on december 5, 1904, the battleship "poltava" was sunk, followed by the battleship "retvizan" on december 7, 1904, the battleships "pobeda" and "peresvet" and the cruisers "pallada" and "bayan" on december 9, 1904. the battleship "sevastopol", although hit 5 times by shells, managed to move out of range of the guns. stung by the fact that the russian pacific fleet had been sunk by the army and not by the imperial japanese navy, and with a direct order from tokyo that the "sevastopol" was not to be allowed to escape, admiral togo sent in wave after wave of destroyers in six separate attacks on the sole remaining russian battleship. after 3 weeks, the "sevastopol" was still afloat, having survived 124 torpedoes fired at her while sinking two japanese destroyers and damaging six other vessels. the japanese had meanwhile lost the cruiser "takasago" to a mine outside the harbor.