The Real Sand Pebbles: Part II

[Rustykamel]

Wonderful thread--thanks for sharing Dirk. For me, one of the most interesting aspects to the Nanking Incident was author and missionary Pearl S. Buck’s involvement. A book chronicling the lives of gunboat sailors would be a treat because they certainly seemed to be a breed apart. The accomplishments of Lt. Com. Settle of the Palos for one, as well as gunboat sailor and Sand Pebbles author Richard McKenna for another.

 

[Dirk]

Thanks! I have a grouping to the Palos in which Settle is the Capt. Several members have privately said I should do a book on these collections. Have sent for their records through one of our forum members and plan on getting the rest of the logs for at least the Monocacy. I am reading all I can to get up to speed so a book can be done.

[askari]

Congratulations on acquiring an excellent collection! I remember seeing this auction listing, and I'm very glad they went to someone who is both knowledgeable on the subject and willing to share them with us. Thanks for posting!

[Keith]

I am in awe. Thank you.

[Dirk]

Again thank you guys! ......given how the pictures were shown initially I was not sure what the group was really about until I got it in hand. The sheer volume of pictures blew me away....granted many are "boring" by themselves but collectively they tell a great story.....when you combine them with Kemp Tolley and Richard McKenna's books it all makes sense.....I am just happy the seller allowed me to make an offer on the bulk of what was in the collection to keep it more or less intact.

[Slobo]

I find it interesting that among these great photos, many of the Yangpat gobs in whites seem to lack any rating badges or shoulder seam watch stripes. Their undress (and I think I saw one or two dress) white jerseys lacked any markings whatsoever. Was this common as I thought once out of boot they at least had a watch stripe around the shoulder?

[sigsaye]

I find it interesting that among these great photos, many of the Yangpat gobs in whites seem to lack any rating badges or shoulder seam watch stripes. Their undress (and I think I saw one or two dress) white jerseys lacked any markings whatsoever. Was this common as I thought once out of boot they at least had a watch stripe around the shoulder?

. I would say they were just not bothered with. Small crew, every one knows who you are. Additionally, as anyone who has ever worse those whites can tell you, they have a very short life span when you wear them every day. I'm guessing most of what you see in the photos are locally made and just forget the Group Rate Mark, (Stripe around the shoulder). My father related that they were a pain in the neck. He started out as a Seaman with the blue stripe on his right shoulder. After a couple years, he became a Fireman (F1/c). He said when he took the blue stripe off of his white jumpers, there was a blue shadow where the dye had leached into the white cotton. It was worse, he said, when they converted to the current use sleeve stripes and when he removed the red stripe from his left shoulder, there was a pink shadow! It was not as bad on the blues, but still a shadow. He was in China aboard a Heavy Cruiser, with a flag aboard, so the option to skip it was not there. But he said it was pretty common to see guys from small ships ashore on liberty with nothing on their uniforms, especially in ports away from Shanghai. By the way, he would say that places like Tsing Tao and Hankow were like the Wild West. He, my uncle and another old Sailor drank many cups of coffee in our restaurant talking about their days in the "ChinaFleet". Miss those stories.

[Dirk]

Sigsaye is probably correct on the whites.....locally made......McKenna says as much in his book. And when you take McKenna's book and compare it to photo evidence, surviving paperwork, deck logs, gunboat ephemera and other written accounts of gunboat operations you see he gave us a novelized history of all gunboat activities in China, customs and lingo that is found in its completeness no where else. When I finally read his book I realized just how masterfully he tied together the Asiatic gunboat story with what I was seeing in these and other photos/paperwork in my collection.

[sigsaye]

First saw "The Sand Pebbles" about '70-'71. First read the book in. '73 while on my first ship. Picked up a paperback copy in Hong Kong in '81, read it again and loaned it to one of my guys. He loaned it to another of the SMS, eventually getting to all 10 of them, passing to the QMs and RMs. next time I saw it, the covers were gone and it was held together with ordence tape (military spec duct tape). Pretty much every one in the OPS department had read it. When I left the ship, they gave me a new hard back copy from Naval Institute Press. Good guys. They got what the story was about.