“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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                                               RADIO FAUX PAS

Communication between ships at sea had been line-of-sight visual to date, even in foul weather.  Experimentation had been in the works for years, indeed in 1888 a genius of naval invention, CAPT Bradley A. Fiske, ran current pulses through insulated wire wrapped around the steel hull of the cruiser ATLANTA and listened to sounds picked up on a nearby similarly enwrapped ship.  Fiske later experimented with “fleet telephony”–stringing telegraph wire between ships steaming in column.  By 1903, Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless telegraph had become practical, and shore wireless sets of 1906 were broadcasting weather information seaward.  As well, the Naval Observatory was transmitting wireless time signals to 75 radio-equipped US Navy warships.

On this brilliant blue Monday morning of December 16^th, the steam yacht USS MAYFLOWER (PY-1), with President Theodore Roosevelt embarked, weighed anchor and proceeded out of Hampton Roads.  She led sixteen first-class battleships of the “Great White Fleet” in single file.  This was Roosevelt’s “big stick,” cruising around the world to demonstrate new-found US naval prowess.  MAYFLOWER paused at the mouth of the Chesapeake to wish the fleet a final farewell.  The battleships filed past the Commander-in-Chief at precise 400-yard intervals, CONNECTICUT (BB-18) in the van, each firing a gun salute, each with the rails manned.  No spectacle of this scale had ever before been accomplished.  These were the finest and best equipped ships in any Navy, but even among our own sailors there were doubts about the durability of turn-of-the-century naval technology.  In fact, against the possibility of embarrassing mechanical failures, Roosevelt and Navy officials announced only that the fleet intended to go as far as California.

After dinner on this first night at sea, fleet commander RADM Robley D. Evans addressed his fleet.  Despite official precautions about the itinerary, and despite Evan’s unfamiliarity with this new-fangled radio, he announced to the fleet their true intent to sail around the world.  Cheers echoed across the water.  Unknown to Evans however, his broadcast was picked up by wireless stations along the Atlantic coast.  The story headlined newspapers around the nation the next day, humiliating President Roosevelt.  An immediate walk-back claimed it was only Evans’ personal belief that a world cruise was planned.  Secretary of the Navy Victor H. Metcalf denied even this, stating that the ultimate destination of the fleet beyond San Francisco was as yet “undetermined.”  In fact, the political damage control proved prudent on December 20^th, when ILLINOIS (BB-7) and KENTUCKY (BB-6) did suffer brief mechanical issues.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  25 DEC 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Fiske, Bradley A.  “Fleet Telephony”.  Proceedings of the USNI, Vol 121, March 1907, pp. 239-42.

Love, Robert W.  History of the US Navy, Vol 1  1775-1941.  Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, p. 442.

Reckner, James R.  Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1988, pp. 23-27.

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, pp. 109-10.

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