Yangtze Patrol; The U.S. Navy in China

Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1971. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Good/Good. ISBN stated on verso is 0-87021-797-6. vii, [9], 329, [1] pages. Endpaper map in front. Endpaper Illustration in back. Notes. Appendix 1. Appendix 2. Bibliography. Index. Front board weak and restrengthened with glue. Illustrations. Rear Admiral Kemp Tolley (29 April 1908 - 28 October 2000) was an officer in the U.S. Navy and is the author of three books and numerous articles on the history of U.S. Navy activities in the Pacific, China, and the Soviet Union. Tolley left Hankou, China on 27 November 1941 aboard USS Wake (PR-3). The gunboat sailed down the Yangtze River to Shanghai, where Tolley boarded USS Oahu (PR-6), bound for Manila, Philippines. On 5 December 1941 Tolley was given command of the sailing schooner Lanikai and given orders to sail in waters off the Philippines and report any sightings of Japanese warships. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Tolley, and the Lanikai, was assigned to the Inshore Patrol. In 1992, he was inducted into the Defense Attache Hall of Fame in Washington. The U.S. Navy's patrol of the Yangtze River began in 1854 when the USS Susquehanna was sent to China to safeguard increasing American commerce in the region. As Kemp Tolley explains in this history of the patrol in which he was to later serve, the presence of gunboats along the river greatly benefited the integrity of the shoreline factories. Tolley was a young naval officer in the 1930s when assigned gunboat duty, first in the Mindanao, then in the Tutuila, and finally the Wake in August 1941. His colorful description of life as a "river rat" is filled with anecdotes about the resourceful and high-spirited sailors who manned the old riverboats. In the process of telling their story he covers a century of Chinese history, replete with warlords and mandarins, bandits and kidnappers, missionaries and mercenaries, riots and revolution. He presents a knowledgeable summary of the political situation in China up to World War II, including the bombing of the Panay, the siege of Shanghai, and the Nanking incident.