THE WANHSIEN INCIDENT, CHINA, 1926
Lieutenant Alfred Higgins, H.M.S. Despatch
St. Mary's, Funtington, Sussex
Sub-Lieutenant Christopher Ridge, H.M.S. Cockchafer
St. Dunstan's, Canterbury, Kent
The Background
If you look at the history of China in the first half of the last century you will be hard pressed to prevent yourself from shaking your head in amazement. Chaos hardly does it justice.
In September 1912 the Qing Dynasty, of Last Emperor fame, was overthrown, its demise initiating a period known as the Warlord Era, when China was split into fluid regions dominated by warlord generals, who governed their regions as they wished, with only nominal acknowledgement of whichever group happened to be in control of Peking at the time.
The major powers, with much mercantile investment in the country, were nervous of the unpredictability of the situation, and so the British, the Americans and the French all posted naval forces there, patrolling the coast and the rivers. Included amongst these was a group of five Insect-class gunboats sent out in January, 1920 (Insect class because of their names - HMS Cockchafer, HMS Cricket, HMS Mantis, HMS Moth and HMS Scarab). Cockchafer, central to our story, was stationed on the Yangtse.
In 1923 a leading Chinese General, Wu Pei Fu, was driven southwards by northern power struggles into his powerbases in Hunan and Hubei, regions he was to dominate for the next five years, with his centre in Chungking. One of his leading commanders was Yang Sen, who in 1924 was appointed Governor of Sichuan province. Two years later, in the Spring of 1926, Wu’s enemies in the north began moves southward to threaten him, and in response Wu moved his forces out of Chungking and marched north, leaving his governors to control the regions behind him. However, there are always factions within factions, and two more of Wu’s generals, Tang and Peng, took advantage of his absence to align themselves against their enemy in Chungking, Yang Sen. Yang thus moved himself and his forces east along the Yangtse, and set up base at the Treaty Port of Wanhsien (also Wanxian, now Wanzhou).
Treaty Ports were, by the 1920s, a collection of over eighty ports nationwide where the merchant ships of foreign powers were allowed to trade with China. At all of them agreed customs duties were levied and accepted, but Yang’s arrival at Wanhsien changed matters, and introduced certain tensions.
Trouble begins
For a start, huge forces were best moved around the country by river, and for the generals that usually involved commandeering boats, and for their purposes the best boats were the foreign merchant ships. All the powers had agreed to instruct their ships not to cooperate with transporting troops, especially as the Chinese usually demanded food and accommodation as well as transport. However, it is one thing to say no, and quite another to keep on saying it when someone is pointing a gun at you, so most of the merchant ships cooperated, with the exception of those who felt themselves supported by a significant naval presence, which on the Yangtse meant the Americans and the British. The French did have one small gunboat, the Doudart de Lagrée, but it was too small to act as a major deterrent.
When Yang was fleeing Chungking, therefore, and seeking transport for his army, he was displeased by the refusal of British ships to cooperate, especially when French and Japanese craft did as he asked. Then, when he arrived at Wanhsien, he had an army to feed and supply, but no longer had the resources of Chungking to support him. To raise revenue he arbitrarily decided to impose a ‘wharfage tax’ on all vessels. As Captain Albert Williamson, Captain of the Jardine-Matheson-owned S.S. Kia Wo, whom we shall meet later, said, “This was damned nonsense - there were no wharves in Wanhsien at all - he just demanded that every ship must pay wharfage tax for improvement of the wharves which didn't exist. In Wanhsien there was a difference in river level between winter and summer of over 100 feet, so it was impossible to have wharves in a place like that.” Again, most nations reluctantly paid up, but not the British, and to allay any further provocative moves by Yang HMS Cockchafer was ordered to moor in Wanhsien harbour, and Yang was warned that he must not interfere with British ships. Cue one very upset, touchy, warlord.
Trouble worsens
On August 26th, 1926, Yang decided to assert himself and redeem the loss of face he was enduring. The SS Wanhsien, owned by the China Navigation Company, part of a British company, was boarded in Wanhsien harbour by a force of Yang’s troops, under General Kuo Ju Teng, who demanded passage. Following his company's instructions, the captain refused to leave port. A party from the Cockchafer went aboard the merchant ship, and persuaded the Chinese troops to leave, but not without dispute.
