The boats were all lashed down, the hatches the same, and every precaution taken to prevent wreckage floating away when the vessel was sunk.  On the afternoon of November 5th the Germans shifted all the passengers’ heavy luggage on to the Wolf, and we were told we should have to leave the Hitachi and go on board the Wolf at 1 p.m. the next day.  We were told that our baggage would all be opened and passed through a fumigating chamber, and that we ourselves would have to be thoroughly fumigated before being “allowed” to mix with the company on the Wolf.  But this part of the programme was omitted.

The Hitachi was now in a sad condition; her glory was indeed departed and her end very near.  We had our last meal in her stripped saloon that day at noon, and at one o’clock moved over on to the Wolf, the German sailors, aided by some neutrals, carrying our light cabin luggage for us.  The Commander of the Wolf himself superintended our crossing from one ship to the other, and he had had a gangway specially made for us.  We felt more like prisoners than ever!  The crew and their belongings, the Japanese stewards and theirs, moved over to the Wolf in the afternoon, and at 5 p.m. on November 6th the Wolf sheered off, leaving the Hitachi deserted, but for the German Captain and officers, and the bombing party who were to send her to the bottom next day.

Both ships remained where they were for the night, abreast of and about four hundred yards distant from each other.  At 9 a.m. on November 7th they moved off and manoeuvred.  The Germans did not intend to sink the Hitachi where she was, but in deep water.  To do this they had to sail some distance from the Nazareth Bank.  The Hitachi hoisted the German Imperial Navy flag, and performed a kind of naval goose-step for the delectation of the Wolf.  At 1 p.m. the flag was hauled down, both ships stopped, and the Hitachi blew off steam for the last time.

There were still a few people on her, and the Wolf’s motor launch made three trips between the two ships before the German Captain and bombing officer left the Hitachi.  Three bombs had been placed for her destruction, one forward outside the ship on the starboard side, one amidships inside, and one aft on the port side outside the ship.  At 1.33 p.m. the Captain arrived alongside the Wolf, at 1.34 the first bomb exploded with a dull subdued roar, sending up a high column of water; the explosion of the other bombs followed at intervals of a minute, so that by 1.36 the last bomb had exploded.  All on the Wolf now stood watching the Hitachi’s last struggle with the waves, a struggle which, thanks to her murderers, could have but one end; and the German officers stood on the Wolf’s deck taking photos at different stages of the tragedy.  There the two ships now rested, the murderer and the victim,