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The Germans told us that when the Wolf was mine-laying in Australian waters the seaplane made a flight over Sydney. What a commotion there would have been in the southern hemisphere if she had launched some of her bolts from the blue on the beautiful Australian city! On October 28th a Japanese sailor, wounded at the time of the Hitachi's capture, died on the Wolf.
The natives on this atoll could have told the expedition that at any rate the Hitachi was not sunk there, as they saw the Wolf and her prize sail away at different times. The Hitachi's disappearance was attributed to a submarine, though it was not explained how one managed to operate in the Indian Ocean!
All on the Wolf now stood watching the Hitachi's last struggle with the waves, a struggle which, thanks to her murderers, could have but one end; and the German officers stood on the Wolf's deck taking photos at different stages of the tragedy. There the two ships now rested, the murderer and the victim, alone on the ocean, with no help for the one and no avenging justice for the other.
The Germans professed deep regret at the Hitachi's action and at the loss of life caused, the first occasion, they said and, we believe, with truth on which lives had been lost since the Wolf's cruise began. The Wolf, however, they said, had no choice but to fire and put the Hitachi gun out of action.
Shortly after, the young Lieutenant came down and explained why the raider, which the German sailors told us was the Wolf, had fired on us. We then learnt for the first time that many persons had been killed outright by the firing another direct result of the Hitachi's failure to obey the raider's orders to stop. It was impossible to discover how many.
The two days previous to her capture the sea had been so rough that the "bird" could not go up, but on the actual day of the capture the sea had very much calmed down, enabling the seaplane to go up and spot the Hitachi's position.
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