Thwarted in that attempt Yang’s troops now boarded another ship, the SS Wanliu (there are conflicting reports as to whether or not this happened at Wanhsien, or somewhere else). The Wanliu’s captain, presumably fearing capture or occupation, steamed away, with some Chinese troops on board, and during his escape a sampan was swamped and sank. Now if we believe Captain Williamson, this was a civilian sampan, and nobody drowned, but if we accept the version of events claimed by Yang Sen the sampan contained his troops and a number drowned. The Cockchafer removed the troops from the Wanliu, but Yang demanded compensation for the loss of his fighting men.
Obviously Commander Acheson of the Cockchafer could not authorize such reparation, and so Yang again boarded, and this time seized, the Wanhsien, and also one of its sister ships, SS Wantung, and captured their British officers and native crews.
On September 1st the British Consul from Chungking arrived aboard another Royal Navy vessel, H.M.S. Wigeon, and attempted to negotiate with Yang, but negogiations failed. Over the next 24 hours Yang brought in twenty thousand troops, with artillery, to oppose the two British gunboats, and the British decided that the impasse could only be ended with force, not negotiation.
The Men
Although they had a number of naval vessels available, it was decided that subterfuge was needed, and so re-enter Captain Albert Williamson of the Kia Wo. The Navy commandeered his ship, armed it, and crewed it with naval personnel from the gunboats Mantis and Scarab, and from the cruiser Despatch, including Lieutenant Albert Rowland Higgins, the 24 year-old son of a Board of Trade barrister descended from Liverpool merchant stock. Joining the party was a Sub-Lieutenant from the Cockchafer who had been on sick leave, Christopher Ridge, a 26 year-old who was born in Goldsborough, near Knaresborough, in North Yorkshire. Williamson was asked if he wished to sail with them as Sailing Master, under the instructions of Commander Darley of the Despatch, and he agreed to, as did his First Officer and Chief Engineer, and also, according to Williamson, all his Chinese crew.
The action
The Kia Wo set sail from Ichang on the 4th September, moored overnight in a bay of the gorges, and arrived at Wanhsien on the afternoon of the 5th. Darley instructed Williamson to take the ship alongside the Wanhsien, whose crew members were on deck, with Chinese troops below decks and on shore alongside. As the Kia Wo came up alongside the Wanhsien’s officers transferred across, while a boarding party led by Darley stormed over in the opposite direction. Thus began a bout of hand-to-hand and close-range fighting which ended in more British deaths than were saved. Commander Darley was last seen leading his men forward, firing his pistols. Sub-Lieutenant Ridge also died on the deck, as did three of the naval seamen. Lieutenant Higgins and one other rating made it back to the Kia Wo, but died of their wounds before the next day dawned.
As this was going on the Cockchafer and the Wigeon were not being idle, but focused shelling on Yang’s forces ashore. On the Wantung the First Officer and the Chief Engineer, taking advantage of the confusion, leapt overboard and swam. The First Officer reached the watching Doudart de Lagrée, but the Chief Engineer was shot dead in the water. Captain Bates, for whatever reason (Williamson suggests he could not swim), was left dangling from the stern. Williamson, who had now assumed command following Darley’s death, nudged the Kia Wo forward until Bates could drop onto deck, and then withdrew. With all British captives now accounted for the British ships moved off back to Ichang, abandoning the two occupied merchant boats.
The next day an increased force steamed back to Wanhsien. The Cockchafer stayed behind, but the Wigeon and the Kia Wo returned, along with two other gunboats, the Mantis and the Teal. The Kia Wo carried a new potential boarding party, fresh from HMS Hawkins, the China Station flagship. No conflict ensued, however. The Chinese returned the Wanhsien and the Wantung, with their crews, and within a few days Yang and his forces had gone.
Afterwards
The incident did not go unnoticed in Britain. Captain Williamson and Chief Engineer Horace Kingswood, of the Kia Wo, were awarded the OBE, as were Captain Bates of the Wantung, and Lieutenant-Commander Lalor of the Wanlui. Two Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded, three Conspicuous Gallantry Medals, and four Distinguished Service medals, with a further twenty-seven Mentioned in Dispatches, including Lieutenants Higgins and Ridge.
