"Captain Johnson then maneuvered the ship so as to render assistance to the crews of the Hogue and Aboukir. About five minutes later another periscope was seen on our starboard quarter, and fire was opened. The track of the torpedo she fired at a range of from 500 to 600 yards was plainly visible, and it struck us on the starboard side just before the after bridge. The ship listed about ten degrees to the starboard and remained steady. The time was 7.15 A. M. All the water-tight doors, dead lights and scuttles had been securely closed before the torpedoes left the ship. All mess stools and table shores and all available timber below and on deck had been previously got up and thrown overside for the saving of life. A second torpedo fired by the same submarine missed and passed about ten feet astern. "About a quarter of an hour after the first torpedo had hit, a third torpedo fired from the submarine just before the starboard beam, hit us under the No. 5 boiler room. The time was 7.30 A. M. The ship then began to heel rapidly, and finally turned keel up remaining so for about twenty minutes before she finally sank. It is possible that the same submarine fired all three torpedoes at the Cressy." Of the total crews of 1,459 officers and men only 779 were saved. The survivors believed that they had seen at least three submarines, but the German official account mentions only one, the U-9, under Captain-Lieutenant Otto Weddigen whose account of this battle confirms the report of Commander Nicholson. Referring to the reports that a flotilla of German submarines had attacked the cruisers, he says: "These reports were absolutely untrue. U-9 was the only submarine on deck." He adds: "I reached the home port on the afternoon of the 23d and on the 24th went to Wilhelmshaven to find that news of my effort had become public. My wife, dry-eyed when I went away, met me with tears. Then I learned that my little vessel and her brave crew had won the plaudit of the Kaiser who conferred upon each of my co-workers the Iron Cross of the second class and upon me the Iron Crosses of the first and second classes." Weddigen was the hero of the hour in Germany. He had with him twenty-five men. He seems to have acted with courage and skill, but it is also evident that the English staff work was to blame. Three such vessels should never have been sent out without a screen of destroyers, nor should the Hogue and the Cressy have gone to the rescue of the Aboukir. A few days after the disaster the English Admiralty issued the following statement: