-inch guns and sixteen 6-inch guns.

At the time Japan entered the war she had in building four
superdreadnoughts with the tremendous displacement of 30,600 tons. These
vessels, the _Mitsubishi_, _Yukosaka_, _Kure_, and _Kawasaki_, had been
designed to carry a main battery of the strength of the U.S.S.
_Pennsylvania_, and to have a speed of 22.5 knots.

The first move of the Japanese navy in the Great War was to cooperate
with the army in besieging the German town of Kiaochaw on the Shantung
Peninsula in China, but the operation was soon more military than naval.
Japanese warships captured Bonham Island in the group known as the
Marshall Islands, and, having cleared eastern waters of German warships,
scoured the Pacific in such a manner as to chase those which escaped
into the regions patrolled by the British navy.

The German vessels which made their escape were among the eleven which
were separated from the rest of Germany's navy in the North Sea at the
outbreak of hostilities. They were, with the exception of the
_Dresden_, the _Leipzig_, _Nuernberg_, _Scharnhorst_, and _Gneisenau_. It
was weeks before they were first reported--on September 22 at the harbor
of Papeete, where they destroyed the French gunboat _Zelie_, and after
putting again to sea their location was once more a mystery.

On the evening of November 1 a British squadron consisting of the
vessels _Good Hope_, _Otranto_, _Glasgow_, and _Monmouth_, all except
the _Good Hope_ coming through the straits, sighted the enemy. The
British ships lined up abreast and proceeded in a northeasterly
direction. The Germans took up the same alignment eight miles to the
westward of the British ships and proceeded southward at full speed.
Both forces opened fire at a distance of 12,000 yards shortly after six
o'clock off Coronel near the coast of Chile. The _Gneisenau_ was struck
by a 9.2-inch shot from the _Good Hope_. The _Scharnhorst_ and
_Gneisenau_ picked the _Good Hope_ as their first target, but finding
that they could do no damage at that range and that they were safe from
the fire of the British ship, they came to within 6,000 yards of her.
Her fire in reply was augmented by that of the _Monmouth_. Excellent aim
on the part of the Germans soon had the _Good Hope_ out of action, and
fire broke out aboard her. Soon after general action her magazine
exploded.

The _Monmouth_ then received the brunt of the fire from the German
ships, and came in for more than h