Western memory tends to be short-lived and highly selective, and Western society rarely recalls that troops from several Occidental nations and Japan once occupied China's cities, while U.S. warships patrolled China's rivers. We may have forgotten these events, but the Chinese have not; the national collective memory of the "century of shame" is never far from the surface in that country's dealings with foreign nations.
The U.S. naval presence in China dates from the earliest days of the republic: the Empress of China arrived in Canton in 1784, the first ship flying the new U.S. flag to enter the China trade. Extensive interests in China have continued to form the heart of U.S. Pacific policy to this day.
The United States was not a participant in the mid-19th century wars against China, but it was quick to take advantage of China's undoing. Indeed, during the Second Opium War, in 1858, U.S. Commodore Josiah Tattnall justified open support of his British counterpart with the statement that "blood is thicker than water," ignoring the fact that the United States was not at war with China. And U.S. warships continued to follow their Royal Navy cousins on China's waterways.
The USS Susquehanna was the first U.S. warship to steam up the mighty Yangtze River, in 1853; a motley collection of ships followed over the years, typically those fit for no other duty. One was the USS Palos, the first gunboat to bear this name. Her arrival on the Yangtze in 1871 drew the scornful opinion of her fleet commander, Rear Admiral T. A. Jenkins, that:
she burns a great quantity of coal, is slow, and draws too much water to go to many places that a gunboat of her tonnage should be able to reach; neither her appearance nor her battery is calculated to produce respect for her.1
Until six river gunboats were designed and built in Shanghai in 1926, U.S. naval and diplomatic officers, businessmen, and missionaries in China made such remarks frequently.
Early in the 20th century, U.S. interests in China continued to increase, as businessmen and missionaries expanded their solicitation efforts. This accelerated activity in a China torn by revolt and unrest led to demands for increased naval presence, which was formalized in the creation of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet (and the Yangtze River Patrol) in December 1922.2 Service on the Yangtze, a river of 1,500 navigable miles marked by frequently shifting channels, sharp bends, and currents of more than 14 knots, demanded ships with maneuverability, speed, and sturdiness. An upper Yangtze River inspector sounded the common theme in 1924: "Vessels should be of adequate dimensions, speed, and have powerful haulage equipment" to combat the river's natural and manmade hazards.3
The first "modern" U.S. warships arrived on the Yangtze only in 1903, when the USS Villalobos and USS Elcano arrived from the Philippines, where they had been captured from the Spanish in 1898. The ships were hot, dirty, and poorly ventilated. They also were underpowered, underarmed, and generally unsuitable for river duty; but they patrolled the Yangtze for a quarter-century, nonetheless.
By the turn of the century the China station was perhaps the most sought-after assignment in the U.S. Navy. Americans were above the law there, and most hedonistic pleasures were readily and cheaply available.
The Navy's General Board addressed river gunboat characteristics in almost every annual shipbuilding program from 1904 onward and frequently received design recommendations from naval officers in China. In 1910, board president Admiral George Dewey recommended a 3-foot draft, 14-knot speed, twin-screws, "several rudders for extreme handiness," combined coal- and oil-fueled boilers, bulletproof protection, and a battery of two 6-pounders, two 3-inch mounts, and six machine guns. He also suggested building these ships as double-enders-fitted with screws and rudders at both ends-since they had to operate in narrow channels.4
The Navy succeeded in funding two new river gunboats in June 1912. The USS Monocacy and USS Palos were built to plans from Yarrow Company, a Scottish firm that had built gunboats for the Royal Navy. They were constructed at the Mare Island (California) Navy Yard, then broken down for shipment to China, where they were reassembled.5
While describing the need for new river gunboats for China was easy enough, detailing their characteristics and gathering design information to get them funded was quite another matter. The Monocacy and Palos remained distinctive. The General Board noted in November 1917 that "gunboat no. 22" had been authorized by Congress but not appropriated for and requested that river gunboats be requested again in 1918.6 These craft were included in the General Board's shipbuilding programs for 1920 through 1924, but to no avail.7
The Asiatic Fleet commander at the time, Admiral W. L. Rodgers, was of course a strong advocate of new gunboats. He also extolled the virtues of Shanghai's Kiangnan shipyard as a likely contractor for new gunboats, noting that the yard had British managers and previously had built freighters for the U.S. Army.8
In a 21 February 1923 message, Rodgers said that a gunboat "speed 16 knots length 200 feet draft 5 feet can be built including all machinery except ordnance at Shanghai. Delivery 12 months cost $400,000." The admiral recommended "four replacements this year." The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Robert E. Coontz, also received a picture of a "Twin Screw Passenger & Cargo Steamer Specially Designed and Built for the Upper Yangtze Service Between Ichang & Chungking" by Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works of Shanghai, a supporting memorandum from the Yangtze Patrol commander, and a dispatch from the American Legation in Peking, strongly recommending increased naval presence on the Yangtze. The picture shows a steamer of the "Loong Mow" class, which, with a 206-foot length, 31 -foot beam, 8-foot draft, and 15.6 knots speed, approximated the characteristics of the river gunboats recommended by several naval officers.
