Description
Object description
Short ts memoir (5pp), written for his shipmates, as Stoker Mechanic 1, Royal Navy, in the destroyer HMS CONSORT acting as Guard Ship for the British Embassy at Nanking during the Yangtse Incident (April 1949) during the Civil War between the Chinese Communists and Nationalists, including weighing anchor and steaming down the Yangtse following rumours that HMS AMETHYST had been fired on; being fired on and hit by Communist shellfire; returning fire and maintaining a flow of ammunition to the ship's guns; the extensive damage sustained by the ship; the mounting casualties; being seriously wounded by a shell (losing both feet and suffering severe burns) and being treated with a razor without morphine owing to the lack of surgical instruments and drugs which had been destroyed in an explosion; his evacuation from HMS CONSORT at Shanghai to a hospital where he was critical for three days and almost losing his right arm to gangrene; his evacuation from Shanghai to Hong Kong in the American hospital ship HMS REPOSE as the Communists are poised to take Shanghai; his convalescence and fitting of artificial limbs at the Royal Naval Hospital in Hong Kong and eventual return to the UK (?April 1949 – September 1950); and commenting on his excellent treatment by his doctors and nurses; his return to the UK in the SS LANCASHIRE which restored his zest for life; and the lack of support when he got home.
Content description
Short ts memoir (5pp), written for his shipmates, as Stoker Mechanic 1, Royal Navy, in the destroyer HMS CONSORT acting as Guard Ship for the British Embassy at Nanking during the Yangtse Incident (April 1949) during the Civil War between the Chinese Communists and Nationalists, including weighing anchor and steaming down the Yangtse following rumours that HMS AMETHYST had been fired on; being fired on and hit by Communist shellfire; returning fire and maintaining a flow of ammunition to the ship's guns; the extensive damage sustained by the ship; the mounting casualties; being seriously wounded by a shell (losing both feet and suffering severe burns) and being treated with a razor without morphine owing to the lack of surgical instruments and drugs which had been destroyed in an explosion; his evacuation from HMS CONSORT at Shanghai to a hospital where he was critical for three days and almost losing his right arm to gangrene; his evacuation from Shanghai to Hong Kong in the American hospital ship HMS REPOSE as the Communists are poised to take Shanghai; his convalescence and fitting of artificial limbs at the Royal Naval Hospital in Hong Kong and eventual return to the UK (?April 1949 – September 1950); and commenting on his excellent treatment by his doctors and nurses; his return to the UK in the SS LANCASHIRE which restored his zest for life; and the lack of support when he got home.
History note
Cataloguer SNR