With the exception of one man, who was blown out of the turret hatch by the blast of air, the entire crew, including all the men in the magazines and shell-rooms, 80 souls in all, were instantly killed. All the cartridges which had been taken out of their metal cases were ignited, so that flames were now shooting sky-high from both the after turrets.... "The enemy's shooting was splendid. Shell after shell crashed into us, and my heart stood still as I thought of what must be happening inside the ship. My thoughts were rudely disturbed. Suddenly it was to us as if the world had come to an end. A terrific roar, a mighty explosion, and then darkness fell upon us. We shook under a tremendous blow, which lifted the conning-tower bodily off its base, to which it sank back vibrating. A heavy shell had struck the gunnery control station about 20 inches from me. The shell burst, but did not penetrate because it had hit the thick armor at an angle, but huge pieces of plating were torn away.... We found, however, that all the artillery connections were undamaged. Splinters had penetrated the lookout slits of the conning-tower, wounding several people inside. The explosion had forced open the door, which jammed, and two men were unable to move it. But help from an unexpected quarter was at hand. Again we heard a terrific roar and crash, and with the noise of a thunderbolt a 15 in. shell exploded beneath the bridge. The blast of air swept away everything that was not firmly riveted down, and the chart-house disappeared bodily. But the astounding thing was that this same air pressure closed the door of the conning-tower! The Englishman was polite; having first opened the door, he carefully shut it again for us. I searched with my glass for the enemy, but, although the salvos were still falling about us, we could see practically nothing of him; all that was really visible were the huge, golden-red flames from the muzzles of his guns.... Without much hope of hurting the enemy I fired salvo after salvo from the forward turrets. I could feel how our shooting was calming the nerves of the crew. Had we not fired at this moment the whole ship's company would have been overpowered by a great despair, for everyone knew that a few minutes more of this would finish us. But so long as we fired things could not be so bad with us. The medium guns fired also, but only two of the six 5.9's on one side were still in action. The fourth gun was split from end to end by a burst in the muzzle, and the third was shot to pieces...." The battle-cruisers were recalled just in time--so it would appear--to save them from annihilation, and Com. von Hase proceeds: