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NAVY NEWS. MARCH 1999
Amethyst was victim of civil war in China as she steamed up the Yangtse River
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Frigates served far and wide
• Battle scarred - HMS Amethyst steams into Hong Kong on August 3 after her flight down the Yangtse River.
Inset is detail of damage to a gun turret.
THE Black Swan class, in its original and modified form, proved a useful addition to
the Fleet during and after World War II.
Designed on the basis of a 1937 requirement for ocean-going escorts with good anti-aircraft and antisubmarine qualities, the vessel was a development of earlier sloops. The result was a relatively small ship of around 1,300 tons with a heavy armament of six twin-mounted 4in AA
Memorial grove for the fallen
guns, a quadruple pom-pom mounting and a number of 20mm single guns. A total of 37 Black Swan ships were completed. With six going to the Indian Navy and six being lost in the war, 25 saw service in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
A MEMORIAL to those who died during the Yangtse
Incident was unveiled in the
Small ship caught in a big dispute
autumn at the National Memorial Arboretum. The Yangtse Incident Grove consists of four ginkgoe trees, representing the
four ships, in a gravelled circle marked out by 46 euphorbia shrubs, one for each of the 46 men who died during the incident. At the back is a wooden bench, presented by the sons of Lt Cdr Bill Skinner, Commanding Officer of the
Amethyst, who was fatally wounded on the bridge of the ship on April 20, 1949.
An engraved metal plate at the site bears a short description of the incident. The Grove presently
stands near the entrance to the Arboretum, but as it develops it will be transplanted to a new site further into the area.
MFTY years ago next month the frigate HMS Amethyst became trapped in a dispute which has enshrined her name in Naval folklore.
The Black Swan-class vessel was one of a number of ships tasked with protecting British interests in
China during the civil war between Communist and nationalist forces. One small ship was stationed up-river in Nanking, periodically relieved from elements of the Far East Fleet in Shanghai, hundreds of miles down the Yangtse River. On April 19 the destroyer HMS Consort was preparing to leave Nanking, where Amethyst was due
The stabilisers fitted to the modified ships made them good gun platforms, and consequently many served in the British Pacific Fleet; by VJ-Day there were 17 of the class in the Far
East, and it was in these waters that the names of HM ships Amethyst and Black Swan came to prominence. Amethyst was scrapped in 1957, and the last of the class, HMS Crane, followed her in 1965.
to take up station. The Yangtse had become a front line between the two Chinese factions, and the Communists had sent an ultimatum that indicated a crossing of the river on April 22. With Consort's supplies running low. she could not afford to remain for weeks in Nanking during any further developments in the war, so her Commanding Officer was
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anxious to sail beyond the expected crossing points before the push started!" RN ships sailing the Yangtse had occasionally been the target of gunfire from the river bank, but generally didn't return fire. So the somewhat garbled signal from Amethyst on the morning of
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reporting
she
was
aground and under heavy fire, came as a shock to the Navy. She had suffered extensive dam-
age, and her Commanding Officer, 1.1 Cdr Skinner, had been seriously wounded. He died shortly after. With her bridge hit. the frigate veered into shallows off Rose Island and became grounded. Why she came under fire is not clear - one theory is that Communists, who were not familiar with warships, thought it was a Nationalist vessel breaking the truce, though accounts from local commanders suggest it was an attempt to clear the British ship from the site of a river-crossing. Consort sailed early from Nanking, sailing through the narrow Nanking Cut-off at 20 knots and then increasing to 28 knots in the wider main channel. She flew downriver with seven White Ensigns hoisted and two Union Jacks showing on her side so as to make her nationality clear. At 1345 she sighted Amethyst and approached with a view to tow-
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came under fire from the Communist shore batteries. After some initial success, damage started to become heavy and Consort, with eight dead and more than 30 wounded, continued down river to Kiangyin, where she was joined by the cruiser HMS London and HMS Black Swan from Shanghai. Both attempted to reach Amethyst, which managed to refloat herself and anchor further upstream, but were beaten back by gunfire from shore batteries - 17 sailors died in HMS London, and more than 30 were wounded, and the Navy was forced back downriver. At that point the Yangtse Incident became a stalemate. With only <S6 of her original 192 still on board - many had died, many more were evacuated - and
N YELLOW SEA Mouth of the Yangtse the Communist howitzers trained on her from less than a quarter of a mile, the ship was told by the local Chinese colonel that if she moved, she would be sunk. As summer drew in, life on board the frigate, now under the command of Lt Cdr John Kerans, became almost unbearable, with temperatures below deck rising to 120 degrees. With fuel needed to operate the ship's generators running low. Lt Cdr Kerans decided to cut and run the 168 miles to safety. At 2212 on July 30 she edged out into the main channel under the cover of a Chinese freighter, but within minutes the two ships were challenged and Amethyst came under
heavy
fire,
which
she
returned. At Kiangyin there were more shore batteries, and the frigate had to smash through a blockading boom. Sporadic signals had been sent to the admiralty reporting that she was under attack, then a silence of two hours was broken by the news: "Have rejoined the Fleet. No damage or casualties. God save the King."
The story continues... In May's Navy News: Life on board HMS Amethyst as a skeleton crew spent weeks maintaining and repairing the ship during protracted negotiations with the Communists.
In July's Navy News: How the ship escaped from her river anchorage and fled to freedom down the Yangtse River.
The Yangtse Incident in pictures - see page 25