Just as the submarine commander was giving up all hope of being able to attack, the cruisers altered course, bringing them within torpedo range of the submarine, 'A few minutes later the submarine fired six torpedoes on slightly different courses. It would have been an easy matter for her to have fired all the torpedoes at one cruiser and thus make certain of sinking one ship. But she fired them at different angle the Admiralty claims, hoping by this means to disable more than one ship and so do more towards provoking fleet action, for which the British Navy has been hoping.
The first torpedo hit the Leipzig. There was a pause of only a minute. then two other terrific explosions told that two more torpedoes had found their mark—almost certainly upon a heavy cruiser. The other three tor-pedees obviously passed between the German warships.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.