Yangtze Patrol

The Yangtze Patrol, part of the US Navy's Asiatic Squadron, existed under various names between 1854 and 1941.

Under the "unequal treaties", the United States, Japan, and various European powers were allowed to cruise China's rivers and coastal waters, protecting their citizens, their property, and their religious missions. The Yangtze is China's longest river, and probably its most important. Ocean-going vessels were able to proceed as far upstream as the cities of Wuhan. Destroyers and cruisers sometimes served in the "YangPat".

This squadron-sized unit of the Asiatic Fleet patrolled the waters of the Yangtze as far inland as Chungking, more than 1,300 miles from the sea, and occasionally far beyond.

Late-1800s

As a result of the "unequal treaties" imposed on China by Great Britain after the Opium Wars, China was opened to foreign trade at a number of locations known as "treaty ports" where foreigners were permitted to live and conduct business. Also created by the treaties was the doctrine of extraterritoriality, a system whereby citizens of foreign countries living in China were subject to the laws of their home country, not those of China. Most favored nation treatment under the treaties assured other countries of the privileges afforded Great Britain, and soon many nations, including the United States, operated merchant ships and navy gunboats on the waterways of China.

During the 1860s and 1870s, American merchant ships were prominent on the lower Yangtze, operating up to the deepwater port of Hankow 300 miles inland. The added mission of anti-piracy patrols required U.S. naval and marine landing parties be put ashore several times to protect American interests. In 1874, the United States gunboat "Ashuelot", reached as far as Ichang, at the foot of the Yangtze gorges, 975 miles from the sea. During this period most found a tour in the Yangtze to be uneventful, as a major American shipping company had sold its interests to a Chinese firm, leaving the patrol with little to protect. However, as the stability of China began to deteriorate after 1890, the U.S. Naval presence began to increase along the Yangtze.

1900s

In 1901, American-flagged merchant vessels returned to the Yangtze when Standard Oil Company placed a steam tanker in service on the lower river. Within the decade, several small motorships began hauling kerosene, the principal petroleum product used in China for that company. At the same time the Navy acquired several Spanish-built gunboats which were seized in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. These vessels became the core of the Yangtze River patrol for the first dozen years of the twentieth century, but they lacked the power to go beyond Ichang onto the more difficult stretches of the river.

In 1913, the "Palos" and "Monocacy" were the first American gunboats built specifically for service on the Yangtze river. Constructed at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California, they were disassembled and shipped to China aboard the American steamer "Mongolia". They were reassembled at the Kiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai and put into service in 1914.

That year both vessels demonstrated their ability to handle the rapids of the upper river when they reached Chungking more than 1,300 miles from the sea, and then went beyond to Kiating on the Min River. In 1917 the United States entered World War I and the guns of "Palos" and "Monocacy" were rendered inoperable, to protect Chinese neutrality. After China entered the war on the side of the allies, the gunboats were re-armed.

In 1917 the first Standard Oil tanker reached Chungking, and a pattern of American commerce on the river began to emerge. Passenger and cargo service by American-flag ships began in 1920 with the Robert Dollar Line and the American West China Company. They were followed in 1923 by the Yangtze River Steamship Company which stayed on the river until 1935, long after the other American passenger-cargo ships were gone.

In the early 1920s, the patrol found itself fighting the forces of deadly warlords and ruthless bandits. To accommodate its increased responsibilities on the river, the Navy constructed six new gunboats in Shanghai between 1926-1927, all capable of reaching Chungking at high water. "Luzon" and "Mindanao" were the largest, "Oahu" and "Panay" next in size, and "Guam" and "Tutuila" the smallest. These vessels gave the navy the capability it needed at a time when operational requirements were growing rapidly. The movie Sand Pebbles is a fictional portrayal of life aboard a Yangtze gunboat in the mid-1920s.

In the late 1920s, Chiang Kai-shek and the Northern Expedition, created a volatile military situation for the patrol along the Yangtze. During the early-1930s communist armies took control of much of the north bank of the middle river. The climax of hostilities occurred in 1937 with the Rape of Nanking and the sinking of the "Panay" by the Japanese. The "Panay" incident was the first loss of a US Navy vessel in the conflict which would soon become World War II.

After the Japanese took control of much of the middle and lower Yangtze, American gunboats entered into a period of frustrating inactivity and impotence. Just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor most of the ships on the Yangtze River Patrol were brought out of China, with only the smallest gunboats, "Wake" (the renamed "Guam") and "Tutuila" remaining behind. "Wake", at Shanghai, was subsequently captured by the Japanese. "Tutuila", at Chungking, was turned over to the Chinese. When the other gunboats reached Manila, the Yangtze River Patrol was formally dissolved. Subsequently, the evacuated ships were all scuttled, or captured with their crews and imprisoned by the Japanese, after the fall of Corregidor in mid-1942. "Luzon" was later salvaged and used by the Japanese.

In literature

USS "San Pablo" was the vessel in Richard McKenna's well-known novel "The Sand Pebbles" (1962). McKenna had served aboard one of the river gunboats, as did William Lederer, the author of "The Ugly American" (1958).

Kemp Tolley, another officer who served in the Yangtze Patrol, wrote a well-received book on the Patrol.

References

"Most information came from the United States Navy and is in the public domain."
* [http://library.nps.navy.mil/home/yangtze/YangRivePat.htm Naval Postgraduate School page]

External links

* [http://www.usspanay.org USSPanay.org Webpage concerning the Yangtze Patrol, USS Panay and Panay Incident]