CAMPAIGN GROUPS AND PAIRS x834
Eight: Temporary Lieutenant G. Wright, Royal Navy, who was mentioned in despatches for services at Wanhsien, Yangtse River, China, in September 1926
BRITISHWAR AND VICTORY MEDALS (J. 93727 G. Wright. Boy 1 R.N.); 1939-45 STAR; ATLANTIC STAR; PACIFIC STAR; ITALY STAR;WAR MEDAL; ROYALNAVY L.S. & G.C., G.V.R., 3rd issue (J 93727 G. Wright. P.O. H.M.S. Drake) mounted as worn, the first two good fine, otherwise good very fine (8)
£600-700
M.I.D. London Gazette 6 May 1927 ‘… in recognition of their services at Wanhsien, Yangtse River, China, on the 5th September 1926, and connected events:- Leading Seaman George Wright … H.M.S. Cockchafer.’
George Wright was born on 2 May 1903, at Thorpe, Essex. His father was a Chief Petty Officer in the Coast Guard and the family moved around, mostly to stations on the east coast of England. After the father died in 1916 they lived at Padstow, Cornwall, their mother’s home village. George was the oldest of five brothers; the boys were sent for naval training at Greenwich Hospital School. Three of them subsequently joined the Royal Navy and one the merchant marine.
On 28 November 1918 Wright enlisted in the Royal Navy as a Boy Seaman; at that time, aged only 15, he was 4 feet 11 inches in height with brown hair, brown eyes and a fair complexion. He trained at Impregnable, the Boys’ Training Ship at Devonport, from November 1918 to July 1919; then, after a month on the strength of Vivid, the RN Barracks, he was appointed to the light cruiser Concord, in which he served from August 1919 to August 1921. During this period he came of age, was rated Ordinary Seaman, and enlisted for 12 years. Concord was deployed on active service, probably against the Bolsheviks in the Baltic campaign of 1919, so that Wright qualified for the British War Medal and Victory Medal, even though he had not even enlisted until after the Armistice.
After brief postings to Monarch (a battleship) and Vivid again, in November 1921 Wright began a draft of two years four months in the cruiser Durban serving on the China Station as part of the 5th Light Cruiser Squadron. In February 1924 he took passage in the cruiser Weymouth to return to the United Kingdom; in April 1924 he began a year long draft to Vivid, during which he was rated Leading Seaman and passed the examination for qualification as a Petty Officer.
Wright must have applied for a second draft to the China Station for on 3 March 1926 he was drafted to Cockchafer, an Insect class gunboat deployed on the Yangtse River. She had a displacement of 625 tons, a speed of 14 knots, and an armament of two 6 inch guns and two 12 pounders, with a complement of 52. The twelve Insect class gunboats had been launched in 1915-16 for a proposed campaign on the Danube River; when this did not eventuate, they were variously deployed in Egypt, Mesopotamia and northern Russia. On conclusion of the First World War they were sent to China where most of them patrolled the Yangtse and the remainder were based at Hong Kong.
In August 1926 Cockchafer was anchored off Wanhsien, a city of 150,000 inhabitants in eastern Sichuan province, about 300 miles down river from Chungking. The city and surrounding area were controlled by the warlord General Yang Sen.
On 27 August the British-owned steamship Wanhsien arrived there to disembark cargo and passengers. That evening, one of Yang Sen’s generals boarded the ship with a hundred armed soldiers and attempted to commandeer the vessel for use as a troop transport. Cockchafer’s commander, Lieutenant Commander Leon Acheson, took an escort from the gunboat and, after a tense confrontation, the Chinese retreated.
Two days later the steamer Wanliu arrived off the small riverside town of Yunyang, twenty-five miles down-river from Wanhsien. As the passengers disembarked, sixteen armed Chinese soldiers clambered aboard and, at the same time, a number of sampans loaded with armed troops approached the ship. Captain Lalor had no intention of allowing the Wanliu to be pressed into service as a troopship and immediately ordered the ship to proceed; but as she slowly forged ahead, one of the sampans sunk, whether swamped by Wanliu’s bow-wave or in a collision with another sampan was unclear. The soldiers already aboard rushed to the bridge but found their way barred by the iron grills which were standard anti-pirate equipment. Under a fusillade of rifle-fire from the shore Wanliu continued on her way to Wanhsien.