Captain Williamson retired from Jardine-Mathieson in 1947, in his mid-fifties, and then had nearly 50 years in retirement, eventually dying in Brighton in 1995, aged 104. Hull-born Captain Stuart Harcourt Bates died in Winchester in 1960, aged 65 – his house was named Wantung. Lieutenant Jack Peterson, D.S.C., the only officer to survive from the boarding party, stayed with the navy and became Commander, captaining three minesweepers in World War Two (HMS Sharpshooter, HMS Bangor, and HMS Shippigan). Yang Sen was to escape to Formosa (now Taiwan) with Chiang Kai Shek, and eventually become Chairman of their Olympic Committee, which cynics may say tells you all about Olympic Committees that you ever need to know. He died in 1977, wealthy and feted. Wanhsien must have seemed a long time ago.
If you look at the history of China in the first half of the last century you will be hard pressed to prevent yourself from shaking your head in amazement. Chaos hardly does it justice.
In September 1912 the Qing Dynasty, of Last Emperor fame, was overthrown, its demise initiating a period known as the Warlord Era, when China was split into fluid regions dominated by warlord generals, who governed their regions as they wished, with only nominal acknowledgement of whichever group happened to be in control of Peking at the time.
The major powers, with much mercantile investment in the country, were nervous of the unpredictability of the situation, and so the British, the Americans and the French all posted naval forces there, patrolling the coast and the rivers. Included amongst these was a group of five Insect-class gunboats sent out in January, 1920 (Insect class because of their names - HMS Cockchafer, HMS Cricket, HMS Mantis, HMS Moth and HMS Scarab). Cockchafer, central to our story, was stationed on the Yangtse.
In 1923 a leading Chinese General, Wu Pei Fu, was driven southwards by northern power struggles into his powerbases in Hunan and Hubei, regions he was to dominate for the next five years, with his centre in Chungking. One of his leading commanders was Yang Sen, who in 1924 was appointed Governor of Sichuan province. Two years later, in the Spring of 1926, Wu’s enemies in the north began moves southward to threaten him, and in response Wu moved his forces out of Chungking and marched north, leaving his governors to control the regions behind him. However, there are always factions within factions, and two more of Wu’s generals, Tang and Peng, took advantage of his absence to align themselves against their enemy in Chungking, Yang Sen. Yang thus moved himself and his forces east along the Yangtse, and set up base at the Treaty Port of Wanhsien (also Wanxian, now Wanzhou).
Treaty Ports were, by the 1920s, a collection of over eighty ports nationwide where the merchant ships of foreign powers were allowed to trade with China. At all of them agreed customs duties were levied and accepted, but Yang’s arrival at Wanhsien changed matters, and introduced certain tensions.
Trouble begins
For a start, huge forces were best moved around the country by river, and for the generals that usually involved commandeering boats, and for their purposes the best boats were the foreign merchant ships. All the powers had agreed to instruct their ships not to cooperate with transporting troops, especially as the Chinese usually demanded food and accommodation as well as transport. However, it is one thing to say no, and quite another to keep on saying it when someone is pointing a gun at you, so most of the merchant ships cooperated, with the exception of those who felt themselves supported by a significant naval presence, which on the Yangtse meant the Americans and the British. The French did have one small gunboat, the Doudart de Lagrée, but it was too small to act as a major deterrent.
When Yang was fleeing Chungking, therefore, and seeking transport for his army, he was displeased by the refusal of British ships to cooperate, especially when French and Japanese craft did as he asked. Then, when he arrived at Wanhsien, he had an army to feed and supply, but no longer had the resources of Chungking to support him. To raise revenue he arbitrarily decided to impose a ‘wharfage tax’ on all vessels. As Captain Albert Williamson, Captain of the Jardine-Matheson-owned S.S. Kia Wo, whom we shall meet later, said, “This was damned nonsense - there were no wharves in Wanhsien at all - he just demanded that every ship must pay wharfage tax for improvement of the wharves which didn't exist. In Wanhsien there was a difference in river level between winter and summer of over 100 feet, so it was impossible to have wharves in a place like that.” Again, most nations reluctantly paid up, but not the British, and to allay any further provocative moves by Yang HMS Cockchafer was ordered to moor in Wanhsien harbour, and Yang was warned that he must not interfere with British ships. Cue one very upset, touchy, warlord.
