Yangtze Showdown Read online

  The tiller flat, the emergency steering position at the stern, was manned by sailors who were normally stationed at the torpedo tubes, and a phone call from the bridge alerted them to the switch. The tiller flat housed a steering engine, a small steering wheel and a magnetic compass. Sub Lieutenant William Robson, who was at this action station, recalled: ‘We heard the battle going on above as we tried to silence the shore batteries. Presently came the order, “Switch to emergency steering”. This meant disconnecting the steering engine from all its leads to the wheelhouse and working it by the small steering wheel in the tiller flat in accordance with orders received over the telephone. This was very soon done and seemed to be working smoothly.’ Robson then decided to check on the bridge: ‘I had heard stories of the war when the captain or his damage control officer had been killed or wounded and while everyone believed them to be in control they had been incapacitated and the necessary remedial measures had not been taken – with dire results.’ He passed the wheelhouse, which was ‘a shambles’. Reaching the bridge he found that the captain had been wounded in one leg by shrapnel but was sitting in his chair and ‘obviously in complete control’, though his uniform was in tatters.6

  Robertson had sent the navigator, Lieutenant Jack Consadine, to check the wheelhouse and on his return the officer’s tin hat went flying. When Consadine picked it up he found a bullet had gone straight through the front. At that moment the bridge was hit by two shells and a Chinese pilot was knocked out. A second pilot had to be dragged up from below and ‘pinned in position by the navigator’s dividers’. According to one sailor, the pilot was kept in place not by the navigator’s dividers but by an officer pointing a revolver. ‘B’ and ‘X’ guns continued firing, knocking out three of the four guns of the battery being engaged. Then ‘B’ gun was hit and only ‘X’ gun was left. It silenced the fourth gun of the battery.

  Consort stopped half a mile from Amethyst, turned and headed slowly down river again, firing all the time. ‘We were still coming under accurate anti-tank fire from point-blank range,’ Robertson reported. ‘As my medical officer was overwhelmed with casualties I reluctantly decided to withdraw. At the rate we were being damaged the risk of being put completely out of action was considerable and it appeared wiser to go while we could and come back in force the next day. On reflection I consider that one of the reasons why enemy fire did not decrease was that a number of 37mm guns were rushed to the support of the original batteries and took up well-concealed positions.’ Consort signalled to Amethyst, ‘We’ll be back in the morning’. The message was sent ‘to cheer them up’. But there would be no return of Consort.

  The survivors of ‘A’ and ‘B’ guns had gone to man ‘Y’ gun but ‘X’ gun had a stoppage and for ‘a brief unhealthy few minutes’ none of the main armament was in action. However, the Bofors kept firing and so did a Bren gun on the after bridge that was being aimed by an officer who had been stationed there in case either the captain or the navigator ‘dropped’. When ‘X’ gun jammed, Petty Officer Henry Robinson got so excited in urging the party supplying ammunition to keep the Bofors in action that the top plate of his false teeth fell out. He promptly flung it at the supply party. Deciding that one half was no good, he flung the bottom set at those ‘bloody Communists’.7

  Stoker Thomas Flanagan found himself in a chain passing ammunition to the Bofors. It was dangerous work:

  The Bofors were a quarter way along the ship from the boiler room hatches, and its open deck. The first bloke goes out carrying this box of ammunition and suddenly bullets were whistling all around him. So he had to speed up and throw the box of ammunition up on the gun deck and dive into a cubby hole. They knew he was there and they were machine-gunning and all sorts of calibre ammunition were popping around him. Then he had to leg it back. Next one goes and we got about four wounded. One of them fell on the deck and he had been hit in the middle. I went out and pulled him and he was coming apart in two pieces. I had to leave him and get someone to drag him in with me. That’s hard to take. The forward part of the ship was taking a real thumping and several people were being wounded every minute. It was horrendous.

  Flanagan went below to the forward gun hoist, which had been damaged.

