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"The Sand Pebbles Topic" Asiatic Fleet - In 1965 The Sand Pebbles producers offered a $1,000 reward for a picture of USS Villalobos


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1 hour ago, ItemCo16527 said:

This is such a great thread. I wish I found it sooner. For those who have only watched the movie "The Sand Pebbles", I can't recommend the original novel highly enough. It is without a doubt one of greatest novels of all time, and it became my favorite novel ever as soon as I read it.

 

I completely agree and thank you for posting.     Richard McKenna and his wife had no children, and perhaps because of that,  his great novel fell out of copyright, at least in Canada.  The full novel is available to read online,  just Google-  "Project Gutenberg and Sand Pebbles novel Canada" and it should show up top of the list.   For those that enjoy the Sand Pebbles and all things China Sailor or Marine,  I have a post that those guys will probably find interesting, when I get all my research together and written.   The backdrop of the Sand Pebbles is loosely based on actual events of 1926-27 during the Chinese civil war between the Kuomintang (called the "gear-wheelers" in the novel because the flag of the sun, that Chiang Kaishek's Taiwan ultimately adopted, looks like a gearwheel), the regional war lords and the Communists.   I've not found any other historical reference to the Kuomintang being called "gear-wheelers" in period news articles or other writings.  Perhaps it was just Navy slang for them, courtesy of the snipes/bilge rats (aka machinist mates) like Jake Holman, our tragic hero in the book and movie.  Apparently, as of last year, the full length 20th Century Fox  feature movie is also available to watch on line gratis. So, now you can read one of the great American novels,  "The Sand Pebbles" and watch the great flick,  anytime, for free, free, free, on the interwebs.   I forgot how great the movie theme is, great piece of music.  Get dual monitors and you can do a simulcast and pause the movie to compare dialog, etc, with the book.   Ganbei!   

 

https://archive.org/details/the-sand-pebbles

 

 

The Sand Pebbles.jpg

Kuomintang_Party_in_Xinjiang_1942 Gearwheelers.jpg

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Thanks for your reply! I'm bookmarking the link you provided so I can watch the movie if I'm not able to watch my BluRay copy. I have the movie, the novel, and the audiobook. I'm a bit obsessed with The Sand Pebbles lol

 

Can't wait to see the post you're putting together. I bet it's going to be amazing!

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Thanks, I found a very interesting real life connection that McKenna had to another Navy man who was there during the events in 1926-27, that has not been uncovered by anyone else to date.  It will make you wonder, guaranteed.  McKenna didn't join the Navy til around 1930 and didn't go China-side until a few years after that.  I highly recommend buying the biography of Richard McKenna,  titled "The Sailor's Homer", written by a retired Navy chief, Dennis L. Noble, who served in the late 50s to 70s.   It's a must-have for the collection of any China Sailor or Marine aficionado.   It's tragic that McKenna died suddenly in 1964, only a couple years after his blockbuster novel was published and that he never saw the movie that was released three years later.  And it's our loss that he never got to publish another novel. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Sailors-Homer-Richard-McKenna-Pebbles/dp/1612518958

 

 

THe sailors homer2.png

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Thanks! I'll have to get a copy. In the event I can't get the book soon (thanks bills!), what is the connection you're referring to?

 

Also, I wound up watching the movie last night. I couldn't wait for the weekend to roll around haha

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McKenna and a sailor who was attached to a Yangpat gunboat and present at the specific locales (not just aboard one of the four (4)  USN Yangtze gunboats on the river) described in the novel might well have met each other in the 1950s.   If so, that other sailor's stories related to McKenna nearly 30 years later, may have played a part, or at least encouraged McKenna to write The Sand Pebbles.   It's a heckuva coincidence at the least.  Stay tuned. . .

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Interesting! I had a feeling some of the novel had to be based, at least in part, on reality. It was just so detailed and specific about things.

