The gun battle had raged for nearly two hours, marked by 3:30 a.m. as the dividing line between its earlier and later phases.
In the earlier half-hour, the First Main Battle Corps, in a mad dash westward, had exhausted every effort to close the engagement distance, while continuously returning fire.
Clearly, Admiral Takano was also pushing his luck.
Regrettably, aside from traveling approximately twenty kilometers to the west, the greatest achievement for the two "Damen" class battleships in this half-hour was receiving several armor-piercing hits each—especially the "Damen" itself, which had been confirmed visually to have been struck directly at least seven times.
Return fire?
Not a single hit.