  A shell came in and landed between my feet, and blew my feet off. I was thrown ten feet backwards into the bulkhead. I was half sitting up. My right big toe was on my knee. I looked and my feet were shattered. A lad came over to me and said, how are you? I said okay. I said look at that – I had a new pair of socks on this morning. You’re sick when you see these things and then he just vomited and went away. I was looking round and the place was on fire and there was a lad on the floor. He had been behind me and he was carrying a cordite charge. There was an explosion and the cordite exploded and set us both on fire. There was a fire extinguisher next to me and I got it and put out the fire out on his back. I thought I’ve got to get some help here and I was on my hands and knees and got to the bulkhead door, which was about eighteen inches off the floor. I couldn’t get through it. I was shouting, we need some help in here, there’s a fire, and this big petty officer came in and threw me over his shoulder.

  Flanagan was taken to the wardroom – now the sick bay – but it was full and he was left on a landing. ‘The petty officer said are you okay and I said yes, I wasn’t in pain. I said straighten my foot out and he said you haven’t got one. What was left of this left foot was folded underneath.’ The petty officer was John Ackhurst, who became a fatal casualty shortly afterwards.

  When Flanagan was taken into the wardroom Surgeon Lieutenant Mark Bentley told him he would have to remove what remained of his left foot.

  I could feel him hacking away, cutting through the sinews. And then he threw my foot on the floor. He bandaged it up and then started cutting pieces off the other foot, and he did it with a straight razor. No morphine, all the morphine had gone. But I didn’t feel anything. I can’t say I was brave.

  I was lying on the floor. I hadn’t realised I was burned and my face was tightening up on me. There were blokes coming in all the time wounded. One of the lads, he had his hand off. He joined the navy with me and he was talking to me. He had been hit in the neck as well, and he was searching around for something to put his head on. He put this thing under him and said, ‘That’s bloody cold’. And it was my foot.

  After a while they lifted me on to a bench. There were bloody shells hitting us all over the place and all I could think of was, if this goes down how am I going to swim. That was all that was on my mind. Time went on and slowly the firing stopped. I was drinking water and bringing it up again. Underneath me was a petty officer and he had been wounded. And I was drinking this water and bringing it up all over him, and I said to him, why don’t you move. He said, I can’t. And I said, I’m awfully sorry, but he said don’t worry about it.8

  Surgeon Lieutenant Bentley, whose most challenging task during the stay at Nanking had been organising the ship’s concert, recalled: ‘More and more casualties were brought in to me and I had to work for about twenty minutes with a torch before emergency lighting could be rigged. I concentrated principally on controlling bleeding at once in all casualties, removing surface shrapnel where possible, cleaning the wounds and applying field dressings. I also carried out amputations. At one stage the captain thought of attempting to land me on Amethyst but later changed his mind as we were unable to get close enough to her, and also our own rate of casualties was so high.’9

  Ten minutes after breaking off the action Consort, hugging the south bank, came under fire from a battery of around eight 75mm guns. ‘X’ and ‘Y’ guns engaged the battery but the ship took more hits. The transmitting station and the wireless transmitting office were wrecked. It would prove to be the most devastating attack. Five men were killed and four mortally wounded. Fires broke out fore and aft but were quickly put out.

  Bridge messenger Jess Greive had been sent to find the medical officer. ‘As I made my way, I remember seeing the outer bulkhe
ad repeatedly exploding inward with shell hits sending shrapnel flying through the air. As I went forward my legs turned to jelly and I honestly thought that every moment would be my last. I found myself in the port passage outside the transmitting station, which had taken a direct hit. It was a scene of twisted metal. I tried to pull out one casualty and saw that his arm was held to the metal by a single sinew. I tried cutting him free with my seaman’s knife but it wasn’t sharp enough.’ George Andrews, an 18-year-old ordinary seaman, had a lucky escape. He was told to leave the transmitting station and go to the forward magazine to help out. Less than two minutes later the shell exploded.10

  There was one last emergency. Because an order from the bridge had been misunderstood in the tiller flat the wheel was turned the wrong way and the ship headed at speed for the south bank, in danger of ‘becoming part of the landscape’. The engine room reacted quickly to the order ‘emergency full astern’. The ship hit the bank but glanced off because of the power of the engines and resumed her escape down river. Consort found the safety of Kiangyin in the late afternoon. The frigate Black Swan arrived soon afterwards and the cruiser London, with Vice Admiral Madden on board his flagship, anchored that evening. The medical officers of all three ships treated the wounded. With some irony, Black Swan had brought the medical officer from the Australian frigate Shoalhaven. The seriously wounded were transferred to London, which had an operating table. The badly-wounded Stoker Flanagan overhead a conversation: ‘They said, what about him? No chance. I was looking to see who they were talking about and it was me. I thought, no chance, what are they talking about? Maybe that sparked something in me to say, I’m not going to die.’

