Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/171

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC Let us now pass on to consider the actual efficiency of the watertight subdivision as thus so carefully worked out in the modern warship. Thanks to the Russo-Japanese war, which afforded a supreme test of the underwater protection of ships, the value of the present methods of construction has been proved to an absolute demonstration.

The following facts, which were given to the writer by Captain (now Admiral) von Essen of the Russian Navy, at the close of the Russo-Japanese war, and were published in the "Scientific American," serve to show what great powers of resistance are conferred on a warship by the system of subdivision above described. The story of the repeated damage inflicted and the method of extemporised repairs adopted, is so full of interest that it is given in full:

"Immediately after the disaster of the night of February 8th," when the Japanese, in a surprise attack, torpedoed several of the Russian ships, "the cruiser Pallada was floated into drydock, and the battleships Czarevitch and Retvizan were taken into the inner harbour, [ 151 ]