Once the ship arrived, Acheson boarded her with a party of armed sailors who disarmed the soldiers. One of the latter tried to take a shot at the sailors but was discouraged by a blow from an entrenching tool handle. The troops were then sent ashore, where they recounted their grievances to a larger group of soldiers who were nearby. This party then congregated on the river bank, threatening the Wanliu and her passengers with their rifles. Acheson fired a short burst from a Lewis gun into the water just in front of the soldiers, who dispersed, and Wanliu proceeded on her voyage to Chungking.
When Yang Sen heard of the incident, he issued a manifesto claiming that Wanliu had deliberately rammed the sampan, drowning 56 of his soldiers. Furthermore, the sampan happened to be carrying a treasure chest containing 85,000 dollars, for which he claimed compensation as well. He immediately sent 400 armed troops to board the Wanhsien, which was still in port; on 29 August another steamer, the Wanlung, arrived at Wanhsien and was also seized. Both ships had British officers who were confined to their cabins and were, in effect, hostages.
Cockchafer was in a very vulnerable position. On the two merchant ships were a total of 700 Chinese soldiers, whose rifles and automatic weapons menaced the gunboat at point-blank range. A further 2000 troops had taken up positions along both river-banks, and there was even a field battery with guns trained on the Cockchafer. The Chinese cut off all communication between the gunboat and the shore: three of the Chinese crew who had gone ashore on routine business were prevented from returning, and the British sailors had to watch helplessly as the ship’s sampan coolie was savagely slashed to death by Chinese soldiers on the river-bank, only 150 yards away.
Acheson was in radio contact with the Widgeon at Chungking, carrying Commander Berryman, Senior Naval Officer of the upper Yangtse, and Rear Admiral Cameron in the Bee at Hankow. Widgeon proceeded to join Cockchafer at Wanhsien, arriving on the
evening of 3 September.
Negotiations proceeded but were not promising, and the British prepared a cutting-out expedition to release the two river steamers by force. At Ichang, the British chartered the Jardine Matheson steamer Kiawo and fitted armour plates and guns from the gunboats Mantis and Scarab. An expedition was assembled, commanded by Commander Frederick Darley, Executive Officer of the cruiser Despatch. The composition of the expedition was as follows: Lt A. R. Higgins and 43 ratings from Despatch, Lt O. Fogg-Elliott and ten ratings from Mantis, Lt J. Peterson and ten ratings from Scarab. Commander Darley and his expedition embarked in Scarab at Hankow for passage to Ichang on 2 September, where they arrived on the 4th, transferred to the Kiawo, and immediately set off for Wanhsien.
The British plan was that Kiawo would draw up beside Wanhsien; one party would grapple the two ships together, two others would board the ship, overcome the Chinese and rescue the hostages, whilst another would deal with any hostile boarders. The boarding party was armed with rifles, bayonets and pick handles but did not really expect resistance.
Yang Sen was informed of the British expedition and reinforced his men aboard the two steamers. However, apparently he too did not expect that the British would open fire.
All through the 5th September the company of Cockchafer, who knew of the expedition, waited apprehensively. At 6.15 pm, just before dusk, Kiawo appeared round a bend of the river and drew up beside Wanhsien. On the foredeck of the latter a group of Chinese squatted around a cooking pot; one of them even helped to secure Kiawo’s grappling hook. A bugler on Kiawo sounded the charge and the boarding parties began swarming aboard Wanhsien.
All hell was then let loose. From machine-guns set up in the cover of companionways, from riflemen hidden in deckhouses, cabins and behind barricades of sandbags, a hurricane of bullets met the boarding parties. Along both banks of the river and from prepared positions on the water-front, rifles, machine-guns and field batteries opened fire on Kiawo, Cockchafer and Widgeon. Commander
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