Yangtze Showdown Read online

  MACHINERY. Everything ultimately depended on damage control and refitting and maintenance of all machinery. Amongst the wounded who were evacuated were Amethyst’s engineer officer [Lieutenant Ernest Wilkinson] and chief ERA [Stanley Roblin]. In addition the chief stoker [Owen Aubrey] was drowned and others were killed, wounded or evacuated. It was a depleted engine room staff that remained, but mercifully the majority were petty officer stoker mechanics backed up with sufficient hands to run machinery. Considerable credit is due to the senior ERA [Leonard Williams] who kept up the efficiency of his department, with the electrical officer [Lieutenant George Strain] in overall command.

  I cannot stress too highly how important knowledge of damage control is when disasters such as this occur, especially ship knowledge. It was unfortunate that large drafting changes had taken place in Amethyst only a few days previously. The important points that come to my mind are accurate damage control markings and dispersion of lockers and fire-fighting equipment. A more simplified form of markings on doors and fans should, I feel, be introduced. Young ratings are inevitably going to forget what the various letterings stand for in time of emergency. The dangers of ratings painting over rubber on hatches and doors are still too evident wherever one looks in spite of all that has been said in training. Only time and constant supervision will eradicate this very important detail. There is no doubt that our peacetime damage control must be maintained as near to the wartime scale as habitability allows.

  FUEL. The vital factor throughout our detention. Amethyst left Shanghai on her fateful journey with full tanks. A small amount was lost by pumping to refloat her after grounding. By the time I joined her on 22 April approximately 270 tons remained. No attempt was made in the early days at conservation since the situation was dangerous and fluid. On 28 April contact had been made with the Communists ashore, and with the realisation that time meant nothing to the PLA steps were initiated to curtail consumption. As time wore on the hours without power became greater – at the end we were shut down for as long as 59 hours without steam. This was grim and was accentuated by the extreme heat the Yangtze experiences in July. I consider we could have exceeded this period and shut down for 72 hours at a time with strict rationing of fresh water.

  The only power during these periods was a 24-volt battery supply from the lower power room for the emergency WIT set and a few pinpoints of light in my cabin and on the messdecks. To live in a ‘dead ship’ is an experience which none of us is likely to forget. Our lowest average daily consumption of fuel was a ton a day.

  STABILITY. The forward ballast tank and X magazine (X gun was destroyed anyway) were flooded when the ship was light instead of flooding oil fuel tanks. The two after ones were flooded earlier on. I hoped to keep as many tanks free of Yangtze water and its large amount of sand whilst there was any hope of fuel replenishment.

  The world has never seen a good deal of the damage caused to Amethyst’s upperworks since all that was practicable was cut away. To increase stability many heavy weights were struck below – the best examples of this were the damaged Bofors and certain radar equipment. A blackboard was kept in my cabin throughout with details of fuel of all types remaining in each tank, fresh water, main items of food and limits of endurance in each case.

  NEGOTIATIONS. In all, 19 meetings took place with the Communist military authorities. Of this number eight were preliminary ‘skirmishes’ with the opposition ashore near Amethyst or on board. The remainder were all on shore and for the most part in Chingkiang at General Yuan’s headquarters. These meetings were held with a very thin veil of amicability and rigid formality. The general’s appearances at the table were few and always of short duration. The negotiating powers were handed over to Colonel Kang, who had two interpreters well indoctrinated in Communist ideologies. Everything I said at these meetings was religiously taken down in full, in English and Chinese. At some meetings I had the attention of the press and propaganda section of the PLA. Thus I am well documented. The keenest photographer was a female who one day actually ventured out in a sampan from the local village to photograph Amethyst at all angles. The local garrison commander, Captain Tai Kuo-liang, who acted as my personal bodyguard, also attended each meeting. But apart from writing reams he was never allowed to say a word. Funnily enough we used to converse in French. The progress of the meetings can fairly be summed up as representing a sine curve; at one meeting some hope for safe conduct was given, but the next would speedily dash it.

