Word: gunboat
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...treaty U. S. gunboats have the right to patrol the Yangtze River, an international waterway. The war between Japan and China has not legally affected these rights. The U. S. river gunboat Monocacy (pronounced mo-nock'-asy) has recently been on refugee work near Kuikiang, 450 miles upstream from Shanghai. Low on food and fuel, the coal-burning ship was scheduled to go to Shanghai for provisioning...
...Yarnell, Comrnander-in-Chief of the U. S. Asiatic Fleet, asked Japanese sanction. Last week Vice Admiral Koshiro Oikawa, Commander-in-Chief of Japan's China Fleet, firmly refused. His reasons: 1) possible interference with Japanese naval strategy; 2) the Monocacy might strike a Chinese mine; 3) the gunboat might be mistakenly fired upon by Japanese shore batteries, producing another Panay type incident; 4) the Japanese consider the recently captured Matung boom below Kuikiang "a prize of war" which no U. S. ship has a right to pass. But despite Japanese officiousness, Admiral Yarnell knows his nation...
More harrowing last week to Japanese strategy than any U. S. gunboat could possibly be was the crescendo of Chinese guerrilla activity behind Japanese lines. Tsinan, Shantung's capital, was attacked fiercely by Chinese partisans. Chuyung, 26 miles north of Nanking, was temporarily captured by raiding guerrillas. Most daring guerrilla raid of all was one staged in western Shanghai. Between Nanking and Shanghai were still operating last week no less than 43,000 Chinese regulars in detachments which changed their positions nightly...
Neutral military experts deduced from the information available that Chinese artillery has surprised the Japanese by its inaccuracy. Frail and thinly armored Japanese river gunboats had apparently been able to support the attackers. In Hankow, 135 miles above Kiukiang. the flight of the whole civilian population into the interior was ordered and organized last week by Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek. Most Government clerks and records had already been sent 650 miles further up river to Chungking. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Chung-hui gave a farewell party to the press before he departed, followed by the envoys of the Great Powers...
Intense fighting was continuing at 2 a.m. and additional areas of the city, which has a normal population of 250,000 including about 38 Americans and 189 Britons, were in flames. The U.S. Gunboat Asheville was prepared to evacuate Americans from the international settlement on Kulangsu Island at any moment...