Unlocking breech of an "Osaka Baby"

Unlocking breech of an "Osaka Baby"

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The enormous coast defense guns which the Japanese brought over from Japan to use against Port Arthur were christened "Osaka Babies" by the war correspondents. These guns were designed to defend the coast of Japan against a naval attack, and were not expected ever to be moved from the foundations on which they rested. But when it became evident that the Russians had taken the heaviest naval guns from the useless warships in Port Arthur and had mounted them on their posts, it became necessary to have weapons of equal power to combat them. The "Osaka Babies" were dragged by hand from the sea coast to the valleys, where they were placed on solid concrete and masonry foundations, behind a ridge of hills that protected them from the Russian fire. Immense and unwieldy as these monsters appeared, they were handled by an ingenious machinery with the ease of a fowling-piece, and the breech was as delicate as clock-work, dazzling like a piece of jewelry. Port Arthur is located just beyond the hills in the background of the picture, and the shells from these guns fell into Port Arthur like thunderbolts out of the clouds.

1 stereograph. 2 photomechanical prints on stereo card : halftone, stereograph, color ; 9 x 18 cm

1905 Ingersoll, T.W.

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