In the rough Tsushima Straits, where two-decker, train-carrying ferries ply between Japan and Korea, an Allied submarine up-periscoped, unleashed a torpedo. The missile stabbed the flank of a Jap steamer. Said the Tokyo radio: the steamer went down in "seconds," with loss of 544 persons aboard.
Fifty miles across at their narrowest, the Tsushima Straits are Japan's historic doors to the Asiatic mainland. Over them centuries ago Regent Hideyoshi's armada sailed to battle the Koreans and send home 38,000 enemy ears pickled in wine. Upon them in 1905 crusty Admiral Togo smashed the...