A Letter From Major M. Stanley Newton (USMC)

Fall, 1940

The Yangtze-Kiang is one of the four largest rivers of the world, bearing the same relation to China as the Amazon to South America, the Mississippi to North America, and the Nile to Africa. The Chinese call it the Ta Kiang, or Great River. Its sources are on the eastern sides of the mountains of Tibet, 5000 miles from the sea. It is a sizeable rushing mountain stream flowing along at 8000 feet above sea level when it reaches Szechwan province in China proper. Chungking, the capitol of free China and the Headquarters of General Chiang Kai Shek is 1500 miles from the sea yet can be reached at nearly all seasons by steam navigation. Our trip is on the lower Yangtze where the river flows thru an alluvial plain. The drainage area of the river is about 750,000 square miles and the average discharge of water into the see is 770,000 cubic feet per second. This water carries with it in sediment an estimated 6,428,858,255 cubic feet per annum. Here is soil erosion at its worst. In fact, it is this discharge which gave the Yellow Sea its name. Our destination is Hankow, a busy commercial treaty port at the mouth of the Han River where it meets the Yangtze six hundred miles from Shanghai. One might compare this trip with one up the Mississippi from New Orleans to where that mighty river is joined by the Ohio at the Southern tip of Illinois. Some idea of the extent of our penetration into China's interior can be obtained from that comparison. Yet, we do not go quite half way to Chungking where the USS Tutuila has been anchored for the past two years, her escape out off by the blocking of the river by the Japanese a short distance above Hangkow. What her ultimate fate will be no one knows.

We boarded the Gunboat the USS Oahu and left Shanghai at seven Monday morning and dropped fourteen miles down the Whangpoo to where it joins the Yangtze at Woosung. Until late afternoon we remained in the Yangtze estuary where the river is ten miles wide, low banks are on both sides and there is nothing of interest except three hills, the largest 414 feet high and resembling a beehive, with a Langshan pagoda on top, Towards dusk we approached Kiangyin Narrows (river three-fourths of a mile wide) where the river, as distinguished from the estuary may be said to begin. Here the Chinese tried to block the river by sinking numerous ships, some of whose masts may be seen projecting above the surface of their watery graves. Guarding the narrows is a walled town and ancient forts. Three miles above the barrier we anchored until five the next morning. Only travel on the river by daylight is allowed so we missed nothing by passing it at night. It is quite dangerous to travel by night as the Chinese frequently turn floating mines loose ahead of Japanese troop ships. It is not uncommon to see river vessels with wooden prows projecting some twenty feet ahead to sweep mines aside or explode them harmlessly.

A continuous dyke ran along either side of the river to prevent flooding of the lowlands. Seasonal changes average 18 feet in river level at this point and as the water was quite high we could see over the dykes readily. Higher up the river seasonal levels change as much as 100 feet. Generally the terrain was low and flat with many small houses hidden in verdure and surrounded by cultivated fields. Every few miles were little villages of ten or twenty houses, tiny ones of mud with thatched roots and some better ones of stone with tile roofs. There were intermittent marshes and numerous small creeks intersecting the river. Nearly always one could see a junk sailing past and occasionally we met a river steamer, Chinese or Japanese. Islands were numerous. The river is muddy to the point of being light chocolate in appearance. The current at this point is between 2 and 3 knots but the junks made good progress up it by skillfully clinging close to shore to take advantage of the back current.

From Kingyin the ground became more rugged and we passed Kowan and proceeded on Chinkiang. At one point the shores were quite precipitous and rose as high as 800 feet where the hilltop was crowned by a stately pagoda making a landmark visible nearly all day. The approaches to Chinkiang were well guarded by semi-modern artillery positions. Our stop at Chinkiang was brief and solely for the purpose of dropping off one small piece of cargo for a missionary but long enough to enable us to see a bit of this ancient treaty port. A commercial center of nearly 200,000 people, the walled city of Chinkiang is located at the junction of the Grand Canal and the Yangtze River and also on the railroad from Shanghai to Nanking. The Grand Canal is China's fabulous artificial inland waterway extending from Hangchow to Tientsin, a distance of some 2,000 miles. The northern section was built in 485 B.C., but it was not until after 1200 A.D. that the southern section was completed. They must have had WPA in those days! Along this route was formerly convoyed the tribute rice for the capitol of the Chinese Empire. The waterfront was dominated by the dock and warehouse of the Standard-Vacuum Oil Company.

From Chinkiang we pushed on up the river toward Nanking, passing Kwachow where the Grand Canal completes its "crossing" of the Yangtze and strikes off to the North across a plain which at many points lies below the level of the bed of the Canal. This section is not used much now and has filled in to such an extent as to be as shallow as two feet in spots. Some 30 miles above Chinkiang we passed Kud Fort and Cornwallis Bluff, the latter 250 feet high. The mountain ranges were closing in on us now a bit although the river width was still measured in miles.