  COMMUNICATIONS: That the main WIT office was undamaged in the shelling was indeed fortunate and even more so that an electrical officer [Lieutenant Strain] was on board. This officer belonged to the senior officer’s frigate at Shanghai and was on passage to Nanking in order to repair Amethyst’s radar. No sooner had he done this than circumstances were such that destruction of classified radar equipment was ordered for security reasons. Telegraphist French became the sole wireless operator left in Amethyst. He did well, and it speaks highly of West Country physique and guts that he stood up to continuous watchkeeping for so long. Two electrical ratings were eventually trained to read our call sign and simple procedure. By special arrangements with the flagship or Hong Kong continuous watch was always maintained, and the telegraphist rested accordingly.

  It is fairly certain that the opposition were eventually reading our messages, and considering we were on the same wavelength for many months, it is perhaps not surprising. The need for caution was paramount. Lack of codes and ciphers were undoubtedly my severest handicap and in the end a reasonably secure but limited method was adopted. Rising temperatures in July began to tell on the telegraphist, and there is no shadow of doubt that his mental capacity in reading traffic was falling rapidly. There was unfortunately little we could do when shut down to alleviate conditions. This was one of my paramount reasons that escape was the only solution.

  LEADERSHIP. One small but important item was fully borne out by this tragic incident. There is absolutely nothing wrong in the leadership of the chief and petty officer of today. A good many had undertaken disciplinary courses and the merit of these is most fully justified. Chief and petty officers are the important ‘link in the chain’, and no stone should be left unturned to encourage these men to remain in the service.

  PUBLICITY. Considerable publicity was given to our escape and eventual passage to the United Kingdom, and again at Plymouth and London. Some quarters have voiced disapproval of this course, especially as Black Swan and Consort did not come home too. However, it took place, and we had to face it. Taking an overall view it has really done the Royal Navy little harm, and perhaps our recruiting figures may show an increase.

  I have received between 700 and 800 letters and cables from all parts of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and many foreign countries. Many and diverse peoples have written, and in this country of ours it evinces an unswerving loyalty and faith in the hope for a resurgence of more amenable times. This in itself gives much encouragement for the future.

  The final honour we were accorded was to appear in Buckingham Palace before His Majesty the King and the Royal Family. Each rating had one friend or relation present (those with gongs, two). Two comments by parents which appeared in the press are a fair summing up: ‘The Queen smiled at me – was all I wanted’ and ‘Our son joined up two years ago, and I never could have dreamed that he would get us inside the palace in that time’.

  CONCLUSION. The last nine months have been difficult but unforgettable times. It was a situation that has no parallel in history and, it is hoped, will not occur again. From the youngest to the oldest the situation was faced with poise and confidence, which was indeed salutary. This was my greatest asset. The spirit of leadership and devotion to duty by those under my command was fully exemplified throughout; this after all is the fundamental basis of all our training and everything that the Royal Navy has stood for in the past and stands for in the present and the future.

  Co-operation was predominant from the start to the finish,
and that no link in the chain was broken augurs well for the future, and speaks much of the Royal Navy’s basic training. Prayers to Almighty God were not overlooked in our routine during those weary and trying days last summer. There is an ingrained sense of religion deep down in most of us, apparent more in some than in others. How easy it could have been as the empty days wore on to be discouraged and adopt a fatalistic outlook.

  Our prayers were answered, and escape was achieved without loss of life and serious damage. Faith is not the least of the lessons to be learnt when in adversity.1

  30

  The Fading Hero

  AT THE BEGINNING OF 1949 John Kerans’s future in the Royal Navy had not looked promising. His run-ins with authority left him a marked man, listed ‘for disposal’ before taking up his appointment as an assistant naval attaché in Nanking. But twelve months later his star was shinning brightly, in spite of the drunken episode in Singapore. Kerans was a national hero, awarded the Distinguished Service Order, and now a full commander, even though he had held the rank of lieutenant commander for less than three years. For the Royal Navy he had turned disaster into triumph, and saved Admiral Brind and Vice Admiral Madden, in particular, from further embarrassment.

