Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, gays une "Dany Leegeapa o! view York correspouuent, ureaned to moxo any statement regarding eltner tie partie or his plans for the future, pleading suingent orders from the Aumica.ty; but some of lus officers were Jess reticent, and gave a striking story of the fight, which resuled in the destuctiou of Admiral von Spee's squadron. The British are reported w be high give, not so much as to the vietorious outcome of the action, as at their success in outwitting the German intelligence department, whose triumphs have been so much lauded, and in bringing up two powerful patte-cruisers to reinforce. the remnants of "\umitul Cradock's squadron without giving their foes any warning of their presence.
Lhese Latt.e-cruisers, batu ship Canopus and the armour-cruisers Curnarvon and Cornwall, and the light cruisers Bristol and Glasgow, arrived at Port Stanley, the seaport of the Falkland: on December 7, to coal. The big batt.e-er '8 ran into the ba: which is almost completely land: locked. Surrounded by high hills, they were entirey hidden {rom the outside.
On the morning of the 8th, the German squadron, consisting of the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig, Niirnburg, and Dresden, appeared in the offing, accompanied by the converted merchantman Prinz Eitel Frederich, with the evident inten tion of taking the Falklands by sur prise, and seizing Port Stanley as a coaling station for themsel Finding, apparently, only a British squadron of five cruisers, none of them equal to the German armoured cruisers in fighting value, and one old battleship on guard, the Germans promptly cleared for action. and, closing in, opened fire, the British cruisers replying.
The action was already turion and, apparently, evenly contested, when out through the narrow har-hour entrance came tearing the lone grey forms of two great hatt'e-cruisers, each with her eight 12: n. guns swung out for action. Admiral von Spee realized his terrible mi take, and the trap into which he had been lured, and made a.ignal for his little squadron to scatter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.