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On battleships of 1905, bristling with pillbox turrets, it was impossible to depress gun muzzles sufficiently to beat off this new attack. A few coffee-grinding Catling guns were all the Russians had to oppose the little sea hornets. By next noon four battleships, seven cruisers, five destroyers and five auxiliary ships were at the bottom of the Japan Sea. Four more battleships and two hospital ships had surrendered. Four thousand Russians were killed or drowned and 7,000 more surrendered. Japanese losses were three torpedo boats, 116 killed, 538 wounded. The Battle of Tsushima Straits decided the naval mastery of the Eastern Pacific, sweeping Russia from the sea and placing Japan overnight among the world's great powers. Never before or since has the price of a great naval victory been so cheap.
Admiral Togo steamed back to Sasebo a world hero. His Emperor made him a Count. In 1911 when he was returning from the coronation of George V via Washington Admiral Togo was almost knocked out of his uniform by the enthusiastic back-slapping Teddy Roosevelt.
Last week, two days after the 20th anniversary of his great victory, Heihachiro Togo lay in his little Tokyo house, dying of cancer of the throat. For years Admiral Togo has been a living myth to the people of Japan, appearing publicly only once a year on the anniversary of the Battle of Tsushima Straits.
When the Emperor learned that the 86-year-old hero could not live more than a day or two, he had him raised from a Count to a Marquis, sent him from the imperial cellars twelve bottles of ancient wine. Admiral Togo could not swallow, could scarcely speak, but he had not forgotten how to receive such honors. He had his ceremonial Japanese robes (the haori-hakama) spread over the end of his bed. For six years his wife, the Countess Tet-suko Togo, had been bedridden with neuralgia. But at the clink of the Emperor's bottles she rose painfully to take her place beside her husband's wooden bed in a little room bare of all decoration but a print of Mount Fuji.
"I just want to rest until the end," croaked Admiral Togo, "I am thinking of my Emperor—and roses."
Next day he died. In formal proclamation the Emperor decreed that he should have a State Funeral, the 17th since the Meiji Restoration 66 years ago.