Naval battles of America; great and decisive contests on the sea from colonial times to the present, including our glorious victories at Manila and Santiago; . or the fight. They were pre-pared neither to give nor take quarter and expectedeither to win or go down with their ship. McGiffin stood motionless on the bridge listeningto the reports of the range announced by the sub-lieu-tenant in the foretop as the fleets rapidly neared eachother. The ordeal before him and his men was moreterrible than soldiers had been called upon to face inregular batde since the beginning of human wars. ThatMcGif
Naval battles of America; great and decisive contests on the sea from colonial times to the present, including our glorious victories at Manila and Santiago; . or the fight. They were pre-pared neither to give nor take quarter and expectedeither to win or go down with their ship. McGiffin stood motionless on the bridge listeningto the reports of the range announced by the sub-lieu-tenant in the foretop as the fleets rapidly neared eachother. The ordeal before him and his men was moreterrible than soldiers had been called upon to face inregular batde since the beginning of human wars. ThatMcGiffin fully realized the situation was shown by aletter written to his brother upon starting to meet theJapanese ships. You know, he said, it is four killedto one wounded since the new ammunition came in. Itis better so. I dont want to be wounded. I prefer tostep down or up and out of this world. Not extraordi-nary words, but splendidly expressive of a soldier-likeway of facing fate. The closing lines of this letter were sadly wrote: I hate to think of being dreadfullymangled and then patched up, with half my limbs andsenses gone. ^s. \. %ft re g DEEDS OF VALOR. •^n He came home in exactly the condition he had de-scribed, and, true to his determination, chose to step upand out of it all. There was no sound but the panting of the ship underforced draught. The men, grouped quietly at theirstations, did not venture to speak even in whispers. Fifty-two hundred metres, the range was called. Thenthe great yellow flag of China was raised to the maintruck, the quick-firing guns opened fire, and the fightbegan. The battle lasted for nearly five hours, with the twoChinese battleships as its centre. It was estimated that McGiffins ship was hit 400 timeaand 120 times by large shot or shell. The rain of provjectiles visited every exposed point of the vessel. Earlyin the fight a shell exploded in the fighting top, instantlykilling every one of its inmates. Indeed, all such
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectunitedstatesnavy
