Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1895 — Horrors of a Sea Battle- [ARTICLE]

Horrors of a Sea Battle-

Few people, even naval men, realize what fighting on an ironclad really means. Capt. McGiffin, who was an officer on board a Chinese man of war at the battle of the Yalu river, an English exchange, however! a most vivid description. He tells, among other things, that the din made by the impact of heavy projectiles against the metal sides of the vessel is awful beyond description. He wore cotton in his ears, but in spite of that is still deaf from the noise. The engineers in the ChenYuen stuck to their work, even when the temperature of the engine room was above 200 degrees Fahrenheit. The skin of their hands and arms was acsually roasted off, and every man was blinded for life, “the sight being actually seared out.” Late in the action, after his hair had been burnt off, and his eyes so impaired by injected blood that he could only see out of one of them, and then only by lifting the lid with the fingers, he was desirous of seeing how the enemy was delivering his fire. As he groped his way around the protected deck a hundred pound shell pierced the armor about eighteen inches in front of his hand. In a second his hand touching the steel was so burnt that part of the skin was left on the armor. That shows how intense is the heat engendered by the? impact of a shot, and how rapidly the steel conducts that heat.