Yangtze Showdown Read online

  The diplomat was given a meal at the headquarters and then ‘bidden farewell and left to my own devices’. It was dark and he had no wish to wander around the mine-strewn streets. The owner of the only inn in the town had fled before the Communist occupation. Youde asked two soldiers for help and he ended up sleeping on a straw mat in a hut. In the morning he tried to pay for his accommodation but found that there was ‘no market’ for his silver dollars, and soldiers suggested he should send a small amount back when he got hold of some Communist currency. Where to go? Despite the attack on Pukow, he decided to see what was happening there. It was only four miles away and, with luck, he might avoid a much longer trek. But all along the route he was told no boats remained and it was impossible to cross the river. He remained optimistic: ‘I had a premonition that a visit to Pukow would not be wasted. To my delight as I arrived on the river bank I saw approaching from the other side a steam vessel which had already begun to ferry troops across to Nanking. The Nationalists had deserted the city and the People’s Liberation Army was entering unopposed. Again I had no difficulty in obtaining assistance and the officer in charge of embarkation, on hearing of my desire to report to my ambassador as soon as possible on important discussions with the Communists, allotted me a place on the next ferry.’6

  Youde arrived back in Nanking that morning. ‘Profoundly happy’, he walked the short distance from the jetty to the embassy, where he briefed Stevenson. The ambassador concluded that the Communists were doing everything to ‘disclaim culpability’ for the unprovoked attack on a neutral vessel. The British consul in Peking would be told to continue to press the case for a safe passage. ‘Our only chance of success seems to be persistence and discreet publicity,’ Stevenson reported.7

  The ambassador acknowledged Youde’s ‘gallant and most commendable efforts’. Youde had been lucky on two counts: he could easily have become a casualty of the civil war, and he was fortunate not to have been held as a spy. He had crossed from Nationalist lines into Communist territory and then made clear his intention to return to Nanking. Although he was not recognised as a British diplomat, he represented a government that still had dealings with the Nationalists and did not have any sympathy for the Communist cause. Britain was a close ally of the United States, which – like its ambassador, John Stuart – was fiercely anti-Communist.

  Youde had been aware that he needed to be cautious:

  I purposely avoided asking any more questions than were absolutely necessary in order not to arouse any suspicions of spying in the minds of the Communists. My only documents of identification had been issued by the National Government and were all signed by ‘war criminals’. In view of the persistent refusal of the Communist authorities to accept any official document from British representatives I carried no documents issued by the embassy. In these circumstances and in view of the fact that I wished to return to what I thought was Nationalist territory, I attempted to give the impression of having no interest whatsoever in their fighting formations or troop dispositions.

  But he had carefully observed the Communist troops he saw, coming to the conclusion that they were ‘of a type which one would not expect to find anywhere in China under Nationalist rule’. Their discipline would have ‘delighted the heart of any English officer’. They were able to move quickly through the countryside because they treated the peasantry with respect. Relations between officers and other ranks were good, and they all ate the same food and shared accommodation. Morale was ‘outstanding’.

  Youde had three clear advantages during his mission – his determination, his transparency and his ability to speak fluent Mandarin. But over the three days he made no progress. Lieutenant Commander Kerans was about to find out how difficult it would be to persuade the Communists to accept a solution – and he would have a great deal longer.

  9

  Trapped

  KERANS HAD BEEN INFORMED OF Edward Youde’s mission, and was pinning his hopes on the diplomat achieving the breakthrough that would allow Amethyst to make an early return to Shanghai. As morning broke on 23 April, it was clear that the Communists had successfully crossed the Yangtze. From the ship there was no sign of any Nationalist soldiers. They had retreated rapidly south. A large area of the south bank would soon be in Communist hands.

  Shortly before 0800, Kerans received a signal from Vice Admiral Madden suggesting that Amethyst might attempt to sail down river at night. The navigation would be tricky but the magnetic compass and gyro were in reasonable condition, and the steering and main engines were working. Repairs were carried out, and sacks of flour were packed around the bridge, wheelhouse, W/T office and ‘B’ gun to give protection against splinters. ‘I had presumed that the risk of grounding had to be taken and considered that every effort was necessary and acceptable in order to extricate the ship while there was a temporary lull,’ Kerans noted.1

  Madden was told by Ambassador Stevenson that if Amethyst attempted to sail to Nanking it would probably result in a further loss of life, and even if the warship reached her destination it was doubtful ‘whether the position would be improved in the long run’.2 So within a short time, a huge question mark had arisen over the wisdom of having a guardship at Nanking at the time of a major Communist offensive. If Amethyst, in her weakened condition, had reached the capital she might well have been seized by the Communists or been destroyed by reinforced batteries in any attempt to escape.

  Shortly after noon Communist troops were spotted apparently setting up a battery on Ta-Sha Island, within range of Amethyst, to cover another crossing, and Kerans decided to move the ship a short distance down river, but artillery fire opened up, probably from Yung lung-chew Island, and she headed back at full speed, anchoring close to the south bank at a spot between the villages of Tan ta-chen and Chen-pi Chen-kou. The firing stopped and there were no hits.

