The Granger Report-3rdQ/2000
3rd Quarter - July 13, 2000
GUNBOATS ON THE LONG RIVER: A
FOSSIL-HUNTER'S GUIDE TO THE YANGTZE
PATROL
This is a subject one would not
expect to find under paleontology,
fossil-hunting or Granger. Until this
website publication, I am reasonably
confident that no one has. It is a
connection which likely cannot be
made without reading Walter or
Anna Granger's Central Asiatic
Expedition diaries and here in
Durham, NH, or stumbling onto a
rare, likely oblique reference in the
voluminous military records at the
National Archives in Washington, DC.
Fossil-hunting and gunboats in the
Yangtze valley of the 1920s are
indeed tied together by Walter
Granger's three separate winter-long
expeditions to Sichuan Province
during 1921 to 1925 (1921-1922,
1922-1923, 1924-1925). These took
him (and twice Anna) from Shanghai
(where he'd arrived by train from
Peking) upriver to the small hamlet
of Yanjingou [Yen Ching Kuo] 10
miles past Wanxian in very
dangerous section of the Yangtze
waterway.
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Masthead photos: Walter and Anna Granger, ca. 1900.
armament - two 6-pounders, six .30-
caliber machine-guns, and an
assortment of hand weapons such as
non-automatic rifles, shotguns
(sometimes sawed off for use as "riot
guns"), Colt .45s, Browning automatic
rifles, Thompson submachine guns,
Lewis submachine guns, and even tear
gas.
The British HMS Widgeon was built of
iron in 1904; displaced 180 tons;
measured length - 165' x beam - 24'6"
x draft - 2'6"; delivered a speed of 13
knots; carried a complement of 35;
and was armed with two 6-pounders,
four machine-guns, and an
assortment of hand weapons. Her
shallow-draft design was also powered
by steam but was double-screw
driven.
Maneuverability was critical; with her
double-screw design and slightly less
displacement, the Widgeon could
maneuver better than most gunboats,
especially in rapids. The few gunboats
that did negotiate the rapids of the
Yangtze were always in danger of
becoming holed by rocks. The remedy
was simple: the holes were patched by
stuffing in bags of cement hastened to
harden by adding soda. (Tolley, p.
The Granger Report-3rdQ/2000
Wanxian was a city and district
"[u]nique on the Yangtze, [for it] had
ever been a trouble spot. Rival
generals fought in and around it.
Bandits threatened, floods took their
toll of the lower-lying parts,
foreigners clung precariously to their
business in the face of all hazards
and provocations." (Tolley, p. 232.)
If that were not enough, the Yangtze's
worst rapids lay in the gorges just
below Wanxian! That Granger never
lost a precious load of fossils in them
is admirable. For, as Granger noted
on February 28, 1922: ". . . Reached
the wreck of the Hung Fok about 10
o'clock . . . Capt. Hudson said he had
seen nearly fifty people drowned
there while he had been stationed
there. Several post boats had
capsized and some mail lost." (W.
Granger, Diary.)
The Grangers' connection with the
Yangtze gunboats apparently is
unique to the histories of gunboats
and paleontology. Yangtze gunboats
in particular interacted with all sorts
of civilians throughout the Yangtze,
but Walter Granger is the only fossil-
hunting paleontologist for whom, as
well as for his wife, there is a record
of contact. The Grangers'
involvement was not with Chinese
gunboats however, although those
were present on the Yangtze of
course; it was with British and
American gunboats.
But, you ask, how could this be?
Wasn't the Yangtze a Chinese
territorial river then as it is now?
The answer lies in the series of broad
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181.)
YangPat's flagship was the USS Isabel
stationed at Shanghai. Isabel's
statistics were: displacement - 710-
tons; length - 245'3" x beam - 27'9" x
draft - 8'6"; speed - 26 knots;
complement - 99; armament - four
three-inch rifles and an assortment of
hand weapons. Though it had plenty
of speed, this Isabel's greater length,
draft and weight barred it from
upriver gunboat duty.
When Granger made his three
expeditions to the Wanxian district,
only a handful of gunboats from any
of the nations present were capable of
navigating the Upper River "where the
shooting was prevalent . . . robbers
proliferated . . . merchants and
missionaries complained bitterly."
(Tolley, p. 84).
It may have mattered little anyway:
"[s]oon after the 1927 Battle of
Wanhsien, where three British river
gunboats bloodily slugged it out with
a Chinese field army, the China
Weekly Review read the tea leaves
with awesome accuracy: 'A little tin
gunboat on a narrow river is no
match in a fight with a Chinese army
equipped with modern heavy
artillery.'" (Tolley, p. 303.)
The American YangPat fleet of the
1920s also included the USS Elcano,
Quiros, and Villalobos, three vessels
captured from the Philippines during
the Spanish-American War (1898).
The Italians filled the gap left by the
Germans and Austro-Hungarians after
their defeat in World War I. One of
the Italian gunboats was the
The Granger Report-3rdQ/2000
commercial "concessions" the
Chinese earlier had granted to other
nations. "Concessions and foreign
settlements had been established [by
various treaties] which were in
practically every sense of the word a
piece of the sovereign territory of the
country concerned, and in which the
controlling foreign powers retained
the rights of policing and governing,
delegated to a council of resident
merchants. In a settlement, such as at
Shanghai, foreigners might lease land
directly from native proprietors, who
could as well hold properties for
their own use. A concession was a
foreign leasehold where land could
not be subleased [back] to Chinese
and from which Chinese could be
individually denied entry." (Tolley, p.
23.)
"[The] Americans . . . gained [their
access by negotiating] 'most favored
nation' status, enjoying many
privileges given others by treaty. This
would have a profound effect on the
lives of Americans in China for
another century. Through 'extra
territoriality' they would enjoy the
same personal rights and guarantees
as of they had been at their own
firesides in the United States; Chinese
law could not touch them anywhere
in China." (Tolley, p. 23.)
"With the end of World War I, a new
era opened in China. The trading
nations, less Germany, came back
stronger than ever, determined to be
their own policemen, as it was
evident that the former amorphous
Imperial authority had been replaced
by near anarchy. The Yangtze Valley
was a cockpit of inter provincial
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diminutive, but brave, RINS Ermanno
Carlotto, commissioned at Shanghai in
1921.
Additional British gunboats were the
HMS Teal, Cockshafer, Gnat, and
Scarab. The French fleet included the
FNS Balny and the Doudart de la Gree.
The Chinese fleet included the RCN
Yuen Nan, Chi Tung, and Chen Tung
and the Japanese maintained perhaps
the most pervasive and ultimately
most fateful naval presence. Among
others, they patrolled the HIMJS
Hodero, Hodzu, Momo and Shinoki.
To varying degrees, the Grangers were
familiar with most of these gunboats.
So, how were Walter and Anna
Granger involved with the gunboats of
the Yangtze? Well, that's another story
for another time.
-- by Vin Morgan
---------------------------
Sources: CAE Diaries of Walter and
Anna Granger; U.S. Navy Ship logs
and reports, National Archives;
"Yangtze Patrol: the U.S. Navy in
China" by Kemp Tolley (1971);
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting
Ships; "Riding Shotgun on the
Yangtze" by David H. Grover (1993);
and Kemp Tolley (USA) and Michael
Phillips (GB), personal
communication. Corrections,
additions, and observations are
welcome. (VLM.)
READERS' FORUM
from an e-mail received 6-10-2000:
The Granger Report-3rdQ/2000