The cost of this ship was 175,000 Shanghai "taels," or "about Gold $200,000, exclusive of armament and radio set." Quality was described as "perfectly satisfactory." In fact, the Japanese Navy purchased one of the ships for use as a river escort.
Late that spring, the Navy requested four gunboats but raised its bid in July to six. The Bureau of Construction and Repair then agreed that the boats could be built most economically in China, since the Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works was "apparently perfectly capable of building vessels of this type complete."9
The design took detailed form during preparation of the 1924 ship-construction proposal. In October 1924, the Bureau of Construction and Repair reported to Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilbur that the General Board's recommended characteristics were being met, with some alterations. These included reduced bulletproof protection to meet weight limitations, diesel (instead of steam) engines capable of driving the vessel at 15 knots, and three (as opposed to four) rudders. Not only did these changes reduce the ships' maneuverability and defensive protection, but Washington officials overlooked the almost complete absence of diesel repair facilities and personnel in China.10
The bureau by this time had produced a ship's plan based on the Kiangnan design, resembling closely a typical shallow-draft Yangtze River steamer. Secretary Wilbur agreed with this recommendation, and the Navy's appropriations request for 1926 included $4.2 million to build six such ships. Congress approved this request in December 1924, and the Secretary could tell the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral E. W. Eberle, that finally he would be receiving new gunboats.11
The ships would be built in Shanghai, with the main propulsion machinery (boilers, engines, and pumps), ordnance equipment, bulletproof steel, and various other "articles of outfit" furnished by the U.S. Government. Bureau of Construction and Repair officers were concerned that material shipped to China would be subject to onerous import duties, which would increase costs significantly. Admiral Thomas Washington, the Asiatic Fleet commander who would oversee construction, was directed to "take up with the customs officials the proposal to admit, free of import duty, any materials specially ordered by the contractor for these vessels," which would amount to more than 800 tons of material, including main propelling and auxiliary machinery.12 Edwin Cunningham, U.S. consul-general in Shanghai, reached agreement with the Chinese government after three months of negotiation, when the Chinese agreed to duty-free importation of gunboat construction material.
The Bureau of Construction and Repair approved the design in April 1925. The blueprints did not reach the Superintendent of Construction in Shanghai until a year later, however, since they had to be endorsed by the other Navy bureaus—a torturous bureaucratic process.13
Admiral Washington awarded the contract to Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works in March 1925. He noted that 14.5 knots was the maximum guaranteed speed for the smallest boats, intended for service on the upper Yangtze, which was "considered sufficient to navigate the up river gorges."14 In fact, this speed proved later to be marginal at best, and the Navy was wrong not to insist on its previous requirement of 16 knots, with an emergency capability for 17. The fleet commander also said that the largest ships would be "flag-configured"—equipped with the additional quarters and office space for an admiral and his staff—and "were needed at an early date [to serve as] flagships" of the Yangtze Patrol and Asiatic Fleet.