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You can't beat reality thrown in with fiction to kick it up a notch-- bam! bam!    It's like the Tabasco splashed into the crawdad boil after tubing on the Tangipahoa on a lazy summer day, knocking down Dixie long-necks and chewing the fat with your buds.  

 

"The San Pablo sailed away just at sunset with the junk wreckage flaming redly against the reeds. The Sand Pebbles were disgusted. But a thrill ran through the ship when they learned Lt. Collins' plan. As soon as it was full dark the San Pablo crept back again, with not a light showing, and lay to under cover of the rocky islet to avoid the noise of anchoring. Before daylight the full landing force would go in to search the reed marsh and possibly to catch the pirates off guard.

 

****

 

Each section went in one of the ship's two sampans. They hoisted the motors inboard and poled with bamboos, careful not to splash or talk or clink weapons. Franks went south half a mile, but Bordelles went right in past the smoldering wreckage, which smelled very foul. Once inside the reeds it was absolutely dark and they settled down to wait for daylight. They cursed in whispers and slapped mosquitoes. With dawn, a thin, misty rain began. They ate some of their sandwiches and started their search.

The reeds were like very tall corn, with narrow green leaves and reddish-green stalks. The air was hot and dead and green-rotten-smelling and there was long green grass under the water. Farren crouched in the bow with the machine gun. Holman and Vincent poled. It was hard work and they had to keep backing out of blind reaches. Gnats joined the mosquitoes whining about their heads. They kept getting fouled in beds of the broad-leaved rushes that the Chinese wove into mats. They saw many long white snakes in the water.

"Them are good eating snakes," Farren whispered once. "We ought to catch some, for Big Chew."

"Pipe down!" Bordelles whispered behind him. "It's pirates we want to catch."

They could not help making noise. Holman did not think they were going to catch any pirates. He was soaked with rain drip from outside and sweat from inside and he poled doggedly in the dim, greenish light. After four hours of it, he was sick of the whole business. The others were still excited and alert.

Then they stumbled into a thinning in the reeds and a slightly higher hummock with several hundred square feet of almost dry ground. Bordelles signaled Halt! and they all seized weapons. There were two small matsheds on the hummock and several small sampans drawn up and the coarse grass was all trampled. Farren readied his machine gun.

"One of them walls is moving," Crosley whispered. It did seem to be shaking. "They're poking rifle barrels through, Mr. Bordelles!" Crosley whispered urgently.

Bordelles made up his mind. "Rake 'em, Farren!" he said aloud. "Pole on in, Holman!"

Farren chopped back and forth through the two huts. Holman drove the boat in powerfully and they all splashed ashore yelling, weapons ready, Red Dog leading the pack. Holman brought up the rear. He was so excited that he came ashore with his bamboo pole instead of his rifle.

They did not notice that fumble, in their disappointment. No one was in the huts. There were five tins of kerosene in one of the huts. Four of them were punctured by bullets.

"Well, I guess we give the show away for nothing," Crosley said.

"Maybe not," Bordelles said. "Tear down one of the huts and make a smudge fire, to guide Franks here."

Franks would be coming to the sound of the guns, of course. The smudge helped with the gnats and mosquitoes, but the smoke did not rise well in the misty air. It spread out and hurt their eyes and made them cough. Bordelles kept wiping his face with a dirty handkerchief. His face was red and lumpy with bug bites. While they waited, he told about his plan.

The hummock was obviously a staging point for moving the kerosene inland in the small sampans. Very likely the pirates had not gotten it all safely away yet. Somewhere further in there would be a secret channel that led to the pirates' shore base. When Franks came they would split into four search groups, each in one of the small captured sampans. Whoever found the channel would signal with shots and flares and they would rejoin and all go in and smoke out the pirates. They would probably not catch any pirates, but they might recover a good part of the pirated kerosene.

"Mr. Bordelles, you're really smart!" Crosley said.