warlord strife, overlaid by primary

schisms between rice-eating south
and grain-eating north, in which the
river was a natural dividing line. At
this stage [1918], it was considered
unsporting to shoot at a foreign
gunboat, except perhaps in Szechwan
[Sichuan], where different house
rules prevailed . . . [but by] 1919,
disorders were endemic throughout
the Yangtze Valley as a result of the
north-south hostilities." (Tolley, p.
82.)
"For over 2,000 years the Yangtze
river has been the spine and central
nervous system of China. It is 3,500
miles long and the Chinese give it
two names: from the mouth to Suifu
(Ipin) is Ch'ang Kiang [Chang Jiang],
or Long River; upriver from there it
becomes Kin'sha Kiang [Jinsha Jiang],
or River of the Golden Sand. The
American naval presence began in
June 1854 when the USS
Susquehanna sailed up to Wuhu and
back for "ship-keeping" duty. The
USS Ashuelot was first U.S. Navy boat
to travel up the river through the
gorges. It did so from May to July of
1874 and thereby established a
thousand-mile-long route between
Shanghai and Ichang [Yichang] that
would be followed by countless
American gunboats over the next
seventy-five years. The American
fleet became known as the Yangtze
Patrol or YangPat."
Yangtze river gunboats came in a
variety of designs ranging, for
example, from the well-planned HMS
Widgeon to the less so USS Monocacy
(II) to boats captured in the Spanish-
American War, such as the USS
"Dear Mr. Morgan:
. . . I feel very fortunate to have
discovered your website the other
day. I have a feeling that you may
have the answers to many questions I
have regarding my great uncle [Albert
"Bill" Thomson] which can't seem to
be answered by . . . the AMNH
[American Museum of Natural
History]. . . .
[JM]"
from an e-mail received 6-17-2000:
"Hi:
Although I'm retiring soon from the
AMNH, I have an interest in getting
the record straight if it is in error. . . .
I . . . would appreciate receiving your
previous [newsletters], plus being put
on the mailing list for future ones. . . .
[MCM]"
AN OBSERVATION
"The relation of hoax and popular
natural history is unnervingly close."
Donna Haraway, Primate Visions
(Routledge, 1989) at p. 279.
ITEM OF INTEREST - OUR SISTER
PROJECT "THE CHINA YEARS"
Our website designer Kathleen Fetner
has her own wonderful collection of
1920s China letters and photographs

