“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.

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                              BATTLE OF THE BACH DANG RIVER

In 111 BC the powerful Han dynasty of southern China invaded and conquered the region to their south then called Nam Viet (now northern Vietnam).  Hungry for the fertile farmland of the Red River Valley and for Nam Viet’s seaports, the Hans annexed the territory into their Annan Province.  To the Chinese, the native Vietnamese were uncultured barbarians, and their domination was harsh.  They imposed heavy taxes, seized trade functions, and forced Chinese language, religion, and culture upon the Vietnamese–at the expense of native ethnicity and Viet national identity.  Sinification continued for the next 1000 years, broken only briefly in several short-lived revolts.

Then in 931 AD, Vietnamese leader Duong Dinh Nghe incited a successful revolt, declaring Annam (Vietnam) independent and himself as jiedushi, or regional military governor.  This lasted only seven years until Dinh Nghe was assassinated by pro-Chinese activist Cong Tien in 938 AD, triggering yet another Han army intervention.  This time the invaders were met by a Vietnamese nationalist force under the command of Ngo Quyen on the Bach Dang River near Ha Long Bay in what is now northern Vietnam.

Quyen’s 30,000 men were outnumbered 3:1 by the Han, who were embarked on powerful warships.  However, Quyen had his men emplaced sharpened, iron-tipped posts in the channel of the river, deeply enough to be covered at high tide.  He then baited the Han with his smaller, shallow-draft boats at the river’s mouth.  These retreated rapidly upriver at the appearance of the Chinese, on the flood tide.  The Han warships, eager for an easy victory, gave chase.  But as the tide ebbed over the prepared channel, the Chinese warships impaled themselves on the hidden poles.  Their hulls were crushed, and Han soldiers and sailors spilled into the river.  Tens of thousands drowned, including the Han commanding general Liu Hongcao.  Quyen now attacked, handily routing the remaining Chinese.  Upon hearing news of this defeat, Han emperor Liu Yan sent reinforcements overland to augment Cong Tien’s force.  But before the two could rendezvous, Quyen marched to Dai La, where he enveloped and annihilated Cong Tien.  The battles stemmed the Han invasion and cast off a millennium of Chinese domination.

Then again, 350 years later in 1288, another Vietnamese army used the same tactics, in the same river, with similar success to defeat invading Mongols under Omar Khan, son of Kublai Khan.

It is hard to overstate how indelibly millennia of oppression have inculcated an enduring Vietnamese passion for freedom and an abhorrence of any foreign occupation.  Sadly, neither we nor the French comprehended this in modern times.

Watch for more “Today n Naval History”  29 FEB 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Anderson, James A. and John K. Whitmore.  China’s Encounters on the South and Southwest: Reforging the Fiery Frontier Over Two Millennia.  Leiden, Netherlands, Brill Pub., 2014, pp. 129-30.

Karnow, Stanley.  Vietnam: A History.  New York, NY: Viking Press, 1983, pp. 98-101.

Turgeon, Al.  “History of the Vietnam Wars.”  Penn State University Osher Learning Institute lecture series, University Park, PA, 18 September-8 October 2018.

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                             ACTION AT THE PEARL RIVER FORTS

By the mid-19^th century, most western nations had established commercial enterprises in China.  China was, at the time, internally fractionated and militarily weak, and England, in particular, exploited this situation to compel one-sided trade agreements upon China.  Resentment over these trade practices led to several uprisings, including the seizure of the British merchant lorcha Arrow in Canton, on the Pearl River, on 8 October 1856.  Because the Chinese tended to look similarly upon all Westerners, the American consul in Canton requested protection for Americans in the area.  The senior Naval officer on the scene was the aging and ailing CDR Andrew H. Foote, who responded by landing 150 Marines and bluejackets from the sloops PORTSMOUTH, 20, and LEVANT, 22, at the town of Whampoa at the mouth of the Pearl.  Soon additional warships from our East India Squadron arrived, including Commodore James Armstrong’s flagship, the screw frigate SAN JACINTO.  Armstrong approved Foote’s action but ordered the withdrawal of the landing party after accepting reassurances from local Chinese.