Six new gunboats were authorized, funded, and designed, and the contract awarded. Although the Asiatic Fleet commander exercised supervisory control, the day-to-day decisions were assigned to Commander L. S. Border, Superintending Constructor in Shanghai. As construction of the new gunboats began, they were designated "River Gunboat" ("PR", later changed to "PG"), with numbers 43 through 48. Border wrote to Washington that three weeks should be added to the U.S. to Shanghai shipping time to allow for delays in passing material through China's customs, despite the agreement with the government and Kiangnan's posted bond with the customs office in Shanghai.15
The United States ordered the first hull material on 12 March 1926; the Kiangnan planners had "faired" the design lines in their molding loft by the end of the month.16 The shipbuilding contract allowed Kiangnan 12 months to build each gunboat, with the first, hull number 43, scheduled for launching 1 November 1926 and delivery to the Navy 1 March 1927.
Construction was under way by mid-June 1926, although it was troubled immediately by contractor difficulties with design changes. All of the many changes required approval by Border, by the fleet commander, and by one or more of the Washington bureaus. This requirement caused delays first apparent during the process of approving the design drawings. Kiangnan had to submit each to the Bureau of Construction and Repair via Border and the Asiatic Fleet commander. Kiangnan could begin work only after a drawing was approved and returned.17
Construction was in full swing by July 1926; in August, Border already was reporting all the ships one to two months behind schedule, owing chiefly to the late delivery of bulletproof steel. The shipbuilder complained that no steel had been received and that while they were paying U.S. Steel "an addition[al] price for prompt shipment overland by rail to save time over the Panama route. This additional amount of money has been wasted." Kiangnan soon complained to U.S. Steel again that despite the promises of "two letters from your New York office we have no idea where the steel is at present." The complaint proceeded:
As you are responsible for delivering this material at Shanghai, we should have thought that your shipping department would have booked space so that the cargo could come through without these delays at San Francisco .... These delays on your part are very serious both to the U.S. Navy and ourselves.
Border then spoke up, telling Kiangnan that "over nine months of the contract times for the construction of these vessels has elapsed while only a small percentage of progress has been made to date." Kiangnan cited this letter in another appeal to U.S. Steel, in which they asked for a refund of their "additional price for prompt delivery" and threatened "a claim against you for any penalty demanded from us by the U.S. Navy Department."
In response, U.S. Steel's Shanghai manager traced the processing and production of Kiangnan's orders. Of course, he concluded that the delays, several months in some cases, were not his company's fault but were "due to confusion and lack of definite instructions between the two Navy Bureaus and the [Navy's] inspecting engineers at our mills," compounded by the Robert Dollar Line's unexplained delays in shipping the steel on schedule.
The Navy responded quite defensively to the Kiangnan-U.S. Steel exchange, citing its lack of contractual obligations in matters between the two, noting that Kiangnan was "responsible for the contractual performance of its subcontractor," and blaming U.S. Steel for delivery delays: "it does not appear that any functionary of the Navy Department can be considered in any way responsible for delays"—although the Navy already had chastised the officer responsible for timely delivery of this steel.18
Construction of the gunboats in Shanghai fell behind schedule immediately, not only because of many design, shipping, and quality-control problems, but also because of the Chinese Revolution's impact on Kiangnan, as Chiang K'ai-shek's Kuomintang forces swept northward from Canton.19
The situation in Shanghai was so disturbed by March 1927 that Commander Border asked Mare Island Navy Yard to halt shipment of gunboat material. Border concluded in his 1 April progress report for hull number 43 that launching and delivery dates were "indefinite" for all six gunboats:
the progress during [March] has been such as will further delay the completion of the vessel, due to stoppage of work on 21 March, due to disturbed conditions in Shanghai. . . At present, prospects of early full resumption of work are not favorable.... the arrival and taking over of the Works by Shantung forces on the 15th, with the result that all Chinese draftsmen, clerks, and weight clerks quit, and the taking over of the works by Cantonese [i.e., Kuomintang] forces on the 21st, resulting in stoppage of practically all work for the remainder of the month.20
He also had to deal with equipage and personnel issues as construction progressed. Exchanges with the bureaus detailed crew size and changes to the allowance list, which dictated the type and number of almost everything that went on board the new ships, including soap dishes for the crew's heads, toasters in the flag mess, and a brass bed for the admiral's cabin.21
The original contract had required gunboat delivery by Kiangnan to the Navy at monthly intervals beginning with "PG 43" on 1 March 1927; hull number 48 was due on 1 September 1927.22 Because of the various delays, however, the Asiatic Fleet commander told Washington in early May that Border intended to launch the first two gunboats (numbers 43 and 44) on 21 and 28 May 1927, respectively. These normally festive events would take place with little ceremony in view of "the present state of conditions in this country."23
The gunboats were named officially on 10 May 1927: Guam (PG43), Tutuilla (PG-44), Panay (PG-45), Oahu (PG-46), Luzon (PG47), and Mindanao (PG-48)-all Pacific Islands. Construction delays resulting from material delays, labor unrest, design changes, and Kiangnan's inexperience resulted in the ships being delivered to the Navy from 10.7 months (Guam) to 15.4 months (Tutuilla) late.
