Actions of the Chinese Nationalist Navy

[Windward]

these two pics show status of Pinghai before salvage

[Windward]

Japanese gunboat Seta

damaged by Chinese mine on Dec 10 1938 near Yue Zhou, Hunan Prov., lost its bow. a temporary bow was added on its stern and it sailed stern ahead to Shanghai for repair works

regards

PS the two white structures on its bow are toilets

[sjchan]

some other interesting pictures from that blog

The author of this blog is a Chinese IT engineer, works for an Amrican company, married a Japanese wife and lives in Japan. He wrote some interesting articles and essays, get well popular in China, especially on interenet, and has a lot of fans.

Some more photos on the Ning Hai from the a book recently published by the guy titled Guó Pò Shān Hé Zài (国破山河在) p. 101. The first photo shows that the 76 mm AA gun had already been removed by the Chinese before the ship was salvaged by the Japanese; thesecond photo shows the aft 140 mm gun being removed by the Japanese.

[sjchan]

Various tidbits regarding the Nationalist Navy.

One of the often overlooked contributions of the Nationalist Navy is the provision of heavy guns to equip the forts along the Yangzte River. One account tabulates some eighty 10 cm guns and many smaller guns. Besides the guns themselves, the navy provided the necessary personnel to man the guns, since heavy artillery was a rarity in the Chinese Army.

I also have six ships scuttled at Tsingtao: they are the 同安, 永翔, 鎮海, 定海, 楚豫and one merchant ship instead of just four mentioned in a previous post.

At the end of the war, the Chinese fleet was reduced to the following units:

1st Fleet: Gunboats 楚觀, 楚同, 楚謙 (745 tons each); transport 克安 (1290 tons)
2nd Fleet: Gunboats 永綏 (600 tons), 江天, 民權(460 tons), 威寧, 義寧(300 ton each); river gunboats 英德, 英山, 英豪, 美原, 法庫(these were Western gunboats given to the Chinese); torpedo boat 湖隼(140 tons)

[Jerry Asher]

Many thanks SJ for assisting us who speak English:

I have the following ships scuttled at Qingdao--Jiangli, Yongxiang, Tongan, Haiyan, Haihe, Chuyo, Dinghai and Zhenhai.
The name of the merchant ship taken over and sunk is still a mystery to me as is her size and location--inner vs outer harbor or some other location. Any thoughts?

All the best.

[sjchan]

According to the following link

http://www.yaox.com/cwm/
(or more directly http://60.250.180.26/ming/2108.html) there is photo of the sunken Tongan.

the merchant ship sunk along with the other 5 warships ("永翔","楚豫","定海","鎮海" "同安" - Yongxiang, Chuyo, Dinghai, Zhenhai, Tongan) is the Hongli (宏利).

The same web site has a somewhat different version of the sunken ships:

Accordint to http://60.250.180.26/ming/2501.html

"鎮海","定海","楚豫" (Zhenhai, Dinghai and Chuyo) were sunk at the main harbour; "同安","海燕","海鶴" (Tongan, Haiyan, Haihe) sunk in the smaller (inner?) harbour, and "海鷗" ,"海清","海駿","海鵬" sunk at Weihai.

Information of the relevant ships:
Haiyan: http://60.250.180.26/ming/2303.html
Haihe: http://60.250.180.26/ming/2304.html
Tongan (and sister ships): http://60.250.180.26/ming/2108.html
Yongxiang: http://60.250.180.26/ming/2107.html
Dinghai: http://60.250.180.26/ming/2504.html
Zhenhai: http://60.250.180.26/ming/2502.html
Chuyo (and sister ships): http://60.250.180.26/chin/1615.html

I have to say this is pretty confusing. Or is the Jiangli actually Hongli? What is the Chinese name for Jiangli and what is the source for this information?

[sjchan]

scuttled ships in Huangpu River, Photo Courtesy of Shanghai Library

Here is another photo of the Huangpu River block (the long line of ships in the background), published originally in the London News Illustrated in 1937.

[Jerry Asher]

Can anyone translate the names of the four ships identified by SJ as being scuttled at Weihai? MTIA
The confusion relating to Hongli and Jiangli I still can not resolve--Jiangli (my candidate came from something I used at the UCLA library and I haven't returned there to check it out further.
Can anyone identify the ships scuttled at Lianyugang.
Two other tidbits--does anyone have a list of the ships reflagged in 1937-38 under the Portugese and German flags? I found a citation to a China Foreign Steam Ship company and another to Carlowitz & Company that might be the lodging of the seventeen ships reflagged German. Also a list of the thirty or more reflagged Portugese?
Cheers everybody.