Trouble worsens
On August 26th, 1926, Yang decided to assert himself and redeem the loss of face he was enduring. The SS Wanhsien, owned by the China Navigation Company, part of a British company, was boarded in Wanhsien harbour by a force of Yang’s troops, under General Kuo Ju Teng, who demanded passage. Following his company's instructions, the captain refused to leave port. A party from the Cockchafer went aboard the merchant ship, and persuaded the Chinese troops to leave, but not without dispute.
Thwarted in that attempt Yang’s troops now boarded another ship, the SS Wanliu (there are conflicting reports as to whether or not this happened at Wanhsien, or somewhere else). The Wanliu’s captain, presumably fearing capture or occupation, steamed away, with some Chinese troops on board, and during his escape a sampan was swamped and sank. Now if we believe Captain Williamson, this was a civilian sampan, and nobody drowned, but if we accept the version of events claimed by Yang Sen the sampan contained his troops and a number drowned. The Cockchafer removed the troops from the Wanliu, but Yang demanded compensation for the loss of his fighting men.
Obviously Commander Acheson of the Cockchafer could not authorize such reparation, and so Yang again boarded, and this time seized, the Wanhsien, and also one of its sister ships, SS Wantung, and captured their British officers and native crews.
On September 1st the British Consul from Chungking arrived aboard another Royal Navy vessel, H.M.S. Wigeon, and attempted to negotiate with Yang, but negogiations failed. Over the next 24 hours Yang brought in twenty thousand troops, with artillery, to oppose the two British gunboats, and the British decided that the impasse could only be ended with force, not negotiation.
The Men
Although they had a number of naval vessels available, it was decided that subterfuge was needed, and so re-enter Captain Albert Williamson of the Kia Wo. The Navy commandeered his ship, armed it, and crewed it with naval personnel from the gunboats Mantis and Scarab, and from the cruiser Despatch, including Lieutenant Albert Rowland Higgins, the 24 year-old son of a Board of Trade barrister descended from Liverpool merchant stock. Joining the party was a Sub-Lieutenant from the Cockchafer who had been on sick leave, Christopher Ridge, a 26 year-old who was born in Goldsborough, near Knaresborough, in North Yorkshire. Williamson was asked if he wished to sail with them as Sailing Master, under the instructions of Commander Darley of the Despatch, and he agreed to, as did his First Officer and Chief Engineer, and also, according to Williamson, all his Chinese crew.
The action
The Kia Wo set sail from Ichang on the 4th September, moored overnight in a bay of the gorges, and arrived at Wanhsien on the afternoon of the 5th. Darley instructed Williamson to take the ship alongside the Wanhsien, whose crew members were on deck, with Chinese troops below decks and on shore alongside. As the Kia Wo came up alongside the Wanhsien’s officers transferred across, while a boarding party led by Darley stormed over in the opposite direction. Thus began a bout of hand-to-hand and close-range fighting which ended in more British deaths than were saved. Commander Darley was last seen leading his men forward, firing his pistols. Sub-Lieutenant Ridge also died on the deck, as did three of the naval seamen. Lieutenant Higgins and one other rating made it back to the Kia Wo, but died of their wounds before the next day dawned.
As this was going on the Cockchafer and the Wigeon were not being idle, but focused shelling on Yang’s forces ashore. On the Wantung the First Officer and the Chief Engineer, taking advantage of the confusion, leapt overboard and swam. The First Officer reached the watching Doudart de Lagrée, but the Chief Engineer was shot dead in the water. Captain Bates, for whatever reason (Williamson suggests he could not swim), was left dangling from the stern. Williamson, who had now assumed command following Darley’s death, nudged the Kia Wo forward until Bates could drop onto deck, and then withdrew. With all British captives now accounted for the British ships moved off back to Ichang, abandoning the two occupied merchant boats.
The next day an increased force steamed back to Wanhsien. The Cockchafer stayed behind, but the Wigeon and the Kia Wo returned, along with two other gunboats, the Mantis and the Teal. The Kia Wo carried a new potential boarding party, fresh from HMS Hawkins, the China Station flagship. No conflict ensued, however. The Chinese returned the Wanhsien and the Wantung, with their crews, and within a few days Yang and his forces had gone.
