed rending roar. The shattered hull
settled on the bottom. and OF the crew 2J3
officers and men were killed on the spot.
One hundred, of whom fifty-nne were
wounded. were rescued. The exact cause
OF the disaster is still a mystery. But 1t
is thought that a mine was exploded under
the ship. and that the shock Of the mine
detonated the powder in the magazines,
and this was the conclusion Of the Ameri-
can court Of inquiry.
The officers and men who survived were
for the most part half stunned by the ex-
plosion. They all described 1t very
violent-a crashing and rending. accom-
panied by an intense flame of fire or blue
light. Several of them were blown through
the air and badly burned. II heard ter
rible crash " said one of them, IAN explo-
sion. l suppose it was. Something fell.
and then after that l got thrown some
where In a hot place. / got burned
on my legs and arms and / got my mouth
full of ashes. - Then the next thing
l was in the water
Much the same were the Incidents on
board the Russian battleshp Petropav-
lovsk, when her ammunition was exploded
by a Japanese mine off Port Arthur on
April IL. 1904, and on board the Japanese
battleship Hatsuse which suffered SIM
liar fate from a Russian mine on May 10
of the same year. Both battleships sank
almost Immediately, carrying down with
them a large part of their crews---Yet an
other Japanese battelship, the Mikasa was
lost in Sasebo harbor in September. 1905.
In much the same way. She took hre.
and the flames must have reached her
magazines These exploded with deplorable
consequence, killing or wounding a great
part of her crew and sending the ship to
the bottom. The Mikasa was raised last
year and is now undergoing repairs.
Similar in all respects to the disaster on
board the lena was the explosion which
destroyed the Brazilian battelship on jan
uary q of last year. She was lying at an
without the smallest warning and with no
visible cause. her magazines blew up, kill
ing most of those on board. Two hundred
and twenty-three officers and men perished
in her. and the spontaneous combustion OF
her explosives is assigned as the explana-
ton of the catastrophe.
At the end of May last year the British
battleship Montagu m!stook her course i'm
foggy weather and struck the rocks or
Lundy Island. She was terribly damaged,
but there was no loss of life on board.
Efforts to get her off failed, though they
were continued till the end of July, when
they were at last abandoned. She was a
ship of about the same size and power as
the lena, the latest addition to this mel
Rncholy catalogue.
Little more than two years ago the
French navy lost one of its best armored
cruisers, the Sully, of 10000 tons flagship
of the French far eastern squadron. The
Sully was a new vessel and had been sent
out to the east on account OF the war De-
tween Japan and Russia In February,
1905 she struck an unchartered rock on the
coast of Tonkin. The attempts to fioat
her were unsuccessful and she broke In
two some weeks after striking. Fortu-
nately, in her case no lives were lost.