In accordance with Armstrong’s recall, on 15 November CDR Foote was proceeding up the Pearl River in a whaleboat, between five newly constructed Chinese fortifications known as the “barrier forts.”  Unexpectedly, one fort opened fire with 4-5 rounds.  The furious Armstrong ordered PORTSMOUTH to close the offending structure the following morning and begin a vigorous cannonade.  (SAN JACINTO drew too much water to approach the forts, and LEVANT had the untimely misfortune to run aground).  Chinese fire proved ineffective, and, in an impressive 90-minute display, the 20-gun PORTSMOUTH dismounted twice that number of Chinese guns.  

Negotiations began.  However, when Armstrong learned four days later that the Chinese were reinforcing the forts, he ordered another attack.  LEVANT was towed upstream on the 20^th to join PORTSMOUTH in a several hour bombardment.  CDR Foote then gallantly led a storming party of 287 against one of the forts.  The panicked Chinese fled, and Foote turned the 53 guns of this fort on the next.  Over several days his party sequentially captured three other forts and a six-gun battery.  Two Chinese mass counter charges with 2000-4000 men could not defeat the Americans.  In total, over 400 Chinese died at a cost of only seven Americans killed.  The cannon were spiked and the forts destroyed, causing seaman William H. Powell to remark, “Our Navy, though small, is still able to punish any insult…to our flag, come from whom it may.”  Negotiations later established US neutrality in the Anglo-Chinese conflict, although Chinese enmity toward all Westerners would continue into the 20^th century.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  22 NOV 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Heinl, Robert Debs, Jr.  Soldiers of the Sea:  The United States Marine Corps, 1775-1962.  Baltimore, MD: Nautical & Aviation Pub., 1991, pp. 57-59.

Love, Robert W.  History of the US Navy, Vol 1  1775-1941.  Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 229-30.

Millett, Allan R.  Semper Fidelis:  The History of the United States Marine Corps.  New York, NY: Macmillan Pub Co., 1980, pp. 84-85.

Pierce, Philip N. and Frank O. Hough.  The Compact History of the United States Marine Corps.  New York, NY: Hawthorn Books, 1964, pp. 102-08.

Simmons, Edwin H.  The United States Marines, 1775-1975.  New York, NY: Viking Press, 1976, pp. 41-42.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 2^nd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1991, p. 62.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Armstrong’s actions were at least in part motivated by a need to supply the small Marine detachment already posted in Canton.

At Foote’s initial landings at Whampoa, the mixed shore party of bluejackets and Marines was led by Marine CAPT John D. Simms, who had received a brevet promotion in the Chapultepec Castle assault a few years earlier.  This was the first recorded time a shore party of bluejackets was led by a Marine officer.

Though plagued with medical issues, Andrew H. Foote would rise to the rank of RADM and command our Mississippi River Squadron in the early Civil War.  Our later warships FOOTE (TB-8, DD-169, DD-511) remember the admiral.  James Armstrong’s star was rising after this incident as well.  In 1860 he was appointed to command the Pensacola Navy Yard.  However, after Florida seceded from the Union, Armstrong was forced to surrender the Yard to Confederate forces on 14 January 1861.  He was court-martialed and discharged from the service.

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                                                   25 JUNE 1859

                               “BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER”

During the first half of the 19^th century several Western nations, particularly England and France, opened trade with China.  Several, including the United States, maintained naval forces in the region to protect these trading interests.  By the 1830s, the Chinese were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with European trade practices, particularly the importation of Southeast Asian opium by the British.  In fact, fighting between England and China over this issue erupted in 1839 in the first “Opium War.”  The Chinese were no military match however, and in 1842, the British were able to dictate the Treaty of Nanking, under which, among other provisions, China ceded Hong Kong to the British.

