The Japs had planted all their land-batteries in readiness for the night, and at 6 a.m., on the 31st of October 1914, the bombardment started from land and sea. Their first hits exploded the petrol tanks, and a thick, huge column of smoke reared skywards like an ominous signal of revenge. The Japanese were shooting from the land with heavy 20-centimetre shells, and the ships had trained their heaviest guns on to us. The whizzing of the descending howitzer shells, the whistling and the exploding of the grenades and their detonations on bursting, the barking of shrapnel, and the roar of our own guns resulted in a din as though hell itself had been let loose. The outworks and the whole surrounding country were also heavily damaged; hill-tops were levelled, deep craters opened in the ground. By the evening we experienced a slackening of the enemy’s fire. He was convinced, and so were we, that all our defences had been razed, for they looked like a mass of ruins. But when our gallant lads in blue hurried to their guns, to dig them out of the mass of earth and stone, they found nearly all the batteries comparatively undamaged. Suddenly in the dead of night, when we were able to note the formation of the storming columns, from every cannon’s mouth issued a stream of fire, which must have caused endless casualties to the Japanese. There was no attack, as had been planned, and the next day the enemy artillery directed a half-hearted bombardment on us. At the same time it was vigorous enough to register fifty successful hits on our small fort of Hu-Chuin-Huk. The Japanese profited by the experience of that night. Eight terrible days and nights followed, for their artillery thundered without a break. It might well have been assumed that not one of us could have escaped this ghastly, thunderous fire; but, as if by a miracle, we had very few casualties. The Japanese artillery shot with great precision, which is not surprising, as many of their artillery officers had been trained at our gunnery school at Juteborg. But their ammunition was rotten. And that proved our salvation. They never once succeeded in penetrating any of our redoubts or bomb-proof localities. To this, as well as to their blank shooting, we owe our insignificant losses. I would like to point out to the cavillers in Germany, who grumbled that our fight for Kiao-Chow could not have been serious if we suffered comparatively so little, that we held but one single line of defence, composed of five infantry works, a parapet and a miserable wire entanglement. This line was 6000 metres long and held by 3000 men. We had neither a second line nor a second position, and, above all, no men to spare for their defence, for our whole garrison comprised but 4000 men.