Description
Object description
British signalman served as wireless operator aboard HMS Amethyst during Yangtse Incident in China, 1949
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Teignmouth and Ashburton, GB, 1926-1943: family; education. Aspects of period as signalman with Royal Navy in GB, South Africa and Ceylon, 1943-1949: volunteering for Royal Navy, 1943; pattern of training in GB; service with radio station in South Africa, 1944-1947; drafting to Ceylon, 1947-1949. Recollections of period as signalman aboard HMS Amethyst during Yangtse incident, 1949: joining ship, early 1949; patrolling off Malaya; arrival in Shanghai and orders to move up the River Yangtse to Nanking; voyage up River Yangtse; effect of Chinese Communist shelling of ship; his work attending wounded; problems destroying Typex machine; swimming ashore; returning to ship in whaler under-fire; work in wireless office on signals.
REEL 2 Continues: problems of signalling Nanking and Hong Kong; attempts to lighten ship; move up river; arrival medical help with RAF Short Sunderland flying boat; further moves up river; Lieutenant Commander John Kerans taking over command; burial of dead and cleaning up of ship; problems of using codes for messages to outside world; establishment of meeting between Commander John Kerans and Chinese Communists; failure of British ships to aid ship; question of scuttling ship; problem of depleting of oil supply; stand-ins he got to allow him to get rest; effect of lack of oil; question of boredom of crew.
REEL 3 Continues: question of making copies of signals; running out of transmitter values; how he was waited on; Chinese censoring of mail; his record request to BBC; BBC banning of song 'I'd Like to Get You on a Slow Boat to China'; ration situation including effect of food shortage on stomachs; photographs taken during Incident; recognition of rules of the sea on river; flying ensigns; heads of department meeting with Commander John Kerens, 20/7/1949; choice of moment to slip anchor, 21/7/1949; use of ferry to disguise escape; effect of Communist Chinese fire, 21/7/1949; signal he sent to Hong Kong, 21/7/1949; problems ship met down-river, 21/7/1949.
REEL 4 Continues: failure of Wu Song forts to fire on ship; exchange of signals with HMS Concord; re-supply from HMS Jamaica; reception in Hong Kong, 7/1949; ill-feeling created by Naafi; civilian treatment of ship's crew in Hong Kong; question of belief that ship would be sunk, 21/7/1949; behaviour of crew during Incident; question of inaccuracies in reporting of Incident; after-effects of Incident; banning of Simon the cat from wireless transmission office; fate of Simon in quarantine. Various aspects of service in Royal Navy, 1954-1966: guard ship duties aboard HMS Gambia during pilots strike; aid work after Xante earthquake, 1954; at action stations aboard HMS Albion during Suez Crisis, 1956; pattern of naval career until 1966.