  Amethyst was trapped: ‘It now appeared all too evident that in whatever direction we went we were bound to come under heavy fire and that the Communists had no intention of showing any restraint towards Amethyst.’ The ship was in danger of becoming caught in a withering crossfire. Against that, it could only reply with one 4in gun and an Oerlikon, manned by inexperienced sailors. ‘This could not have been effective for long,’ Kerans bleakly observed. ‘It appeared that the Communists could destroy us when they chose.’

  Morale was good ‘in spite of the hopelessness of our plight’. Kerans added: ‘I realised, however, that it might snap at any moment and that breaking point had almost been reached. Considering the youthfulness of the majority, it is a tribute to British spirit in adversity that it had remained as high as it did after three days under fire with heavy casualties and damage.’

  But the captain had decided that if Amethyst came under accurate fire again he would beach the ship, open all seacocks and set her on fire. The remaining crew would then make their way overland to Shanghai.3 Madden accepted that this was the last resort:

  It was clear that if Amethyst was again deliberately fired at without any provocation, the Communists were determined to sink or capture her and there was no alternative except to destroy her ourselves. At the same time, this would be tantamount to a Communist victory, and voluntary destruction by us might anticipate this Communist move and so mitigate the loss of prestige. It did, however, seem very unlikely that the Communists would, in fact, deliberately attack the Amethyst observing that this would be a direct act of war from which little would be gained, and they were already heavily engaged against the Nationalists.4

  One man feeling the strain but bearing up well was Jack French, the only telegraphist on board, who was sending and receiving all the messages. He would spend six days at his post without a proper break. The RAF doctor gave him Benzedrine to keep him awake. When he learned that they might have to abandon the ship, French came up with his own contingency plan: ‘I got a Durex from the sick bay and I put my Hong Kong money inside and tied it round my neck. I thought I could use the money to get passage. Most of us thou
ght that way.’ Throughout Amethyst’s ordeal on the Yangtze, the telegraphist, a West Country lad who left school at 14, would be the key link with the outside world.5

  During the afternoon of 23 April Communist troops made significant crossings of the river ahead and astern of the frigate. Kerans was glad he had moved the ship in view of the fact that the previous anchorage would have been on one of the approaches. Amethyst was not threatened, but at about 2200 nine Nationalist warships came into view on their way down river, probably from Nanking. The fourth vessel suddenly fired shots at Ta-Sha Island. That was the signal for ‘everything’ to open fire. Kerans feared that Amethyst, which was deliberately darkened, might be illuminated and mistaken for one of the Nationalist vessels. The engagement lasted about an hour. None of the ships was apparently hit but two large fires were seen in the vicinity of one of the Communist batteries. Kerans thought of following the ships but decided against it: ‘The political aspect and lack of knowledge of Chinese naval intentions would have been an unwarranted risk and nor was Amethyst in a fit state to accept further damage by gunfire.’6

  Early the next day, 24 April, the frigate took on a serious list to starboard. Water was pouring through a hole on the waterline in the wardroom and plates had been weakened. Topweight, including the ship’s disabled motorboat, was jettisoned. Water was pumped out of the wardroom and the hole packed with cement. The ship was littered with splintered wood and other debris, and it was also decided to reduce the fire risks. Ready-use ammunition went overboard with the rubbish. Decks were scrubbed and ‘we got rid of all the blood’. Amethyst regained an even keel.7

  The ship had taken numerous hits and was peppered with holes, including a large one in her stern. At one stage Lieutenant Hett had asked shipwright William Smith to check the hole in the stern. ‘I suggested going on a raft on a line and floating round the ship and taking a look at it,’ said Smith. ‘So they got a raft ready with a length of rope and I floated round to the stern. Just then they started firing from both banks. Of course the ones on the quarterdeck all ran away and left me floating there. When the firing stopped they came out again and pulled me back. Needless to say I won’t tell you what I said about that.’8

  On the morning of 24 April, Kerans learned that Youde’s mission had failed. There was disappointment but ‘genuine admiration for his valiant efforts’. The diplomat was known to many of the crew because of Amethyst’s visit to Nanking the previous year. Civilian junks had started using the river again and Kerans thought of taking the ship a few miles up river to Chingkiang and try to contact the Communist authorities there. Madden had suggested earlier that a cautious approach might be worth considering. ‘I eventually came to the conclusion that any movement was an unacceptable risk,’ Kerans reported. Madden then advised him to remain in position in case ‘local action might prejudice negotiations in Nanking’.