As the ships were completed, they underwent builder's trials by Kiangnan and then acceptance trials by the Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV Board). The Asiatic Fleet commander cited these trial results as evidence that Kiangnan's work had been "very well and reasonably done." Border's comments on builder's trials were upbeat: "performed well" (Guam), "highly satisfactory" (Tutuila), "strong and well built, and well performed" (Panay), "Very satisfactory" (Oahu), "very satisfactory on all trials . . . strong and well-built" (Luzon), and "very satisfactory" (Mindanao).25
Acceptance trials were more objective and more demanding; the congressionally mandated INSURV Board was (and still is) notoriously independent and hard to please. Its reports generally were good and recommended all boats for commissioning, with few discrepancies: "panting bulkhead," "suspected structural weakness in stem overhang," "unsatisfactory woodwork finishing."26
The ships' launchings were uneventful, except the Panay: on 10 November 1927, the first attempt failed when "after traveling slowly for 30 feet she stopped and was blocked up." The ways were then removed, freshly greased, and replaced. An inferior quality of tallow caused the difficulty. A fouled launching is considered an ill omen and some "old China hands" may not have been surprised when Japanese aircraft sank the ship "by mistake" ten years later.27
The fleet commander authorized monthly payments for each gunboat during construction. Kiangnan had performed well enough to receive regular payments, with only small amounts withheld occasionally for unsatisfactory progress; a typical monthly payment to Kiangnan was $21,000 (gold) per ship.28 Kiangnan's satisfactory work was supported further in the INSURV Board's reports and more tangibly by the fleet commander's expeditious authorization of final payment to settle the construction contract. The new ships were well built: when the Guam was fired on by "bandits" in 1929, her bulletproof steel plating prevented crew injuries; periodic INSURV Board reports showed that the ships had held up well through the groundings and collisions that were common on the rivers.29 the Panay was deemed salvageable even after being bombed to the bottom of the Yangtze in 1937.
The new gunboats were not a complete success, because none met the design characteristics so frequently recommended by experienced China sailors. Excessive draft was the most important discrepancy: the two smallest, the Guam and Tutuilla, drew 6 feet, 4 inches, which barely permitted them to operate year-round on the upper Yangtze. The other four ships could steam only the upper river during the May-September period of "high water." As a result, as early as 1933 the Yangtze Patrol commander, Rear Admiral Y. S. Williams, requested construction of gunboats that would not be restricted by "excessive length and draft."30
The six new gunboats served on China's rivers throughout the 1930s, attempting to deal with the disruptive effects of the fractionalized Nationalist government and its struggles with the communists and the Japanese. The ships protected merchant steamers, rescued U.S. and other foreign citizens, and exerted a stabilizing influence along China's waterways. Although U.S. naval and diplomatic officers sought to carry out these tasks without interfering in the country's internal affairs, this was a forlorn hope, since the U.S. gunboats were interfering in China simply by being there.
The war with Japan claimed four of the gunboats. The Panay, sunk in December 1937, was the U.S. Navy's first World War II casualty. The Luzon, Mindanao, and Oahu steamed from China to the Philippines in early December 1941. The Oahu was sunk by Japanese gunfire near Corregidor in May 1942, while the Mindinao was scuttled by her crew after being immobilized by Japanese bombs that same month. The Luzon also was scuttled in Manila Bay when Corregidor fell in May, but she was salvaged by the Japanese, who operated the gunboat as HIJMS Karatsu until she was sunk by the submarine Narwhal (SS-167) in 1944.