Simmering Chinese resentment re-erupted fourteen years later, this time against the backdrop of a struggle between rival Chinese factions known as the Taiping Rebellion.  In October of 1856, the British trading ship Arrow was seized in Canton.  This time a combined Anglo-French force reacted by occupying Canton and Tientsin.  Again the Chinese capitulated, this time reluctantly agreeing to legalize opium and receive foreign legations in Peking.

But the new treaty lasted only months.  British ADM Sir James Hope was dispatched forthwith, up the Pei-Ho (Hai River), to chastise dissenters and re-exert Anglo control over Tientsin and Peking.  At the mouth of the Pei-Ho however, he discovered the Chinese had obstructed the channel and rebuilt the daunting fortification at Taku.  Stalled before these obstructions, his gunboats found themselves under heavy Chinese gunfire.

Also blocked by the obstructions was Commodore Josiah Tattnall and three warships of the US Navy’s East India Squadron.  The United States was not officially involved in Anglo-Chinese hostilities, in fact Tattnall was on an independent mission to install our own diplomat, John E. Ward, in Peking.  He observed ADM Hope’s gunboat suffering repeated hits and the British tars being driven from their guns by a storm of Chinese fire.  Unable to stand idly by, he proclaimed “Blood is thicker than water,” transferred his flag to the steamer TOEY-WAN, and pulled alongside the admiral’s gunboat.  Tattnall sent men across who turned to and brought the British guns smartly back into action.  When the Royal Marines next attempted to storm the fort, TOEY-WAN helped pull the barges bearing the assault to the shore.  One American seaman was killed and LT Stephen Decatur Trenchard was wounded.

The British were ultimately turned back at Taku, and Tattnall’s ambition in this second Opium War was regrettable considering Ward’s mission to declare US neutrality to Peking.  But a supportive Congress later approved Tattnall’s initiative.

Watch the POD for more “Today in Naval History”  29 JUN 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Love, Robert W.  History of the US Navy, Vol 1  1775-1941.  Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 238-39.

Maclay, Edgar Stanton.  “New Light on the ‘Blood is Thicker than Water’ Episode.”  USNI Proceedings, Vol 151, Fall 1914, pp. 1085-1103.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 57.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Congress’ endorsement of Tattnall’s action in the face of defined US neutrality appears paradoxical.  However, Congress may well have been sensitive to Tattnall’s situation.  Naval officers in the 19^th century frequently interacted with foreign governments in remote locations without the benefit of ready communication with Washington.  As such they were entrusted to exercise good judgment as agents of the US government in whatever immediate circumstance they might find themselves.  Naval and Marine Corps officers, in distinction to officers of other services, developed a reputation for diplomatic awareness.  Recognizing this political acumen, Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, John Hay, complemented sea-service officers at the end of the 19^th century, “I have always felt relieved when a Naval officer has arrived on the scene because he always kept within the situation.”

Trenchard was the son of a US Navy CAPT.  His name, Stephen Decatur Trenchard, reflects child-naming trend common in the 1800s.  The exploits of our Navy from the Revolution through the Civil War were so thrilling to ordinary US citizens that male children were occasionally named for naval heroes.  Perhaps the most well-known such child was the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, born in 1807 and named for LT Henry Wadsworth who died heroically three years earlier when the bombship INTREPID exploded prematurely in Tripoli harbor.

Events in the coming two years were to split Tattnall and his flag LT Trenchard.  With the outbreak of the Civil War, Tattnall sided with the rebel cause, becoming one of their most respected sea commanders.  Two modern destroyers have since borne his name, TARRNALL (DD-125) and (DDG-19).  LT Trenchard, on the other hand, survived his wounds to fight on the Union side in the Civil War.  He commanded RHODE ISLAND on that ship’s ill-fated attempt to tow the MONITOR to Charleston.  Trenchard retired in 1880 at the rank of RADM.

Hong Kong, a war prize that became a British colony in 1842, was returned to China 30 June 1997.

The three East India Squadron ships in Tattnall’s force were USS POWHATAN, GERMANTOWN and MINNESOTA.  All had too deep a draft to cross the bar into the Pei Ho River, so Tattnall had chartered the steamer TOEY-WAN locally for use on the river.

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