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The Granger Report-3rdQ/2000
Elcano, to converted private yachts,
such as the rather large, deep-draft
USS Isabel built in 1917 by Bath Iron
Works, Bath, ME and acquired before
completion by the U.S. Navy
(originally for use as a small
destroyer) from her owner,
automobile manufacturer John North
Willys of Toledo, Ohio.
All of these gunboats served with
many other somewhere along the
Yangtze during the 1920s, but only a
precious few could operate beyond
Yichang. Not all gunboats were river
gunboats and not all river gunboats
were suited where the mighty
currents, dangerous rapids, and
narrow gorges ruled.
Of the American gunboat fleet in
1923, only Palos and Monocacy (II)
were shallow-drafted enough to
operate between Yichang and
Chongqing [old Chungking] and even
then both were considered
underpowered for the strength of the
Yangtze river flow.
A gunboat was (and still is) a small,
armed vessel. Generally it was less
than 200 feet in length, had a crew of
less than 100, and carried only light
armament.
For example, the American Monocacy
(II) was shallow-drafted, single screw
driven, and powered by steam
produced from coal (or wood)
boilers. Her statistics were: hull -
iron; displacement - 204 tons;
dimensions - length 165'6" x beam
24'6" x draft 2'5"; speed - 13.25
knots; complement - 47;
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from her grandparents Donald and
Erma Smythe. Don was a geology
professor at Tienstin University and
Erma was a journalist. Their letters
and photographs are splendid.
It just so happens that the Smythes
also mingled professionally and
socially with some of the members of
the Central Asiatic Expeditions, a
fascinating connection between our
projects that came to light because of
the Internet!
WALTER GRANGER
MEMORIAL AWARD
The Walter Granger Memorial Award
honors any person who, like Walter
Granger (1872-1941), makes
significant, steady and selfless
contributions to paleontology
throughout the course of their work
while setting aside any need for
overstatement or self-promotion.
design by John R. Lavas
Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska was
announced as the first recipient on
November 7, 1998, the 126th
anniversary of Walter Granger's birth.
The Granger Report-3rdQ/2000

USS Monocacy (II) in full dress at Chongqing, 1932.

(U.S. Naval Institute photo)

The Granger Report is published quarterly (on or about the 15th of the first
month) and is a gradual, if random, assemblage of items acquired through
cumulative selection. To inquire about prior issues of The Granger Report, simply
e-mail us. You may fax us at 603-868-5321 (USA). Copyright © by Vincent L. Morgan
for The Granger Papers Project. All rights reserved. Information may not be republished or
redistributed without our prior written authorization.

The Granger Papers Project is an independent research, editing and writing project featuring
the personal expedition diaries and letters of American paleontologist and explorer Walter
Granger (1872-1941) and his wife Anna (1874-1952). In several significant respects, this is the
first treatment of Walter Granger's era based on a significantly more complete documentary
record. In addition to paleontology, the study of evolution, and Granger's pioneering fieldwork
in the Faiyum of Egypt in 1907, in China and Mongolia from 1921 to 1930 (Central Asiatic
Expeditions), and in the American West throughout his life, research topics include: American
foreign policy; western civilian, missionary, and military interests in Asia; the First and Second
Asiatic Expeditions; The Explorers Club; the American Museum of Natural History; and
previously published accounts of, by, or about the aforesaid. Address interest or inquiry to us
at granger@nh.ultranet.com

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The Granger Report-3rdQ/2000

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and/or images contained throughout this website:

1) We believe information is freedom. Any person may use, store, manipulate, project,
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To the memory of Dr. Norman Charles Morgan (1919-1969) and Jonathan Patrick Morgan
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