The Guam was renamed the USS Wake (also PG-43) in January 1941, so Guam could be used for a new battlecruiser. The Wake was considered too small for the voyage to the Philippines when war loomed, so her crew was divided between the larger Luzon and Oahu. The Wake, full filling the seagoing superstition that it is bad luck to rename a ship, was surrendered to the Japanese at Shanghai in December 1941, the only U.S. warship to strike her colors in World War II. She operated as HIJMS Tarata until 1945 and then as the Republic of China ship Tai Yuan until captured by the communist Chinese in 1948-perhaps setting a record by serving as a warship in four different navies and surrendering from at least three of them.
The Tutuilla steamed up the Yangtze to the wartime capital of Chungking when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. She was transferred to the Chinese Navy in 1942 and renamed Mei Yuan. The ship served with the Nationalists until 1948, when she was scuttled at Shanghai as the communists threatened the city.
Japan's 1941 aggression marked the end of the U.S. gunboat presence in China. The Japanese Navy destroyed the Asiatic Fleet, and the gunboats of the Yangtze Patrol met varying fates. The U.S. Navy returned to China in 1945, but the "unequal treaties" had been revoked and the foreign presence drastically reduced. An era had ended for the Navy with the loss of the gunboats in 1941. The Asiatic Fleet and Yangtze Patrol existed thereafter only in myth and legend.
1. RADM T. A. Jenkins, USN, cited in RADM Kemp Tolley's entertaining Yangtze Patrol (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1979) p. 34, the best history of the patrol, activities of which are fictionalized in Richard McKenna's The Sand Pebbles (New York: Harper Ea. Row, 1962). Also see my Gunboats and Marines (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1982); William R. Braisted, The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1909-1922 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1971); and U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings articles by Glenn Howell (May 1927, April 1928, December 1938) and Felix L. Johnson (April 1970).
2. Record Group 59, (Microfilm Publications of the National Archives), Annual Reports of Fleets and Task Forces of the U.S. Navy, 1920-1941, M971/Roll 12: Asiatic Fleet Reports, 1923-1929: Navy Department General Order 94 do] 6 December 1922. Admiral (4 stars) was an acting rank prior to World War II; upon completing his tour, the Asiatic Fleet commander reverted to his permanent rank of (two-star) rear admiral.
3. Memorandum by W. G. Pitcairn, River Inspector, attached to LCDR Glenn Howell, USN (Assistant Naval Attache, Peking) letter of 17 March 1924 to Commander-in-Chief, Asiatic Fleet (CINC AF), in Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) to the General Board of the Navy (GB), 4 October 1924, Navy and Old Army Branch, National Archives, Washington, D.C., Record Group 80: Formerly Secret and Confidential Correspondence of the Office of the Secretary of the Navy (including the CNO), 1919-1926, Box 103, GB 420-12 (referred to hereafter as RG 80). Howell later served as assistant naval attaché in Peking and as flag secretary to commander Yangtze Patrol Pacific. He left an exhaustive 56-volume diary of his activities in China.
4. GB to Secretary of the Navy (SecNav), 26 October 1910, R0 80: Box 103, Folder 1900-1910.
5. Bureau of Construction and Repair (BuCR) to SecNav, 1 June 1912, in SecNav to GB, 4 June 1912, with GB to SecNav, 12 June 1912, in RG 80: Box 103, Folder 1911-1915. These ships were built at the Navy's Mare Island, California, shipyard, disassembled, shipped to China, and reassembled in 1914.
6. GB to SecNav, 15 November 1917, RG 80: Box 103, Folder 1911-1915 is notable also for recommending, for the first time, antiaircraft guns for the new gunboats.
7. GB to BuCR, 6 October 1922 included gunboat characteristics, as did GB to SecNav, 26 December 1922, RG 19: Box 3608, Folder 1.