When Franks came he approved the plan and they worked it out in detail. Perna caught the job of staying behind as beach guard, and he was very unhappy about it. They all refilled their canteens from the waterbreakers. It was only eleven o'clock, but they ate the rest of their sandwiches and they were ready to go.

"Good-bye, Perna! Keep the home fires burning, Perna!" they all jeered at Perna, as their small sampans snaked easily away into the reeds. Almost at once they lost sound and sight of each other.

Holman was in Bordelles' boat, with Crosley and Tullio. He would rather have been with Farren and Red Dog. He poled again, and Crosley watched in the bow with his automatic rifle. Bordelles stood up and pushed reeds aside and signaled the way to Holman. The little sampan slid along easily. After a while they came into what seemed a twisting channel. They went about a hundred yards along it and Bordelles halted.

"I wonder if we should call in the others," he said. "What do you think, Holman?"

"I think yes," Holman said. He wanted them all there, with both machine guns.

"Let's go just a bit further," Bordelles said.

Around the next turn, the channel pinched out. In the next hour they found two more blind reaches like that. When they found the true channel they went more than a mile along it before they were ready to believe it. But it was unmistakably a channel, with reeds chopped out and sedge dug away, a long, winding, green-shadowy tunnel. Holman stopped poling and Bordelles looked at him.

"Ain't it about time to call in the other sampans?" Holman asked.

"We're very close in now. We might give up the chance of a surprise," Bordelles said.

"This rain would've muffled them shots we made," Crosley said. "Let's sneak on in and surprise 'em. We can take 'em, Mr. Bordelles."

"We'll scout on in," Bordelles decided. "No more talking."

Holman poled, his eyes on the water, until he was surprised to see tree-tops to port. Then there were trees above the reeds to starboard also, and a clear current that waved and rippled the water grass, and the reeds were thinning out. They were going up a creek. Bordelles, his pistol ready, stared keenly ahead. He kept waving Holman on. Then he snapped his hand around with the fingers spread, and that meant stop! Holman stopped. They drifted silently back with the current for a hundred feet and Bordelles had them secure the sampan to the bushes on the port margin.

"I saw the stern of a boat," he whispered. "A big one. Who wants to scout the place?"

"Let me, sir," Tullio said.

He eased ashore and worked carefully along the bank, not making much noise. He was gone about twenty minutes and came back excited and eager.

"There's a stone jetty and a big wupan, nobody in it, and it's got kerosene in the bilges," he said. "There's a farm compound up the bank. The gate's closed. I didn't see anybody up there, no smoke or anything."

"Very well done, Tullio!" Bordelles said. "We'll have a look inside that compound, I think. You lead the way."

Tullio flashed his white teeth in a smile and slipped over the side again. They followed him through knee-deep, sludgy water to a dirt bank covered with moss and ferns. They went through willows and past real trees with dark, waxy-green leaves. It had almost stopped raining and watery sunlight hit the wupan. An iridescent oil scum floated on the water in the bilge. Bordelles nodded vigorously.

"We will indeed have ourselves a look inside that compound," he whispered. "You walk directly up to the gate, Holman. We'll cover you. If firing starts, sprint for the wall, and take cover at its base."

"Aye aye, sir," Holman said.

Crosley and Tullio went off to either side. Holman walked up the path. The whitewashed wall was about eight feet high, with a closed wooden gate in the center, and gray-tiled roofs showing above it. He felt numb. He didn't know what he was going to do when he got there. Bordelles yelled and there was red-shot smoke and a slap on Holman's left jaw and his body was crawling on hands and knees into the shrubbery. Black smoke rose above the wall. Crosley's BAR chattered and the bullets made red splotches on the wall. "Hold high, Crosley!" Bordelles yelled. He ran past Holman, pistol in hand, and crouched at the base of the wall.

Holman had blood in his mouth and his teeth wouldn't line up. He was afraid to clamp them together. He wished Farren and Red Dog were there. Crosley was still firing short bursts. Bordelles stood up flat against the wall and tossed something over to right and to left. There was a double explosion inside. Bordelles lunged with his shoulder at the gate. That was something he could do, Holman thought. He picked up his rifle and ran to join Bordelles, and his solid weight crashed the gate open.