[sjchan]

Can anyone translate the names of the four ships identified by SJ as being scuttled at Weihai? MTIA

Hi Jerry, it's pretty easy to translate the names, just cut and paste them and use an on-line converter such as
http://www.purpleculture.net/Chinese-Ch ... Online.asp

For example, 海鷗 will return Hai and ou for the two characters, so the name is just Haiou. Ditto for the others.

[Jerry Asher]

Hi SJ. Easy for you, for me I ended up with two Haijun as well as the Haiou and Haipeng. Help me out--what am I missing?
Found however that at Lianyungang two other Hai's the Haichen and Haichi were scuttled on January 24th, 1938. No info on commercial ships taken over.
In regards to my Jiangli found that I took it from Wrights, The Chinese Steam Navy where it is recorded as being the Kiang Li built in 1907 as a 565 ton gunboat (not commercial ship). So we are left with Hongli/Jiangli ?'s at Qingdao and some ?'s regarding Yongxiang which I have as being a 830 ton gunboat completed in 1913.

Compared to the ignorance that existed before, our confusion is most welcome.
Many thanks for your efforts.
Some further tidbits to share on reflagged Chinese ships> Carlowitz & Co. seems to have ended up with at least the Chusan, Chuan Shan, Hsin Ningshao and Hsin Jui On in 1938 and the Kiating in 1940. A China Foreign Steam Ship Company picked up the Haiyun in 1938. Not good enough; but better. (Fascinating military/political interface).

[sjchan]

Hi Jerry:

You may have cut and paste the same ship twice; I have in order the Haiou, Haiqing, Haijun and Haipeng.

Incidentally it is possible to have the same English translation for different Chinese characters (yes it's confusing), but not in this case at least.

As for Jiangli, it is probably the 550 ton river gunboat 江利 of 1907 vintage. On further checking it was one of the ships sunk at Qingdao according to a number of Websites, including none other than
http://60.250.180.26/chin/1613.html
which provides the list that I quoted in a previous post (but without the Jiangli - hence the confusion, but then I suppose that's a common problem with much of the on-line material out there).

The Yongxiang is a gunboat alright, not much mystery about that except that it is a 1913 vintage 844 ton gunboat according to http://60.250.180.26/ming/2107.html, if you want its exact tonnage there are probably more definitive sources I could look up.

As for the Hungli, nothing here; not surprising since merchant ships are not particularly sexy. A search using Google reveals only an 800 ton ship that plied the water between Shandong and Manchuria in 1937, but no more information other than that.

[Jerry Asher]

Hi SJ: Think we can resolve the riddle of the merchant ship scuttled at Qingdao. Language helps--the problem maybe in the transliterations into English. Thus Jiangli/Kianglee, Hongli/ Hong Lee, Hungli. In any case once you inserted the u I was able to match it up with the Ching Kee Navigations Companyy HungLee of 752 tons which the Miramar ship index records as being scuttled on December 18th 1937 at Qingdao. Thats good enough for me.
Cheers everyone

[Jerry Asher]

On page 5 a photo of Chinese freighters sunk to block the Yangzi tentatively identifies the location as Jiangyin. Look again everyone. May I suggest that the location is further west and it one of the three locales identified with the Madang block line. Note the relatively high hills adjoining. The hill features of Jiangyin are more intermittent. Perhaps more compelling to me is that the ships are postioned vertical to the river and not across. There is a schematic in Japanese language Senshi Shenso that matches up with Madang postion. I wear glasses so I may be wrong. Look again though

[sjchan]

Hi Jerry:

Not sure if you have come across this photo of the sunken ships in the Qingdao harbor. It is clearly from a Japanese source, but it is taken from Riben liang ci qin zhan Qingdao tu zhi ("Pictoral History of the Two Occupations of Qingdao by Japan"), by Yan Lijin, Li Shengde, Yan Zhenhui bian zhu, Qingdao Press, PRC, 2005, p. 85.

SJ

[Jerry Asher]

Hi SJ: Thanks for thinking of me. You are right that this is a photo and source that I had missed. Have located a copy of the book a couple of hundred miles away at Stanford University. Will be asking my local library for assistance in obtaining the book through inter library loan. If that doesn't work will see if Stanford will let me use it on site. I can drive there. If that doesn't work may try to have a friend purchase it for me when he goes to Weihei this summer. Many thanks SJ. Have been following some of your posts relative to air force operations. A quick comment--a citation that tanks were lost while in transit on the Yangzi (I think August/September 43 or 44) --couldn't find anything that supports the sinking of a ship at that time and while it is possible that only local wooden craft were used, still find it odd that I can't find it mentioned anyplace else. Any further data?