  10

  War of Words

  THE FIRST SEA LORD, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fraser of North Cape, had a simple philosophy: leave it to the man on the spot. Unfortunately, the most senior man on the spot was not there; he was with Admiral Fraser in London. Admiral Sir Patrick Brind, Commander-in-Chief, Far East Station, had left his headquarters at the shore base HMS Terror in Singapore to attend Exercise Trident, a major policy seminar for service chiefs at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. It just so happened that 20 April was the first day of the conference. Fraser had been woken at the Admiralty in the early hours with news of the Amethyst crisis. At a press conference before the start of the seminar he felt obliged to make some comments: ‘Of course the first thing to do is to think, what are we going to do about this? Our principle, of course, is always the same – leave it to the man on the spot, except where you can give him assistance, so that all the Admiralty had to do was to inform the Foreign Office, who informed the prime minister and the minister of defence. Then we waited for the reports from the flag officer out there, and, sure enough, a little later on came his dispositions.’ The admiral, who led the hunt that destroyed the Gernan battlecruiser Scharnhorst in 1943, admitted there was not much news. There were ‘some casualties’, Consort had been in action, and London and Black Swan were not far from Shanghai. There was a barbed reference to his audience of journalists: ‘You always, I think, regard the Royal Navy as a thorn in your sides, so I thought I would try and do my best to give you the latest information. Sometimes you are a bit of a thorn in our sides.’1 Fraser was right to wonder how thorny the issue might become. The attack was about to generate headlines around the world, and there would be questions – taken up by some of Britain’s leading politicians – about the decision to send Amethyst up the Yangtze when the Communists were about to launch a major offensive across the river.

  Admiral Brind had taken up his appointment less than four months earlier, and was not involved in the original decision to station a guardship at Nanking. However, before he left Singapore he was made aware of the move to replace Consort with Amethyst. He felt uncomfortable being in London when the Far East Station was facing such a challenging time. In a letter to his wife Edie, who was still in Singapore, he wrote: ‘As you will realise I am very disturbed about the “doings” in the Yangtze – poor little Amethyst and the casualties in the other ships. I have been feeling very sad, for I knew beforehand that the move was to take place and was a little anxious that it might coincide with Communist activity.’ The First Sea Lord had been ‘splendid’, leaving it to Vice Admiral Madden to sort out.2

  On a visit to Cardiff, Lord Hall, First Lord of the Admiralty, paid tribute to the ‘magnificent gallantry’ of Amethyst’s crew, and observed: ‘It is an incident which should never have taken place, but it does indeed indicate the inhuman feelings of those who were responsible for such a catastrophe.’3

  In a leader comment, The Daily Telegraph said:

  Public opinion has understandably been deeply perturbed and shocked by the recent series of unfortunate happenings on the Yangtze involving casualties and damage to British naval vessels. This concern is intensified by the confusion in which the whole incident is wrapped. At a time when Chinese Communist forces were known to be attempting to cross the Yangtze, HMS Amethyst was sent up river with supplies for Nanking from Shanghai. There was, and could be, no question of any aggressive intentions, but in the circumstances certain obvious risks were involved. If it is entirely clear that the attack on the Amethyst by Chinese Communist artillery was unprovoked and indefensible, it is also clear that the possibility of such an attack might, and indeed should, have been foreseen. By the same token, the various attempts which have been made to extricate the vessel from its dangerous predicament were likewise evidently hazardous.4

  The Daily Express took a similar line:

  It was known that the Communist armies were about to launch a grand assault across the river. It was expected within a matter of hours. To get supplies to the British embassy in Nanking became a necessity. And it was no less urgent to provide a means of evacuation. But was the best method adopted to secure these results? Was a sufficient foresight displayed?

  No doubt some risks were involved whatever course was adopted. Air transport would have perils of its own, and Shanghai, the air base, might fall at any moment. Even so, an expedition up No Man’s River, when any hour might be zero hour, can only be justified if it is proved that every other method of performing the task had been rejected for good reason.5

  Both newspapers mentioned the necessity of getting supplies to the embassy. Journalists had been misled on this point. Amethyst was taking supplies but that was not the reason for her mission to Nanking, as a briefing paper for Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin pointed out: ‘I should make it clear that Amethyst was not proceeding to Nanking … for the purpose of taking stores to the embassy, but to relieve Consort. We have had a ship at Nanking in order to come to the assistance of British nationals in the event of a complete breakdown of law and order. This is not the first time in the turbulent history of China that ships have come
under fire from warring Chinese armies, but that does not of course make the present occasion any less regrettable.’ 6

  The News Chronicle criticised naval chiefs in the Far East as they ‘seemed to run things pretty fine’, and the Daily Worker, newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, called for all British military forces to be withdrawn from China immediately. The press in the United States, in general, took the attacks on the ships as a warning of the kind of treatment that Western nations could expect from Communist China. A leader in The New York Times, headed ‘Murder on the Yangtze’, said: ‘What this tragedy seems to show is that Chinese Communists are as reckless of human life as their Russian brethren.’ The Washington Post commented that Britain had paid no heed to danger signals on the Yangtze and that ‘diplomats and naval men still had their heads in the nineteenth century’.7

  The Chinese Communist media gave its account of events on the Yangtze, which differed greatly from reports in Western newspapers. According to the New China News Agency, the PLA had defeated a joint naval attack by the Nationalists and the ‘British imperialist navy’. On 20 April two warships sailing from the east suddenly opened fire on PLA positions on the north bank. Fire was returned and both ships were sunk, one near Chingkiang. On the following day two more warships (London and Black Swan?) appeared from the east. Troops fired first to keep them away from river crossing points, and the vessels were hit and headed back. The agency reported: ‘This victory over the enemy vessels enabled the PLA to cross the river on a large scale in the afternoon of the same day.’8