"Give me your grenades!" Bordelles said. "Cover me!"

He ran to the biggest house, at the left. A man was down, crawling feebly in front of it. Bordelles tossed a grenade through an open window and ran around to the side and there were more explosions back there. Crosley shot the creeping man in the head. He and Tullio ran back to join Bordelles. An old woman was spreading a quilt over a heap of something to the right of the courtyard. She jerked and worked frantically.

Bordelles and Tullio came back through the big house. They walked springily, in a slashing, dashing way. Holman was standing there.

"They all got away out the back gate," Bordelles said. "Say! You're hit!"

Holman tried to say it was nothing. He could not talk well. Tullio tore open a first-aid pack. Rifle shots sounded in back and Bordelles snapped, "Spread out!" and they did. It was only Crosley. He came out grinning all over his frog face.

"I was just killing them pigs back there," he said. He darted his eyes around the courtyard. "What about that old woman?"

"For God's sake, Crosley! Don't kill her." Bordelles laughed. "Let her go. She can't hurt anything."

"I didn't mean kill her," Crosley said.

The old woman crept away. Tullio sprinkled powder on cotton and packed it in Holman's mouth and put a clumsy battle dressing on the outside. Crosley and Bordelles found about a hundred tins of kerosene under the quilts. All the bedding in the place was piled on top of it. Maybe it was the old woman's way of hiding it under the bed, Holman thought. She just wanted to help. He had a dull ache in his jaw. He felt as if he were one or two moves behind in a game he didn't know how to play in the first place. The others were pulling the unpunctured cans out of the heap. Kerosene was slopping and spreading on the damp clay.

"Take the good ones down and load them in that wupan," Bordelles said.

Tullio started down with two of them. A spatter of shots from the woods drove him jumping back.

"They've circled around!" he said.

"They'll get our sampan!" Crosley was unslinging his BAR. "We're cut off!"

"Don't get excited, men," Bordelles said. "Farren and Franks are coming. They'll take them in the rear." His happy grin was gone, however. "Count your ammunition," he said tautly. "We'll have to go easy, now."

Crosley had only two magazines left. Holman had not used any of his. They refilled two magazines for Crosley from Holman's and Tullio's stock. "Wasting shells on pigs!" Tullio sniffed. "The other guys are coming," Crosley said. "They couldn't help but hear our fire. All them grenades." "Of course they're coming," Bordelles said. He spread them out, to watch both gates. It was seeming longer than it was, Holman knew. From time to time bullets from the woods whined across the wall. Then, very far away, they heard the San Pablo's siren going in short, screaming pulses. It was the emergency recall signal.

They clustered around Bordelles at the front gate. "What if the other parties go back to the ship, now?" Tullio asked.

"They won't, if they heard our firing."

"If." Crosley started and swore angrily. "That old woman!"

"Find her!" Bordelles snapped.

Hastily they searched the pens and shacks, but the old woman was gone. She would tell the pirates there were only four ocean devils trapped there and it would make them bold enough to attack. All of a sudden it was very bad.

"I should've let her have it!" Crosley said bitterly. "The only good ones are dead ones."

"We'll have to fight our way out of here before they can react," Bordelles said.

They all jumped to his crisp orders. They slashed the good cans with bayonets and they set fire to the kerosene and the soaked bedding. "Too bad these damned mud houses won't burn!" Bordelles said. The fire caught and whooshed in a roaring column of flame and smoke. Crosley jumped out the gate and crouched and sprayed the woods blindly with bullets while the others ran down to the jetty. Then they fired, while Crosley ran to join them. They all crashed along the creek bank, careless of noise, and their sampan was where they had left it. In seconds they were in the sampan, Holman and Tullio both poling vigorously, and in a few minutes they were well out into the reed marsh. It had all run off very smoothly, like a drill.

