door of the conning-tower! The Englishman was polite; having
first opened the door, he carefully shut it again for us. I searched
with my glass for the enemy, but, although the salvos were still
falling about us, we could see practically nothing of him; all
that was really visible were the huge, golden-red flames from the
muzzles of his guns.... Without much hope of hurting the enemy I
fired salvo after salvo from the forward turrets. I could feel
how our shooting was calming the nerves of the crew. Had we not
fired at this moment the whole ship's company would have been
overpowered by a great despair, for everyone knew that a few minutes
more of this would finish us. But so long as we fired things could
not be so bad with us. The medium guns fired also, but only two
of the six 5.9's on one side were still in action. The fourth gun
was split from end to end by a burst in the muzzle, and the third
was shot to pieces...."

The battle-cruisers were recalled just in time--so it would appear--to
save them from annihilation, and Com. von Hase proceeds:

"All hands were now busy quelling the fires. Thick clouds of yellow
gas still poured from both after turrets, but the flooding of the
magazines soon got rid of this. None of us had believed that a
ship could stand so many heavy hits. Some twenty 15 in. hits were
counted after the battle, and about the same number of bad hits
from smaller calibers. The _Luetzow_ was out of sight (she sank
later), but the _Seydlitz, Moltke_, and _Von der Tann_ were
still with us. They, too, had been badly punished, the _Seydlitz_
worst of all. Flames still roared from one of her turrets, and
all the other ships were burning. The bow of the _Seydlitz_ was
deep in the water. Every battle-cruiser had suffered severe
casualties.... But the death charge had achieved its purpose by
covering the retreat of the battle fleet.... Our ship was very
heavily battered, and in many places the compartments were mere
heaps of debris. But vital parts were not hit, and, thanks to the
strong armor, the engines, boilers, steering gear, and nearly all
auxiliaries were undamaged. For a long time the engine-room was
filled with noxious fumes, necessitating the use of gas masks.
The entire ship was littered with thousands of large and small
shell splinters, among which we found two practically undamaged
15 in. shell caps, which were later used in the wardroom as wine
coolers. The belt armour was pierced several time