  However, his heroic status and speedy promotion may not have endeared him to some of his fellow officers. The navy’s many brave acts and sacrifices of the Second World War were fresh in the memory. The year 1950 began promisingly enough for Kerans. He was sent on a staff course at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and he may have harboured thoughts of rising to high rank. Greenwich was followed by a desk job at the Admiralty, head of naval intelligence for the Far East. But the lure of the sea was too much for Kerans and he pushed for another command. A destroyer would have seemed a fitting choice, given his rank and status. Kerans, in fact, ended up with a humble minesweeper, HMS Rinaldo. Perhaps he had lapsed into his old ways, perhaps he was being given a message. After wartime service Rinaldo was paid off at Portsmouth and placed in reserve, later being used for training and Home Fleet duties, a far from glamorous role. Kerans took command in January 1953 but he had not been on board long when he wrote to his wife Stephanie revealing he was ‘somewhat depressed’ because of a serious stomach bug. He experienced loneliness and, out of character, began writing long letters to Stephanie, though in the June there was good news, the birth of his second daughter, who was called Melanie, despite press speculation the name might be Amethyst.

  In 1954 Kerans returned to the Far East as the naval attaché in Bangkok. This time Stephanie was with him. The job also entailed covering Phnom Penh, Vientiane, Saigon and Rangoon, but Kerans did not impress some of his colleagues. Commander David Hunter, who worked with him, would comment: ‘His reputation was not good in the Far East. In fact, it used to be said that Kerans was famous for two things – he had the biggest balls in the Royal Navy and he was the stupidest officer in the Royal Navy. I cannot vouch for one of these accolades but I did encounter him professionally when the second did not seem too unlikely.’1

  The posting should have lasted two years but Kerans was sent back to Britain in 1956 after suffering dysentery. The following year he went on a senior officers’ technical course in Portsmouth. In reality, his career was going nowhere, and in 1958 he faced the shock of learning that he would be forced to retire from the navy, at the age of 43. The family moved from Littlehampton in Sussex to a leafy part of Purley, on the outskirts of London, with Kerans using his gratuity of £5,500 to buy a pleasant detached house. But he found it difficult to get a job and even resorted to placing an advertisement in newspapers offering his services. In an interview with the Daily Express, he said: ‘I don’t know at the moment what I am going to do. My gratuity from the service doesn’t go far these days and if I don’t find a job quickly we shall find it hard to eat.’

  He took a course in business administration and became a door-to-door salesman offering life insurance. It must have been strange for people to open their front door and find the hero of the Amethyst trying to sell them a policy they were unlikely to want. Kerans decided it was the quickest way ‘to lose your friends’ and quit the ‘degrading’ job. The construction firm George Wimpey gave him employment as a trainee manager. He was sent to Sunderland to work on a new steelworks, and happened to mention in a local newspaper interview that he was interested in politics. He ended up standing as the Conservative candidate for The Hartlepools in the 1959 general election – and winning the seat from Labour with a narrow majority.2

  During his term as a Member of Parliament he asked hundreds of questions in the House of Commons on a bewildering variety of subjects – nursery school places, unemployment, visits to Royal Navy ships by sea cadets, the closure of sub post offices, the number of police dogs in London, the width of loads on lorries, the treatment of leprosy, school discipline, immigration, coal mining, chimes on ice cream vans, the slaughter of grey seals. No subject seemed to be off limits, but whether such enthusiasm impressed his political masters is open to question.

  Trips to his constituency were time-consuming, and Kerans wanted a seat nearer his home in Purley. But there were no offers, and he did not stand at the next general election. A lengthy spell of unemployment followed. He worked briefly for stockbrokers in London and then found himself placing more newspaper advertisements seeking employment. In 1967 he was appointed bursar at his daughter Melanie’s boarding school in Surrey, but he was sacked after seven months, the responsibilities over finances proving too great for a man with no accountancy training. ‘Things got into a terrible mess,’ he confessed. He was back looking for a job. Two years later the Civil Service came to his rescue, with a role in the Service Pensions Appeals Tribunal. He seems to have enjoyed this work, commuting from Purley to central London and checking the claims of ex-servicemen.3