8. Commander-in-Chief, Asiatic Fleet (CinC AF) (ADM W. L. Rodgers) to BuCR, 19 July 1922, RG 19: Box 3608, Folder 1. Kiangnan built these four freighters during World War L
9. CNO (Coontz) to GB, 13 July 1923, RG 80: Box 103, Folder 1923-1933. Also, see CNO (ADM E. W. Eberle) to (SecNav) Wilbur, 31 January 1925, GB 420-12, Set, 3809-1237, in Coolidge Papers, Roll 21, Series 18 for cost estimates for six river gunboats ranging from $600,000 each in 1926 to $1.5 million each in 1928.
10. BuCR (J. A. Beuret) to SecNav (Wilbur), 8 October 1924; SecNav to GB, 15 October 1924, RG 80: Box 103, Folder 1923-1933. Also see BuCR to SecNav, 8 October 1924 for the GB's observation that "should (diesel engines] fail while a vessel is negotiating the rapids in the gorges of the Yangtze River, she could hardly avoid being wrecked."
11. SecNav (T. Roosevelt, Jr., Acting) to BuCR, 6 May 1924; SecNav (Wilbur) to CNO (Eberle), 16 December 1924. The Congressional Authorization Act was dated 18 December 1924. The Navy's budget request was widely known: in June 1924, the Mitsubishi Company wrote BuCR that "we are pleased that the Appropriations Bill for the construction of six Gunboats to be used in Chinese waters has also been passed....We are very eager [to bid]." Mitsubishi (S. Naganuma) to BuCR (CAPT L. B. McBride), 3 May 1924; all in RG 19: Box 3608, Folder 1. The ship construction bill was HR 6580, 68th Cong., 1st Session, in RG 80: Box 103, Folder 1923-1933.
12. BuCR to Bureau of Supply and Accounts (BuSA), 15 June 1925, RG 80: Box 103, Folder 1923-1933; BuEng to BuCR, 10 June 1926, RG 19: Box 3602. Government-furnished material comprised 40% of each ship.
13. SecNav to CinC AF, 13 June 1925, in BuSA to BuCR, 6 August 1925, RG 19: Box 3603; BuCR to BuENG, 18 April 1925, RG 19: Box 3608, Folder 2. The plans were processed through the Bureaus of Engineering, Ordnance, Supply and Accounts, and Navigation. As they were received, the contractor (Kiangnan) made working tracings, which then had to be approved by SupCon and (again) by BuCR. See Sup- Con to BuCR, 22 May 1926; SupCon to Kiangnan, 7 October 1925, RG 19: Box 3608, Folder 2, for discussion of this laborious process.
14. 'Washington to SecNav, 20 November 1923, RG 80: Box 103, Folder 1923-33. SecNav to SecState, 26 March 1926, reported that Kiangnan had won the contract (M329, Roll 219). BuCR noted that CinC AF would supervise gunboat construction in BuCRBuEng to Navy Judge Advocate General (JAG), 19 June 1926, RG 19: Box 3608, Folder 1.
15. Border appears to have performed superbly throughout. The bureaus' role is self-explanatory except for "Navigation," which was responsible for personnel matters as well as furnishing navigation instruments. In practice, each bureau was a semi-independent fiefdom and obtaining agreement across bureau lines was a challenge.
16. SupCon to BuCR, 1 April 1926, RG 19: Box 3605, Folder 1 and 26 May 1926, RG 19: Box 3603. Each gunboat would carry one powered and one oared sampan. The 26.5-foot-long motor-driven sampans were built by New Engineering 6i. Shipbuilding Works of Shanghai for $3014.46 (gold) each; the 22-foot-long oared versions were built by Kiangnan for $420.75 (gold) each.
17. SupCon to BuCR (via CinC AF), 1 April 1926, RG 19: Box 3605, Folder 1 was the first of the monthly progress reports from Border to BuCR via CinC AF: see, for instance, CinC AF to SupCon, 18 June 1926; Kiangnan to SupCon, 3 July 1926; SupCon to Kiangnan, 9 July 1926: RG 80: Box 103, Folder 1923-1933. In one instance, the design finalization process was slowed because Kiangnan ran out of "Vandyke paper," a brown paper used for making blueprints (SupCon to BuCR, 31 March 1926, RG 80: Box 103, Folder 1923-1933.)