Afterwards
The incident did not go unnoticed in Britain. Captain Williamson and Chief Engineer Horace Kingswood, of the Kia Wo, were awarded the OBE, as were Captain Bates of the Wantung, and Lieutenant-Commander Lalor of the Wanlui. Two Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded, three Conspicuous Gallantry Medals, and four Distinguished Service medals, with a further twenty-seven Mentioned in Dispatches, including Lieutenants Higgins and Ridge.
Captain Williamson retired from Jardine-Mathieson in 1947, in his mid-fifties, and then had nearly 50 years in retirement, eventually dying in Brighton in 1995, aged 104. Hull-born Captain Stuart Harcourt Bates died in Winchester in 1960, aged 65 – his house was named Wantung. Lieutenant Jack Peterson, D.S.C., the only officer to survive from the boarding party, stayed with the navy and became Commander, captaining three minesweepers in World War Two (HMS Sharpshooter, HMS Bangor, and HMS Shippigan). Yang Sen was to escape to Formosa (now Taiwan) with Chiang Kai Shek, and eventually become Chairman of their Olympic Committee, which cynics may say tells you all about Olympic Committees that you ever need to know. He died in 1977, wealthy and feted. Wanhsien must have seemed a long time ago.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF ALFRED ROWLAND HIGGINS. LIEUTENANT, ROYAL NAVY. BORN 5TH JULY, 1901 HE WAS KILLED IN ACTION IN THE YANGTSE RIVER AT WANHSIEN, 5TH SEPTEMBER, 1926, WHILST RESCUING FELLOW COUNTRYMEN FROM THE CHINESE, AND WAS BURIED AT ICHANG. "GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS"
IN MEMORY OF CHRISTOPHER FREDERICK RIDGE LIEUTENANT ROYAL NAVY, H.M.S. COCKCHAFER, KILLED IN ACTION AT WANHSIEN, CHINA, SEPTEMBER 5TH 1926, AGED 26 YEARS. MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES. THINE EYES SHALL SEE THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY ISIAH XXXIII.17 THIS TABLET IS PRESENTED BY THE PARISHIONERS AND OTHER FRIENDS.
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IN MEMORY OF CHRISTOPHER FREDERICK RIDGE LIEUTENANT ROYAL NAVY, H.M.S. COCKCHAFER, KILLED IN ACTION AT WANHSIEN, CHINA, SEPTEMBER 5TH 1926, AGED 26 YEARS. MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES. THINE EYES SHALL SEE THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY ISIAH XXXIII.17 THIS TABLET IS PRESENTED BY THE PARISHIONERS AND OTHER FRIENDS.
COMMENT ON THIS STORY ON FACEBOOK
Sources
Photos
St. Mary's, Funtington - by Bashereyre, from Wikimedia Commons
photo of Chief Officer Barden, Captain Williamson and (presumed) Commander Darley, presumably aboard SS Kia Wo - from http://www.naval-history.net/WW1xMemoir-Wanhsein.htm
St. Dunstan's, Canterbury - by Ian Dalgleish, geograph.org.uk, from Wikimedia Commons
Military
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Cockchafer_(1915)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Peifu
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_era
healingromanceandrevolution.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/wanhsien-incident-touched-off-by.html
www.naval-history.net/WW1xMemoir-Wanhsein.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_ports
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Sen_(1884–1977)
www.naval-history.net/WW1xMemoir-Wanhsein.htm
Genealogy
http://www.naval-history.net/WW1xMemoir-Wanhsein.htmwww.ancestry.co.uk
© Jonathan Dewhirst 2013
Photos
St. Mary's, Funtington - by Bashereyre, from Wikimedia Commons
photo of Chief Officer Barden, Captain Williamson and (presumed) Commander Darley, presumably aboard SS Kia Wo - from http://www.naval-history.net/WW1xMemoir-Wanhsein.htm
St. Dunstan's, Canterbury - by Ian Dalgleish, geograph.org.uk, from Wikimedia Commons
Military
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Cockchafer_(1915)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Peifu
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_era
healingromanceandrevolution.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/wanhsien-incident-touched-off-by.html
www.naval-history.net/WW1xMemoir-Wanhsein.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_ports
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Sen_(1884–1977)
www.naval-history.net/WW1xMemoir-Wanhsein.htm
Genealogy
http://www.naval-history.net/WW1xMemoir-Wanhsein.htmwww.ancestry.co.uk
© Jonathan Dewhirst 2013
