TED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914.--[Part 21]

[Illustration: "DRIVEN ASHORE AND BURNT": THE "EMDEN" BEACHED ON NORTH
KEELING ISLAND, AND A BOATLOAD OF PRISONERS COMING AWAY.]

An officer of H.M.A.S. "Sydney," which destroyed the German cruiser
"Emden" off the Cocos Islands on November 9, has given a vivid
account of the event in a private letter recently published in the
"Times." After describing the earlier part of the action, he writes:
"By now her three funnels and her foremast had been shot away,
and she was on fire aft. We turned again, and after giving her a
salvo or two with the starboard guns, saw her run ashore on North
Keeling Island. So at 11.20 a.m. we ceased firing, the action having
lasted one hour forty minutes." Later, the writer of the letter was
sent in a cutter to the "Emden" to arrange for the surrender and
taking off the wounded. "From the number of men we rescued--_i.e._,
150," he continues, "we have been able to reckon their losses.

[_Continued opposite._

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THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914--[Part 21]--13

[Illustration: BEFORE THEY ESCAPED IN "A LEAKING SHIP": THE "EMDEN'S"
LANDING-PARTY, WHO SAW THEIR SHIP DESTROYED (ON COCOS ISLANDS).]

_Continued._]

We know the number of men who landed at Cocos and got away.... They
cannot have lost less than 180 men killed, with 20 men badly wounded,
and about the same number slightly." As regards the fate of the
German landing-party, he says: "Early in the morning we made for the
cable-station, to find that the party landed by the Germans to destroy the
station had seized a schooner and departed. The poor devils aren't likely
to go far with a leaking ship and the leathers removed from all the
pumps." It may be that the vessel seen on the right in the right-hand
photograph is the one in which they escaped. They had broken up all the
instruments at the Eastern Telegraph Cable Station, but those in charge of
it had a duplicate set concealed.--[_Photos. by Illustrations Bureau._]

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14--THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914.--[Part 21]

[Illustration: SUBMARINE LAMPS AS