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Show BRITISH SI FIVE GERMANJARSHIPS FIRST IMPORTANT NAVAL ACTION OF WAR RESULTS IN VICTORY FOR ENGLISHMEN. Two Cruisers and Two Torpedo-boat Destroyers Sent to Bottom, While One Cruiser Flees Afire and In Sinking Condition. London. Two German cruisers and two German torpedo-boat destroyers were sunk by the British fleet on August Au-gust 28. A third cruiser was set afire and left sinking. This, the first sea battle of the world war, occurred off Helgoland. No British ships were lost in the battle, and the British loss of life was not heavy. In addition to the two torpedo-boat destroyers and three cruisers, many of the German torpedo-boat destroyers were damaged. Twenty-nine killed and thirty-eight wounded was the price In men paid by the British for the naval acton. An official statement issued Sunday Sun-day night says that of 1,200 men composing com-posing the crews of the five German warships sunk off Heliogoland only 330 were saved. The attack on the German fleet off Helgoland was initiated by British Brit-ish destroyers, according to accounts given by the crews of the vessels which participated. The destroyers got fairly close to the German ships before they were discovered. Then a cannonade from the German ships and forts was opened on them and they gradually drew the German cruisers toward the sea. For a time the Germans were in a position which gave them the advantage, advant-age, British destroyers having to bear the brunt of the battle. . During one of the hottest phases of the fight two British destroyers got in between two German cruisers, which feared to fire upon the British lest they hit each other, while four British destroyers engaged a third German cruiser and put her out of action. Finally the British battle crusers and light cruisers arrived on the scene and quickly pvt an end to the fight. The Liberty, one of the British destroyers de-stroyers wheh took part in the battle off Helgoland, was hit 'by a shell, which shattered her mast and tore away part of her bridge first of all, and then smashed her searchlights and killed her commander, Lieutenant Commander Bartellot, and William Butcher, his signal man. Accounts of the battle say it was perfect in execution as well as in plan. Led at dawn by a fearless small detachment, the destroyers crept within the German lines between be-tween Helgoland and the German coast. The bight of Helgoland is inside the formidable defenses of Helgoland island, which was ceded to Germany in 1890. The estuary of the river Elbe, into which the Kiel canal flows, opens out into this bay. Helgoland itself is the base for torpedo craft, but it is apparent from the official report re-port that the fighting took place much nearer the German mainland than Helgoland. This is more remarkable because Helogland is the center of a chain of fortified islands that are supposed sup-posed to make the waters inside the chain impregnable to attack by such a large force as Sir David Beatty took with him. |