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[Page 14]
to do again and again during the first part of the action, but the "SYDNEY" would never let her do it. The "SYDNEY"s engines were in perfect condition; during the part of the fight when speed was called for she probably attained a speed of over 30 miles an hour. The "EMDEN" was never a match for her in this respect, even before the event took place which placed her entirely at the "SYDNEY"s mercy, as will be explained presently.
A SURPRISE - THE FIRST SHOT.
As the "EMDEN" came out the distance rapidly decreased, and the range was rapidly reached at which the "SYDNEY" expected to begin the battle. She swung round on to a parallel course and the order had actually been given to fire (at 9.40 a.m.) when the "EMDEN" surprised everybody by firing the first shot. It went whistling overhead exactly where the first broadside ought to go, and it is described as a piece of perfect shooting. The "SYDNEY"s first broadside (or salvo) which followed immediately afterwards also went over the "EMDEN". The "SYDNEY"s second salvo, which was a trifle irregular, fell short. Her third clearly hit the enemy, although the bursting of her shells in the enemy's heart could not yet be seen.
The "EMDEN"s shooting at the beginning of the fight was extraordinary rapid and good. Her little 4" guns were being fired at an extreme range, so great indeed that it can only be explained that the Germans used their guns at a very high elevation amounting to as much as 30 degrees. The result was that her shots by the time they reached "SYDNEY" were falling at a very heavy angle, a fact which is made quite clear by the direction of the shot holes in the "SYDNEY" where they can be traced in almost every case from an entry high up on the port side to an exit much lower on the starboard side. The "SYDNEY"s shots on the other hand pierced the engine almost horizontally.
SHOOTING EXTRAORDINARILY FAST.
The "EMDEN"s fire was so fast that she must have actually have had at times no less than three salvos in the air at one, each on its way towards the "SYDNEY". The water around the "SYDNEY" was lashed as with a flail, the spray being driven all over her, and for the first ten minutes or so the hits were fairly frequent. It was about her fourth salvo (which means in her case a discharge of five guns at once) which did the first damage to the "SYDNEY". A shell entered a position which contained several men and an Officer. It almost brushed the arm of one of the men, scoured a deep grove along the whole of one wall and passed through to glance harmlessly off the deck below. This shell hit nobody, but its impact shook the structure to such an extent that all the men in it were thrown down. They were just clambering up on to their hands and knees when the second shell coming from precisely the same direction burst just beneath the floor. Every man in the structure was wounded.
By this time the "SYDNEY"s shells were undoubtedly hitting the "EMDEN"; the bursting of a shell, however, inside an enemy's ship can only be told when something falls. The first sign which those on board the "SYDNEY" saw of the effect of their own fire on the "EMDEN" was when the enemy's foremast funnel was seen to fall overboard. Shortly afterwards the "EMDEN"s foremast lurched over the side of the ship. Part of it remained there sticking out horizontally like a boom; the rest went into the sea. The Germans had their main fire control positions on a platform high up on