Yes, we are in the same mind in Britain too. Please end us lots of cheap oil, clothes, shoes, electronic goods, automobiles, etc But try and export any of your damn insolence and we'll send a gunboat -nfg-
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During the opium wars, some Member of Parliament would stand up and announce China was causing problems. Some other MP would suggest Britain "send a gunboat" to fix the problem. All would shout "Hear Hear", business of Government over for the day.
All this British gunboat policy in China finished on May 18th 1949. The survivors of the "long march" were forging China into a single nation.
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Lt-Cdr John Simon Kerans, a remarkable brave person with distinguished war record, had been banished to some distant corner of the British Empire with a lowly desk job for annoying an Admiral. (He was actually suffering from battle fatigue, a problem that "didn't exist")
In 1949, as the civil war between the opposing Chinese Communists under Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists drew to a close, the destroyer HMS Consort was standing as guardship to the British Embassy in Nanking, ready to evacuate the staff and other British nationals if necessary. As the Consort was running low on fuel, the Amethyst was ordered to proceed up the Yangtze River to Nanking and replace her.
The commander on the "Amethyst" was killed and Kerans sent to replace him.
He appalled the senior government officials and Navy by pulling off a stunt that turned him into a hero, thus allowing The British Navel "Gunboat Policy" to bow out of China with a certain amount of dash and verve, ensign still flying -g-
Just before 22:09, a merchant vessel - the Kiang Ling Liberation - appeared heading down-river, solving Kerans' primary worry about whether they could negotiate the deep-water channel without a pilot. Its chain muffled by the blankets and grease, the anchor was raised, and the canvas sheeting on the upper deck would hopefully disguise her outline sufficiently to fool any observers on the banks. Dropping astern of the Chinese ship, the Amethyst followed for around 15 minutes before the Communists realised she had gone, and flares arched skyward from the Taiching shore battery. A patrol boat was spotted coming out of the gloom, but it inexplicably opened fire, not on the Amethyst, but the shore battery. The guns returned fire, and Amethyst added to the confusion with her own armament. At 22:30 Kerans signalled Hong Kong: "I am under heavy fire and have been hit." Kerans ordered the ship to full-speed, and the remaining 4-inch gun to open fire. Now herself grounded on a mudbank, the Kiang Ling Liberation became the focus of the shore battery, while the Amethyst escaped. "Passed Rose Island," she signalled Hong Kong, and then: "Passed Bate Point."
At 01:00 the ship approached the shore batteries at Kiang Yin, where there was also a defensive boom stretched across the River. The safe channel through the boom should have been marked by two lights, but Kerans could only see one. As a patrol boat moved out to meet them and opened fire with tracer shells, the captain made a snap decision to steer to port of the single light on the boom. It was the right choice, and having passed through the clear channel, by 02:42 the ship was only 42 miles from the sea, but first they had to get past the forts of Woosung. Just before three o'clock, the frigate approached a Chinese junk, but at its full 19 knots a collision was unavoidable, and the vessel was slice in two by the Amethyst's bows. Approaching Woosung, the forts' searchlights danced across the water, but even though one caught the ship squared in its beam, the guns did not open fire. Perhaps finally Mao Tse-tung's commanders were glad to be rid of the diplomatic problem they had been saddled with by the impetuousness of their subordinates. Sweeping past Woosung and out of the Yangtze Estuary, the Amethyst spotted a large warship approaching - it was HMS Consort coming to greet them. Kerans signalled: "Have rejoined the Fleet south of Woosung. No damage or casualties. God Save the King."
250 Chinese troops were killed, plus lots of British Naval ratings and officers...but the ships cat survived. It takes more then a direct hit by a shell to kill a British Navy ships cat!
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