  Commander Robertson was called to a conference aboard the flagship and told to sail to Shanghai as soon as possible to get the less seriously wounded to hospital. Seven men were dead and thirty-four had been wounded, three of whom would die during the night. After taking on fuel and provisions from London and plugging some of her lower shell holes Consort sailed at 0400 the following day, 21 April. The destroyer arrived at Shanghai at 0930. US Navy personnel were waiting with ambulances and the wounded were taken to a local hospital before being transferred to the American hospital ship USS Repose, which was lying off Woosung.

  The destroyer Constance went alongside Consort and Commander Peter Baker, Constance’s skipper, paid a visit. In a letter home, he wrote: ‘They were in a nasty mess, simply riddled with shrapnel. Poor Robertson’s cabin was a complete shambles, the only untouched thing being his wife’s picture.’11 Consort had received fifty-four hits from 105mm high-explosive shells, 75mm armour-piercing shells and 37mm anti-tank shells at close range.

  5

  The Navy’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’

  SHORTLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT ON 20 APRIL an attempt was made to refloat Amethyst. The engine room had flashed up earlier, power was restored and repairs were made to the damaged starboard telegraph. Lieutenants Weston, Berger and Hett were on the bridge, and the engines and rudder were worked to free the ship – stuck bow first in the mud – for about an hour. The attempt was unsuccessful. Weston, who had hoped that Consort would return under cover of darkness, ordered the dumping of heavy fittings from the forecastle and the pumping of ten tons of fuel over the side. A second attempt was successful early on 21 April. Amethyst moved up river at eight knots but about an hour later, off Fu-te-wei, she attracted small-arms fire from the north bank. Berger noted: ‘This was not accurate or particularly troublesome, but it indicated to us that although the ship was darkened our movements were visible to the Communists.’ Navigation at night was made more difficult because ‘half of the chart had been shot away and much of the remainder was obscured by blood’. Amethyst turned round and went down river for two miles before anchoring at a relatively safe spot some five miles from Rose Island.1

  At about 0915 a sampan approached the ship, carrying two Nationalist soldiers who offered to help the wounded. Weston turned them down because he was expecting the cruiser London to come to Amethyst’s rescue. That morning the Nationalists made two further attempts to help, getting the same response.

  Vice Admiral Madden had sailed from Hong Kong for Shanghai in London on 18 April. A ‘full programme of entertainments’, including a Saint George’s Day ball, had been arranged for his visit. When London eventually arrived, on 21 April, she brought dead and wounded sailors. And Madden was in no mood to be entertained. Four of his ships had been shot up and the death toll would reach forty-nine, including two Chinese pilots.

  The conference aboard London on the night of 20 April, when the flagship anchored at Kiangyin with Black Swan and the battered Consort, had thrown up several possibilities for Madden. There was ‘some small hope’ that negotiation would secure Amethyst’s release. Despite the ambassador’s earlier insistence that there could be no formal approaches to the Communists, Sir Ralph Stevenson asked the British consul in Peking to communicate with the ‘high command’ and try to get an assurance that British ships would not be fired on. At 0200 on 21 April, Madden received a message from the ambassador pointing out that it would take several days for any ceasefire order to reach the front line. The admiral decided that time was not on his side, and focused on another rescue attempt, despite the high price that Consort had paid. Twenty minutes after receiving the ambassador’s message he learned that Amethyst had managed to refloat herself. He reported: ‘Such was the need for assistance in the Amethyst that I considered an attempt must be made to reach her and escort her to safety. As a towing operation was no longer necessary, I was unwilling to expose HMS Black Swan to damage or casualties. I hoped that the morale effect of the London’s size and armament might reduce the opposition to sporadic or isolated resistance.’