18. Correspondence included in BuCR "Memorandum for Lieutenant Commander Baker" (author not identified): "In accordance with your request, there is submitted below a resume of two phases in connection with the furnishing of material for the Chinese River Gunboats, which I handled in part," I April 1927, 7 pp.; LCDR Baker to RADM George H. Rock (Assistant Chief, BuCR), 22 April 1927, 4 pp. Present-day naval officers immediately will recognize this correspondence's tone-defensive, detailed, self-righteous—as identical to that produced by BuCR's direct descendent, today's Naval Ship Engineering Systems Command (NavSea).
19. See James E. Sheridan, China in Disintegration (New York: Free Press, 1968); Donald A. Jordan, The Northern Expedition, 1926-1927 (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1976); Jean Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement, 1919-1927 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968).
20. SupCon to BuCR (Via CinC AF), 1 March 1927: "Disturbed labor conditions in Shanghai have tended to retard progress:" SupCon to Naval Station Mare Island, 30 March 1927, cited in BuCR (Rock) to BuSA, 12 April 1927, RG 19: Box 3604. Material already enroute was diverted to Manila; turbo-generator sets from Westinghouse were shipped to New York instead of Mare Island. Border complained of "unsat work" with "only a few workmen," under "practically no supervision." (8 April 1927, RG 19: Box 3612).
21. SupCon to CinC AF, 13 November 1926, RG 19: Box 3604, Folder 4, also recommended adding an electrician to the crew. See SupCon to BuCR, 8 June 1927, RG 19: Box 3603, for Border's decision about the purchase of 1,164 cast brass soap dishes, SupCon to BuCR, 6 April 1927 and Commandant, U.S. Navy Yard Marc Island to BCR, 16 February 1927, RG 19: Box 3606, Folder 1.
22. Noted in BuCR to Robert Dollar Co., 6 July 1926, RG 19: Box 3603.
23. CinC AF to CNO, received 5 May 1927, RG 19: Box 3604. Probably in view of Prohibition then in force in the United States, on 27 May Kiangnan certified in writing that the "Christening liquid contained in a one quart Champagne bottle is entirely free from Alcohol in any shape or form." (J. Dalton, Chemist, to Kiangnan, 27 May 1927, AG 19: Box 3604).
24. Secretary of the Navy Notice, dtd 11 May 1927, RG 19: Box 3612, Folder 11. All tabular information is from SePCon correspondence, especially the monthly progress Reports (RG 19: Box 3611, Folder 4; Box 3609, Folder 6; Box 3605, Folder 1.)
25. CINC AF "Annual Report for 1928," M971, p. 56. "Builder's Trials Reports," RG 19: Box 3609, Folders 8-11.
26. "Initial Board results are in SupCon reports to BuCR via CinC AF, RG 19: Box 3609, Folder 8; Box 3610, Folder 5: Box 3611, Folder 1.
27. CinC AF to SecNav, 12 November 1927, RG 19: Box 3609, Folder 6.
28. Financial details are contained in RG 19: Box 3605, Polder 4 and Box 3610, Folders 2, 12. The 1925 BuCR (inaccurate) estimate is in Box 3604. The bills are quite detailed: the November 1926 payment to Kiangnan was reduced by $28.85 for failure to install "3 liquid soap containers.
29. XO to CO, Guam, 10 December 1929; INSURV Board reports to CinC AF, AG 19: Box 3614. Groundings were reported by the Luzon and Tuntilla; collisions involved the Luzon, Oahu, Tutuilla, and Panay. The Pansy's salvageability in 1937 is discussed in RG 19: Box 3617, Folder 3. CinC AF (McVay) noted in 1930 that the forced draft blowers on these ships are the only items of the machinery installations which have not Proven entirely satisfactory in service." (RG 19: Box 3614).
30. CNO to GB, Memo Endorsement on ComYangPat to SecNav, 10 April 1933, in GB No. 420-12, 3 November 1933, pp. I, 2.