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Show Russ Ministry of Marine II Describes' Naval Battle I PETROGRAD, OcL 19. The Rus-sian Rus-sian ministry of marine has issued the following dotniled statement regarding the naval battle In the Gulf of Riga: "Tuesday night an. enemy squadron of twenty ships penetrated the Gulf of Riga and at 9 o'clock tho next morning was discovered making its way through the channols south of Moon sound. Tho squadron included two battleships of the Koenig type. Our detachments, Admiral Bakhireff, who hoisted his flag on the cruiser Bayan and accompanied by the baUleships Grjdanin and Slava, steamed from tho eastern part of Moon Island to engage en-gage tho enemy, preceded by torpedo boat patrols, which withdrow before the enemy. "At 9:30 o'clock tho enemy opened fire on our torpedo boats and our detachment, de-tachment, issuing from the channel, took up formation In a radius between the Werden and Weiland lighthouses near Moon island. While approaching the enemy the cruiser Bayan was attacked at-tacked unsuccessfully by a hostile submarine. Old Stylo Vessels, Outranged. - "At 10:30 o'clock our detachments engaged tho enemy squadron. The fire of the hostile dreadnaughts was directed di-rected from a distance of en beyond the range of our old type vessels. At noon, In view of tho enemy's supor-! iority and the appearance of new enemy warships, Admiral Bakhireff ordered the vessels to retire into the Interior of Moon sound. Our ships then turned northward and withdraw from the fighting. "The battleship Slava, the last of the lino and which had been damaged severely under the water line, finally sank by the head and foundered In the deep entrance of Moon sound. The remainder of the squadron enterod this channel. Part of tho enemy squadron squad-ron began to flro on the Moon and Werder batteries and silenced and destroyed them. Our vessels suffered some damage. After shelling the bat-terles bat-terles the enemy entered the southern part of the Kuiwast roadstead. fl Russians Protect Channel. "During theso movements the cruiser Admiral Makaroff and some gunboats and destroyers in inner Moon sound protected that p&annel and the mouth of Kassar bay, between the islands of Dago, Oesel and Moon. Some of these ships remained through-out through-out the night near the coast of Oesel island and repeatedly attempted to make their way into the eastern por tion of Kassar bay." The rest of the statement is a rcpth tition of tho official statement issued today in which it was announced that announced that two trawlers had been 1 sunk by the Russian firo and that two enemy torpedo boats had been sunk by striking mines in the Moon sound re-gion re-gion Thursday. It adds. howoveP, that a German torpedo boat escorting the main squadron ran into a Russian mine and sank. |