Tacoma Steamship Survives Port Arthur Bombardment
The American liner Pleiades escapes the opening salvos of the Russo-Japanese War, arriving in Tacoma with a harrowing firsthand account of the chaos.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The steamship Pleiades, the only American ship in Port Arthur harbor during the first battle of the Russo-Japanese war, arrived at Tacoma at 1:45 this afternoon. Chief Engineer Ostrander graphically recounted the story of the battle. 'We arrived at Port Arthur on Sunday,' he said. 'The Russians had seven battleships and six cruisers in battle formation. About 11 o'clock Tuesday morning the Japanese gunboats began to draw in toward Port Arthur, and in a short time shells began to drop into the harbor. The first shot fired landed a big 12-inch shell among the Russian battleships. After a short time the firing became more rapid. The shells passed over us with a shriek that made one's blood run cold, and would explode with a deafening roar. Two big shells exploded so close that if the vessel had swerved around the least bit it would have been all up with us. Pieces of shells fell on the deck like hail and everybody kept under cover. The Pleiades was not injured in the least, though we expected every minute that one of those shrieking monsters would drop on top of us.'
“The shells passed over us with a shriek that made one's blood run cold.”
The Russo-Japanese War once dominated Tacoma's headlines due to the city's status as a gateway for Pacific shipping. Today, Tacoma remains a critical logistics hub for trans-Pacific trade, though the threats to vessels have shifted from 12-inch naval shells to contemporary geopolitical trade volatility.
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