YANGPAT

Veterans Day 2024

Anyone who keeps up on the news is aware that the US Navy has some ships in the Persian Gulf. If they are old enough to remember, they know that the US Navy has been on patrol in the Persian Gulf since at least the fall of the Shah in 1979. 

In fact, the Navy has been working, and patrolling continuously, in the Persian Gulf (and Red Sea and North Arabian Sea) since late 1941 when the US joined with the Royal Navy to both secure the sea lanes into Iran, and work with the British to expand the flow of war material across Iran, into the USSR. In short, the US Navy has been continuously on patrol in the Gulf for 84 years - and counting. On this Veteran’s Day a tip of the hat to all who have “done time” on what came to be known as “Gonzo Station.”

But that is not the longest continuous patrol the Navy has maintained. That record, 95 years - from 1854 to 1949, goes to the Yangtze River Patrol - YANGPAT as it was called. As with the Persian Gulf, US Navy ships had operated on the Yangtze earlier, but continuous patrols were begun in 1854.

The first ship was USS Susquehanna, a side paddlewheel ship built in New York in 1850 and deployed to the western Pacific where she first served as Commodore Perry’s flagship on his mission to Japan.

It was always an exotic tour and the officers and sailors who served on the  YANGPAT were known for wanting to remain in the Far East (WestPac), where, for the most part, duty was easier - the patrol boats often had as many as a dozen Chinese crew who were hired to do most of the manual labor, discipline was more relaxed, there were relaxed uniform standards, and “entertainment” was said to be more affordable than in most of the rest of the world. 

Anyone who likes war movies or movies about the Navy, has seen “Sand Pebbles.” The movie, based on the novel by Richard McKenna, tells the story of USS San Pablo, a fictitious gunboat on the Yangtze River in 1925. 

The movie provides, per those who served on the YANGPAT, a fairly accurate account of what life was like on the Yangtze patrol. McKenna wasn’t just writing out in the ether, he was a Machinist’s Mate in the Navy from 1931 until 1953, and served on the gunboat USS Luzon (PR-7 later re-designated PG-47) on the Yangtze (operating out of Shanghai) from June 1939 until March 1941. (McKenna then made chief, and reported to USS Mount Vernon, AP-22, a troop transport, and spent the entire war on her. He later served on USS Van Valkenburgh (DD-656) off Korea in 1953). McKenna liked the Western Pacific.

Of note: McKenna’s commanding officer when he arrived onboard Luzon was LCDR Charles McVay, later CO USS Indianapolis, in command when she was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-58, 30 July 1945. McVay’s relief was LCDR Lankenau.

By the early 20th Century ships were being made specifically for the YANGPAT, with very shallow draft, and at any given time there might be as many as a dozen ships in service on the patrol. Again, the movie accurately captures the essence of these ships.

One of the incidents on the YANGPAT was the Panay Incident, December 12th, 1937, involving USS Panay, one of 9 USN ships then operating on the lower Yangtze. Panay was at the time just up river from Nanjing (Nanking as it was known at the time); she was 191 feet long, had a 29 foot beam, and at 500 tons displacement, drew just 5 feet. She had a crew of 59 officers and men, armed with 2 x 3-inch guns and 8 x .30 caliber machine guns.

Panay had been ordered to escort neutral shipping (three Standard Oil tankers: Mei Ping, Mei Hsia, and Mei An) further upriver to get them out of the battle for Nanking. The Japanese started their attack on the final Nanking defensive line on the 9th of December and on the 10th the Japanese commander ordered an “all-out” attack on the city; the city fell on the 13th; what followed was the truly horrific rape of Nanking, in which perhaps a quarter million people were killed and between 80,000 and 100,000 women and children were raped. 

LCDR Hughes, commanding officer of the Panay, picked up several neutral reporters on the 11th and, acting as escort to the ships, headed up river. One of the reporters was the Italian writer Luigi Barzini, later noted as one of the clearest voices for a united Europe as a necessary step to avoid future wars.

On the 12th, around 1:30 in the afternoon, three B4Y “Jean” or three Aichi D1A2 “Susie” attack aircraft (there is some disagreement among historians) and nine Nakajima A4N fighters found Panay and the tankers and attacked. Each of the ships was strafed, and Panay, with a large US flag painted on her, was struck by 2 (of 18 that were dropped) x 60KG (132 lb) bombs.

LCDR Hughes was thrown across the bridge and fractured a hip, and was conscious just long enough to order his Executive Officer (XO), LT Arthur “Tex” Anders to abandon ship. Anders was himself wounded; with shrapnel in his throat making talking very difficult, he gave orders by writing them on the bulkhead and on a chart. They fought the fire and flooding, despite 43 men being wounded, only two of the crew were killed Storekeeper 1C Charles Ensminger and Coxswain Edgar Hulsebus, as well as an Italian reporter, Sandro Sandri. Captain Carl Carlson, captain of the Mei An was also killed. 43 crew on Panay were also wounded, 11 seriously. Five the civilians were also wounded. The XO got everyone off, Panay sank later that afternoon.

The XO, LT Anders, who received a Navy Cross for his actions this day, had a wife and son (born in Hong Kong, 1933) who’d been in Nanking until the Japanese pushed out of Shanghai headed for Nanking; they’d taken a train to Guangzhou in November.

His son, Dave, would later attend the Naval Academy but then took a commission in the USAF and become a fighter pilot, flying F-89s and later F-101s. He wanted to be a test pilot but a certain LtCol Chuck Yaeger recommended he get a masters degree first. He did; one thing led to another and he ended up applying to join the astronaut program and was accepted into the Gemini program and was scheduled to fly on Gemini 13 - which was canceled. Anders ended up on the crew of Apollo 8, the first flight to the Moon, and it is he who took what is said to be the one of the most recognizable pictures ever taken: Earthrise.

From 1854 until 1949 the US Navy maintained a continuous patrol on the Yangtze, from the sea up to Chongqing, 1,300 miles up river. Over that period, scores of ships served short or long periods on the patrol, and thousands of sailors served on the YANGPAT. Some 17 were killed in action and 117 wounded. So, for this Veterans Day, toast the officers and men of the Navy’s longest continuous patrol, the Yangtze River Patrol.