A peace offering bound for Port Arthur

A peace offering bound for Port Arthur

129

This picture was taken on October 29, 1904, during the height of one of those terrific bombardments that preceded every assault. It shows three Japanese soldiers conveying a 500-pound mortar shell to the eleven-inch battery. The building shown in the distance is a destroyed station on the Manchurian Railroad, the last station before reaching Port Arthur, distant only two miles. Up to this station the enormous guns were brought by railroad, and from there the little narrow-gauge track was laid to the place where the batteries were erected. From there the guns were hauled by hand, for horses or Manchuria oxen could not be used where silence and concerted intelligence were essential. Eight hundred men were detailed to each gun, which was mounted on skids such as lumbermen use in the woods. Four abreast, with hemp thongs across their shoulders, and all attached to a cable as thick as a man's leg, the men labored on through the mud after dusk, with the Russian shells bursting over their heads and often, often killing and wounding scores of them.

1 stereograph. 2 photomechanical prints on stereo card : halftone, stereograph, color ; 9 x 18 cm

1905 Ingersoll, T.W.

No known copyright