"Well done, men! Very well done!" Bordelles said.

They were all grinning at each other, except Holman. Far behind them, the pirates were still shooting at nothing. Black smoke was billowing high above the trees back there, rolling, outfolding, shot through with red.

"They'll see that from the ship!" Crosley said proudly.

They met Farren in the channel and the two sampans went back in company, shouting the story back and forth, and Red Dog yapped triumphantly. When they shifted to the ship's boat at the hummock, they began being solicitous of Holman. They would not let him pole. He felt dizzy and nauseated and his jaw hurt badly. He was thirsty, and when he tried to drink from a canteen he spilled most of it. He kept thinking about ice-cold, very sweet lemonade.

In the sickbay, Jennings fussed and clucked about Holman's jaw. Holman could feel the ship getting underway, even as they hoisted the boats in. Jennings cleaned out Holman's mouth with an alcohol swab and packed the jaw with medicated cotton and it hurt very much.

"It looks pretty clean. I won't probe," Jennings decided. "We're going straight to Changsha, and I'll take you to the mission hospital for that. They have x-ray there."

Holman was sicklisted. He had to take a shower in the sickbay head and put on pajamas and turn into one of the sickbay bunks. He was glad to lie down. The Sand Pebbles began coming back to see how he was and to congratulate him. Both Lt. Collins and Bordelles stopped by with cheerful words. All the chiefs looked in. Even Po-han came up, full of admiration. Big Chew made beef broth and brought it up personally for Holman's supper. Holman drank it through a bent glass tube and it was hot and rich and good. He winked at Big Chew and wished he could tell him that he appreciated the soup more than all the other attention he had been getting.

In the evening the Sand Pebbles came back again, by twos and threes. They wanted Holman to have all the dope. General Tang was back in Changsha with some other warlord to help him, and they were pushing on down the river. They were supposed to be trying for Hankow also, and there was real fighting going on all along the lower Siang. For some reason Comyang was very excited about it and Waldhorn was glued to the radio receiver. All sorts of stuff was coming in coded and Bordelles would be up all night decoding it.

"Clear out of here, you men!" Jennings said at last. "Can't you see he can't talk? He needs rest."

It was peaceful, alone in the dark. General Tang had been all right before, and they would be all right in that courtyard in Changsha. Holman drifted uneasily toward sleep. He had not liked all the attention and praise. He had not done anything in that fight, except to get wounded. But that made him the San Pablo's walking battle scar, and that was what they were proud of. They did not give any more of a darn for Jake Holman than they ever had. Except for Burgoyne and Po-han, they did not even know Jake Holman.

 

****

 

All next day they steamed across the lake. Holman was feverish and he slept most of the day. The ship buzzed with scuttlebutt. One of the new orders from Comyang was that gunboats could no longer shoot back when they were fired upon unless they could clearly see and identify who was shooting at them. But you could never see that. His shipmates came to cheer Holman and stayed to wrangle with each other. The new order meant they would just have to run out of range when they were fired upon, and the San Pablo would lose more face than it could stand losing. Half asleep on laudanum, Holman listened to them argue. Some thought it must be a mistake in decoding. Some thought it would be only for a day or two. Some thought Lt. Collins would just pretend to see the toofay and they would go on shooting back.

"Not that Collins," Harris said. "He thinks orders are sacred."

It was the nearest thing to a gripe about Lt. Collins that Holman had ever heard. The wrangling went on and on. No one could understand why Comyang was so worked up about Changsha. No one had ever heard before of the new warlord who was teamed up with General Tang. The new warlord's name was Chiang Kai-shek."

