China Station, Gunboats

                                              21 FEBRUARY 1900

                                           “THE SAND PEBBLES”

Factional turmoil in 1920s China surrounding the emergence of the Nationalist Chinese movement led multiple western nations to protect their citizens and commercial shipping on China’s rivers with naval forces.  Richard McKenna’s novel The Sand Pebbles, as well as the 1966 Academy Award nominated film, depicts the trials of an enlisted sailor aboard a US Navy Yangtze River gunboat during this civil unrest.  Though McKenna’s story is fictional, his gunboat, “San Pablo,” is modeled after our contemporary Guam-class Yangtze gunboats.  McKenna’s plot draws from the exploits of a real gunboat, USS VILLALOBOS (PG-42).

VILLALOBOS entered the US Navy in the Philippines.  The former Spanish Navy steam-powered screw sloop was captured in the Spanish-American War and commissioned into our Navy on this date.  Her retained Spanish Navy name remembers the explorer Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, who in the 1540s, charted and named the Philippine Islands for King Philip II.  She patrolled that territory for several years before being transferred to China Station.  There, in June of 1903, under orders from Asiatic Fleet commander RADM Robley D. Evans, VILLALOBOS cruised up the Kan River, a tributary to the Yangtze, to check on the status of American traders and missionaries in Nanchang.  Low river levels blocked her passage to Nanchang, and VILLALOBOS sent a whaleboat ahead.  Having learned that all was well, the gunboat returned to Hankow, unaware that her mission had stirred international turmoil.  Local Chinese authorities protested her visit as overstepping treaty provisions.  RADM Evans countered with the bold statement that, “Our gunboats will continue to navigate…inland waters of China, wherever Americans may be,” and further stated that “severe and lasting” punishment would be dealt to anyone not showing “proper respect” to American citizens.  The American minister in Peking chastised Evans’ statement, but Secretary of State John Hay overruled, endorsing the Asiatic Fleet commander as “proper and correct.”  (In fact, VILLALOBOS’ foray into shallow waters had unknowingly violated a treaty between England and China, though the US was not a signatory to that treaty).

By 1926, VILLALOBOS was a tired and rusting venerable.  Yet with the emergence of the Nationalist Chinese movement VILLALOBOS was sent upriver to Changsha, again to protect American interests.  Low river levels stranded her in Changsha over the Winter of 1926-27 while Nationalist attacks began focusing on foreign “intruders.”  When Spring brought rioting to Hankow VILLALOBOS’ guns oversaw the evacuation of Americans, under orders to “…return and silence fire with suitable battery.”  Elements of these incidents were woven by McKenna into the plot for his novel.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  26 FEB 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cole, Bernard D.  “The Real Sand Pebbles.” Naval History, Vol 14 (1), February 2000, pp. 16-23.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 521-24.

McKenna, Richard.  The Sand Pebbles.  New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1962.

Tolley, Kemp.  Yangtze Patrol: The U.S. Navy in China.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1984, pp. 58, 125-30, 220.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  McKenna himself was a 22-year Navy veteran with pre-WWII service on China Station.  He retired in 1953 as a Chief Machinist’s Mate

Even in Spanish Navy service VILLALOBOS was under-powered and under-gunned and drafted deeply enough to complicate the patrol of inland waterways.  In 1928, after 33 years of service in two navies, VILLALOBOS was decommissioned, towed out to sea, and expended for target practice.  By then the need for purpose-built gunboats for Yangtze operations had been addressed with the development of the six Guam-class river patrol boats.  Several of these including GUAM (PG-43), PANAY (PG-45), LUZON (PG-47) and MINDANAO (PG-48) would earn fame at the opening of World War II.  Unlike McKenna’s depiction of “San Pablo” these gunboats were diesel powered.