  Kerans retired when he reached the age of 65, and he and Stephanie moved to a terraced house in Oxted, Surrey. Over the years he had been asked many times to talk about the Yangtze Incident. He became bored with the story, and ‘heartily sick’ of discussing China. But he was left wondering if he could have made more of his naval career after 1949. In Nigel Farndale’s book, Last Action Hero of the British Empire, Melanie describes her father as generous, amusing and sentimental – but also dogmatic, cantankerous and intolerant. Three years after retirement Kerans was diagnosed with bowel cancer and later he endured throat cancer. He died on 11 September 1985, aged 70, after ‘much distressing illness’. Many former members of Amethyst’s crew went to his funeral at St Peter’s Church in the village of Tandridge, near Oxted. The hero of the Amethyst was buried in the churchyard.4

  In 2001 a bizarre story about Kerans appeared in Time magazine. Journalist Anthony Paul claimed that the commander had been a secret agent in the mould of James Bond. Paul interviewed him in the late 1970s for Asiaweek magazine, and Kerans revealed that he was sent to spy on the Americans in Formosa in January 1949. With Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists facing defeat in mainland China, the British government apparently wanted to know the extent to which the United States was helping to build the island fortress of Formosa. The Americans, rightly fearing that British intelligence had been infiltrated by Communist sympathisers, were reluctant to share information. Kerans travelled to Formosa on ‘a seaside vacation’ and while swimming off the west coast photographed US ships ‘disgorging massive supplies of military material’. He was caught in a forbidden zone on the east coast and thrown into jail. After a few days ‘discreet bribes restored his freedom’. Paul said he agreed not to publish the story until he had confirmation from the Admiralty, which never came. ‘But I have no reason to disbelieve Kerans,’ he wrote. ‘And more than half a century after the activities he described, I see no need to remain silent.’5

  Unlike Kerans, Lieutenant Peter Berger, one of Amethyst’s wounded, did go on to achieve high rank. Berger was Fleet Navigating Officer, Home Fleet, from 1956 to 1958, and afterwards the navigator of the Royal Yacht Britannia. From 1962 to 1964 he commanded
the frigate HMS Torquay in the Dartmouth Training Squadron, ‘where a twitch of his famously bushy eyebrows was sufficient to admonish any wayward cadet’. He became the first non-submariner to command the Clyde nuclear submarine base. He rose to the rank of vice admiral and received a knighthood in 1979, the year he was appointed Flag Officer Plymouth. Berger retired from the navy in 1981 and died in October 2003, aged 78.6

  Amethyst’s gallant first lieutenant, Geoffrey Weston, had perhaps the strangest career move – he joined the army. In 1950 it was made clear to him that he could not remain in the navy because of his shrapnel wound, which prevented him from going to sea. He would carry the piece of metal in his liver for the rest of his life. Weston decided to study law and went to Clare College, Cambridge, later winning a Fulbright scholarship to Kansas University. He was called to the Bar, Lincoln’s Inn, in 1954, but he still missed the navy and offered his legal services to the Admiralty, which turned him down. Weston’s next port of call was the War Office, and he was immediately offered a short service commission with Army Legal Services in the rank of captain. The commission became a regular one, and he went on to serve in Cyprus, Germany, Hong Kong and Northern Ireland. Much of his service involved the prosecution of cases before courts martial. He also gave advice on the legal aspects of military operations. Weston must have been the only army officer to wear the navy’s Distinguished Service Cross and Bar. He also had an unusual collection of campaign medals – the Naval General Service Medal with clasps Malaya and Yangtze 1949, the General Service Medal (1918) with clasp Cyprus, and the Campaign Service Medal (1962) with clasp Northern Ireland. He retired from the Army Legal Corps, as it became known, in the rank of brigadier in 1981. His father Percy had been a brigadier, serving in both world wars and winning the Distinguished Service Order and two Bars and the Military Cross. Weston was described as ‘a true eccentric who needed the discipline of the services to pit his idiosyncrasies against’. One report noted: ‘It says much for the army that it tolerated such a non-conformist for so long. He had a first-class legal brain but was probably a better administrator than advocate, as he tended to become too personally involved in his cases.’ Despite his shrapnel wound and a fondness for cigars and brandy, he played a ‘violent’ game of squash and loved winning. He also enjoyed chess, bridge, cricket and fast cars, which he ‘drove slowly’. He was an insomniac spending nights listening to classical music ‘not always to the delight of fellow mess members’. His Savile Row suits were rarely dry-cleaned and ‘bore a permanent layer of cigar ash’. Weston died in May 1993, aged 71.7