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Used to love the original To Tell the Truth with Gary Moore.  Classy show and a lot of quick wit and smart people, like when Johnny ran The Tonight Show.   That was a great segment, thanks for posting.  I'd read somewhere McKenna appeared on the show.   Apart from the carton of menthol coffin nails, they each got $250, since they had to split the $750,  $250 for each wrong guess.   Here's some landing party China sailors at Shanghai all decked out and nowhere to land.  Admiral Mark L. Bristol, USN, CiC Asiatic Fleet inspects them at the Shanghai racetrack, China, circa 1928. Admiral Bristol is at left. In center is Rear Admiral Yates Stirling, Jr., USN, Commander, Yangtze Patrol. Also present is the Commander of the 4th Marine Regiment, Colonel Henry Davis, USMC.   Second photo is taken at same time, with the addition of Captain Kenneth G. Castleman.  Looks like Stirling and Davis are sharing a joke.  The Navy officers are all wearing their swords.

 

US NAVY LANDING FORCE YANGTZE PATROL YATES STIRLING MARK BRISTOL 1928.jpg

US NAVY LANDING FORCE YANGTZE PATROL YATES STIRLING MARK BRISTOL 1928   2.jpg

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Richard McKenna the author of "The Sand Pebbles" served on the USS Luzon in 1939-41. McKenna used the stories of his shipmates on the Luzon of the 1926-27 Chinese Revolution in "The Sand Pebbles". There is a book "The Left-Handed Monkey Wrench, Stories and Essays by Richard McKenna" printed by the Naval Institute Press that I think you would enjoy. The book brings together McKenna's works of Naval fiction and non-fiction based around his twenty-two year stint as a machinist's mate in the U.S. Navy, much of that time spent in China.

The-Left-Handed-Monkey-Wrench.jpg

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manayunkman
29 minutes ago, kanemono said:

Here are some pictures of Finn Oulter on the Gunboat Luzon.

Armed-seamen-USS-Luzon-Yangtze-Patrol-A.jpg

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USS-Luzon-and-USS-Houston.jpg

USS-Luzon-sailing-on-Yangtze-river.jpg

USS-Luzon-water-color.jpg

USS-Panay.jpg

Amazing group. Wow

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ItemCo16527

Oh my God, that Outler grouping is simply amazing. Looks like he saved everything from his time in the Navy. I especially like the Wrigley's gum wrapper. I've never seen something like that before. Thank you for sharing all of it with us!

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ItemCo16527
1 hour ago, kanemono said:

Richard McKenna the author of "The Sand Pebbles" served on the USS Luzon in 1939-41. McKenna used the stories of his shipmates on the Luzon of the 1926-27 Chinese Revolution in "The Sand Pebbles". There is a book "The Left-Handed Monkey Wrench, Stories and Essays by Richard McKenna" printed by the Naval Institute Press that I think you would enjoy. The book brings together McKenna's works of Naval fiction and non-fiction based around his twenty-two year stint as a machinist's mate in the U.S. Navy, much of that time spent in China.

The-Left-Handed-Monkey-Wrench.jpg

Awesome! I'll pick up a copy. I just started "The Sailor's Homer", so this will give me something to look forward to!

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Hello,

 

If you are interested in Richard McKenna, and how he focused on and developed his writing process, two other books are of interest - The Sons of Martha and New Eyes For Old: Nonfiction Writings by Richard McKenna.  Some of the writings from each make up the content of The Left-Handed Monkey Wrench.

 

Take care,

 

Steve Bryson

McKenna New Eyes For Old A1.jpg

McKenna New Eyes For Old A2.jpg

McKenna Books 2.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just started re-reading The Sand Pebbles after seeing this thread.  I find it fascinating how the gunboat, in the book, uses its sailors almost like Marines in many situations in China.  And the protagonist Holman is trained on board the gunboat in how to fight and use weapons in these incursions.  It doesn’t seem like the Navy had any formal weapons/tactics training for these sailors in those days.  Does anyone know if they actually went through any formal weapons/tactics training?  Or did they just do it on the fly!