  Madden had considered using Black Swan in a night operation with the aim of embarking Amethyst’s wounded and then escorting her to safety. Black Swan would hug the south bank on the trip up river. But there was a problem – the Nationalists had imposed a curfew and might open fire on the ship. ‘The consequences of detection and failure were unacceptable, since HMS Black Swan might be reduced to a plight similar to HMS Amethyst’s,’ Madden noted. Another idea was to send ships’ boats 35 miles along the channel between Tai-ping-chau and the mainland. This would have taken at least 12 hours and unknown hazards were likely. The proposal, with the limited objective of rescuing the wounded, was ‘not worth while’. Amethyst could have been told to attempt negotiations with the local Communist commander, but the enemy had opened fire at the sign of any movement and disregarded the white flag. The admiral thought of using aircraft, apart from Sunderlands. But the nearest strike planes were in Malaya and it would have taken three or four days to get permission from the Nationalists to use an airfield. In addition, there was the question of getting enough intelligence through aerial photographs so that pilots could be fully briefed. And there was an overriding factor: ‘I considered that the use of aircraft would be tantamount to an act of war.’

  There was only one solution. London and Black Swan would go up river. ‘I had no hesitation in deciding that this, the only possible urgent action must be undertaken as it was unthinkable that those in urgent distress in HMS Amethyst should be left without any assistance that could possibly be brought to them,’ Madden reported. ‘I was, naturally, fully aware that unless the opposition respected the outward signs of peaceful intention or, alternatively, their fire was inconsiderable, this operation in restricted waters at very close range could only result in heavy casualties and damage, and further attraction of fire to HMS Amethyst. I ordered its undertaking in the full knowledge that it might be necessary, in order to avoid further loss of life, to retire, and I informed the commanding officer of HMS London accordingly.’2

  What happened on 21 April has been referred to by some survivors of the Yangtze Incident as the naval equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade.3 The casualties were high but it was more like the Charge of the Heavy Brigade. London was a heavy cruiser of 9,850 tons, with a
main armament of eight 8in guns and eight 4in guns, and a top speed of 32 knots. She certainly packed a lot of firepower. But if Amethyst and Consort were relatively easy targets for experienced gunners on land, then London was the proverbial barn door. The cruiser was a huge target in the Yangtze. Madden would gamble three times – Amethyst, Consort and London and Black Swan – and lose each time.

  Off Woosung, London had embarked two Chinese pilots but the skipper, Captain Peter Cazalet, thought they might not be ‘entirely reliable’ if shooting broke out. In the pilot boat was William Sudbury, from Liverpool, who had experience of navigating the Yangtze. The fifty-year-old Sudbury had served in the Merchant Navy during the First World War and as a lieutenant in the Royal Australian Navy in the Second World War. Cazalet asked him to come aboard and he readily agreed, though there was no time to tell his family. His advice would prove ‘invaluable’.4

  Early on 21 April, London and Black Swan sailed 19 miles up river to Bate Point, where they anchored. They were about 30 miles from Amethyst. At 0930 Madden gave Cazalet the order to try to reach the frigate with the aim of escorting her back to Shanghai. London’s captain was under no illusions: ‘It was perfectly clear both to the admiral and myself that the passage of the river against the opposition of determined and well-trained shore batteries was not a feasible operation – we considered that against light and sporadic opposition it was a reasonable proposition and hoped there would be no opposition at all. It was agreed that if fire was opened on the ship she would reply in self defence with all guns.’

  Black Swan would play a supporting role, giving covering fire if necessary. Both ships were told to display large white flags – ‘except when firing’ – and a number of Union Jacks. The frigate sailed first and London began her journey at 1026. The cruiser was soon doing 25 knots. Ten minutes later she came under attack from batteries on the north bank in the vicinity of Liu-wei-chiang, which were firing 100mm and 75mm shells. Madden’s hope that the sight of London would overawe Communist gunners disappeared in a gun flash. The cruiser took two direct hits. Both ships went to full speed and opened up, London with most of her armament.5