The Battle of the Yellow Sea was the first main naval engagement of the Russo-Japanese War, being fought on August 10, 1904.

By June of 1904, the Japanese armies had begun to lay siege to Port Arthur and had set up artillery to destroy the Russian warships in the port that had been trapped by the Japanese naval blockade. The Russian First Pacific Squadron , commanded by Admiral Vitgeft , decided to break out of the harbour and sail to Vladivostok.

The Battle

On the morning of August 10, 1904, the Russian First Pacific Squadron sailed out of Port Arthur to engage the Japanese fleet blockading the port. The Russian fleet consisted of the battleships Tsesarevich, Retvizan, Pobieda, Peresviet, Sevastopol, and Poltava, along with four protected cruisers and 14 destroyers. The Japanese fleet, under the command of Admiral Togo, made up of the battleships Mikasa, Asahi, Fuji and Shikishima, the armoured cruisers Nishin and Kasuga, as well as eight protected cruisers, 18 destroyers, and 30 torpedo boats.

By midday, the main body of Japanese battleships attempted to block the Russians' path off the Shandong Peninsula. By 13:00 the first shots were fired, and during the one-hour fight, the Russians succeeded in breaking out of the harbour. Togo began a long pursuit of the Russian fleet and gradually came up from the south-west, slowly overtaking the Russian battle line.

At 16:20, the action resumed with both sides trading artillery fire from ranges of 9,000 to 10,000 yards and both sides receiving fire. At 18:00, with the battle's outcome still in question, Admiral Vitgeft was killed by a shell splinter on the bridge of the Tsesarevich. Just 12 minutes later, further hits on the Tsesarevich killed almost all bridge personel and the commanding officers of the ship. The Tsesarevich fell out of the battle line, and the other Russian ships became disorented. With darkness approaching and low on ammunition, Togo broke off the engagement and retired his battleships eastward out of range of the Russian squadron. He ordered a night attack against the Russian fleet by his destroyers and torpedo boats. Most of the destroyer attacks were repulsed with light casualties.

Two hours later, the Russian fleet sailed back to Port Arthur having failed to break away from the harbour. Five battleships, a cruiser and nine destroyers survived to make it back to Port Arthur. The damaged Tsesarevich and three escorting destroyers sailed to Tsingtao. The cruiser Askold and another destroyer sailed to Shanghai while the cruiser Diana sailed to Saigon, all three ships being interned. One small cruiser, the Novik, sailed east around the Japanese islands to try to make it to Vladivostok. However, weeks later, on August 20, Japanese cruisers forced the ship to run aground at Sakhalin where the crew was captured.

Casualties

Total Russian casualties in the Battle of the Yellow Sea were 343 killed and wounded aboard the ships that made it back to Port Arthur. The Japanese admitted 226 killed and wounded among their fleet during the battle. Within a few days, the Japanese fleet became completely battle worthy while the Russian fleet lay in disrepair.

Tactically, the battle was a Japanese victory, since the Russian fleet never again attempted to break out of Port Arthur and the continuing siege spelled doom for the remaining ships trapped at Port Arthur. By December later that year, the Japanese land armies had captured most of the high ground surrounding Port Arthur and used their artillery to sink or damage all the surviving Russian warships within the harbour itself.