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Kurt Barickman

It is called the Landing Force and most ships even when I was in during the early 1980s had manuals relating to the topic so yes that was a common thing. As a Gunners Mate, one of my duties was training the guys on my destroyer how to handle, 45 pistols, 870 Remington Wingmasters, M-14s, M-60 machine guns, M-79 grenade launchers and M-2 50 caliber machine guns so yes, there is a contingent on every US naval vessel trained in small arms.

 

 

Kurt

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aerialbridge

I like the way this thread is branching out into all things Yangtze Patrol, China Sailors 1920-30s;  and Richard Mc Kenna's  "The Sand Pebbles"  book (1962) and movie (1966).  RADM Yates Stirling, Jr was ComYangPat for 17 months from December 5, 1927 through April 1929 and was in charge of the Yangtze Patrol when the "new six" gunboats,  including Panay, were launched and commissioned at Shanghai,  ["They were all relics now, in June of 1925 (sic, 1926), and a flotilla of modern gunboats was building in Shanghai to replace them. The others sometimes appeared in Shanghai, but the San Pablo never came further downriver than Hankow. They said she was least and ugliest of Comyang's gunboats and he was ashamed to show the flag on the likes of her down around the glitter of Shanghai. She did not even operate on the Yangtze, but on some nameless tributaries from the south (Hunan Province), and on a big lake (Tungting) that was said to expand and contract mysteriously and to have mermaids in it. From the legends, the San Pablo spent half her time high and dry on sandbars in the nameless rivers with the crew ashore cultivating gardens and slaughtering their own beef and mining their own coal, while the natives took pot shots at them."]  

 

One of my photographic holy grails is to find any of the "new six" gunboats being commissioned at Shanghai.  Ironically, by about six weeks, Stirling missed qualifying (1st qualifying period 1926-27, second was 1930-32)  for the highly-prized Yangtze Service medal on his mounted rack that includes the French Legion of Honor, Officer (mounted first!), Navy Cross, Sampson (USS Dolphin), Spanish Campaign, Mexico, and WWI Victory (Transport).  That's a bummer and Stirling probably thought so, too.  Stirling's predecessor was RADM Henry Hughes Hough, who commanded the Yangtze Patrol from 1925 until December 5, 1927, including the historical reference time frame of The Sand Pebbles from Summer 1926 through Spring 1927, and is referenced in the book several times (but not by name).  The picture of RADM Stirling dates to his time as ComYangPat or subsequently when he was Commandant, 14th Naval District, Pearl Harbor and Territory of Hawaii.

 

 

 

yates_stirling_pic adjusted(2).jpg

The Sand Pebbles Movie Intro.jpg

The Sand Pebbles at the junk blockade.jpg

 

 

 

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I never realized it until reciently that I am fortunate to have two groups to men who served together on the USS Panay. The first EM1c Finn Walker Outler served on her in 1931, the other is Captain Robert A. Dyer who was Captain of the USS Panay from 1930 to 1932. In 1931 he reported, as Captain of the Panay, "Firing on gunboats and merchant ships have become so routine that any vessel traversing the Yangtze River sails with the expectation of being fired upon. Fortunately," he added, "the Chinese appear to be rather poor marksmen and the ship has, so far, not sustained any casualties in these engagements." The gold watch was presented to him by the officers of the Panay. The watch fob is a gold torpedo. He also commanded the submarines S-31 and R-11. I have had both of these groups for years but never put the dates of service together.

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Here is a Chinese student cap that was used in The Sand Pebbles movie. I have had this for years. There is a certificate from the movie studio that authenticates the cap. I have included some stills from the movie and some Yangtze Patrol items.

 

cap-with-medals.jpg

front-of-cap.jpg

inside-cap.jpg

left-side-of-cap.jpg

cap-a.jpg

cap-b.jpg

cap-c.jpg

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Kurt Barickman

Very cool as all your groups are you have posted. I love that movie and still watch it on occasion. Notice how Gung Ho the CO was by wearing his dress whites in battle and all the enlisted men are wearing dungarees.

 

Kurt

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