Shortly before sunset we tied up at a pontoon anchored off Nanking. Opposite was an immense six story building we later found out was a factory and warehouse for a British export company dealing in chickens and egg powder, the latter being made by drying the eggs in special drying rooms. Yes, you are right in your conception of what it smells like! Due to Japanese trade restrictions little business was being done. We found this situation to be true all the way up the river. None of the foreign companies are doing any business but all are keeping a skeleton force on the job just to keep out the Japs while they await the return of the good old days. Waiting vainly I expect. A regular Chinese sampan ferried us the short distance from the pontoon to the shore where we found two automobiles at our disposal to convey us to the American Consulate where we were invited to a small cocktail party. At the home of Mr. Paxton, the Consul, we spent the evening at cards, some at bridge and some at poker. I played the latter in a $50 limit table stakes game that sounded like a contest for millionaires only until one converted the Chinese dollars into U.S, currency. Finally I won $10 mex which is all of 53 cents U.S. money. En route to the Consulate we drove several miles thru the city and thus were enabled to see something of this ancient place even though night had fallen. It is the chief city of Kiangsu province and dates back nearly 2,000 years. During the early Ming dynasty and before, it was the seat of the Imperial Court, but the government moved to Peking in 1403 to return to Nanking about 1930. The city is the literary capitol of China and possesses several large libraries and printing offices. Here also one finds several schools and universities including the Chinese Naval College, also a branch mint. Surrounding the old city is a stone wall 18 miles long, thirty feet thick at the base and from 30 to 90 feet high. Six gates afford passage although during the war holes were blasted in the wall at other points. Nanking was defended stubbornly by the Chinese before it fell to the invading Japs and many of the fine public buildings as well as private ones are totally or partially destroyed. These were the first war ruins we had seen since leaving Woosung as the Chinese had offered no resistance at the points lower down the river. We entered the old city thru a huge gate with four arches where Japanese sentries held us up much longer than necessary to scrutinize our military passes secured from Nipponese authorities in Shanghai before our departure.

Opposite Nanking is Pukow but it is not a treaty port and therefore there are no foreign interests there. It is the southern terminus of the railway to Tientsin and is connected to the Shanghai-Nanking line by a railway ferry. Although we were now over 200 miles up the river most ocean liners could come to Nanking if they desired, so deep is this mighty river. Many ships do come but they are mostly Japanese these days. The trade used to be brisk, her imports being cotton goods, kerosene oil (Oil for the Lamps of China) and sugar, while the principal exports were silk goods, skins, beans and peas. Nanking is the seat of the Government of Wang Chin Wei, the puppet government set up by the Japanese to administer to the occupied areas of China but outside of the city no one pays much attention to him.

Underway at five-thirty on the third morning of our journey we continued up river past alternate rolling hills and marshy wastes. Most of the hills are bare or only very slightly forested. The marsh lands are covered with giant reeds growing 13 to 20 feet high in an impenetrable maze. During the morning we passed the spot where on December 12, 1937 Japanese aviators bombed and sunk the USS Panay, a sistership of the Oahu and two Standard Oil Company vessels, the Mei An and the Mei Hsia. The Mei An showed her masts and funnel above the water and the Mei Hsia was beached but of the Panay there is no sign as she sank near mid-channel. As we passed by attention was sounded, the bell tolled and salute rendered. The names of the oil tankers are interesting for in Chinese Mei means oil and the Standard Oil Company is known an ---- Mei which translated means No. 1 oil. Anything which is No. 1 is biggest, best or leading. Near the site of the Panay catastrophe was a dock for loading of iron ore from a mine a short distance inland. A small railway brought the reddish ore to the river but coolies with baskets were loading a waiting vessel as we passed. Little else of interest was noted during the morning except a brick factory, and the Pillars, two hills several hundred feet in height on opposite aides of the river, which at this point narrowed to one mile wide.

Noon found us anchored at Wuhu where we paused to drop off some supplies and pick up a Japanese gunboat which would convoy us for the remainder of our trip. Wuhu is the center of the rice exporting business along the lower Yangtze and in the prosperous days several ship loads of rice left daily. Three oil companies had tanks and sheds along the waterfront, Texaco, Standard-Vacuum and Asia Petroleum Company, the latter the largest British Oil concern in China. On wooded Ichishan hill close to the river stood an imposing hospital run by American Methodist missionaries. A woman is the chief surgeon, reputed to be one of the best in China. Others on the staff include an Austrian refugee and his wife, both of whom are doctors. The Captain of the Oahu and three officers, including the ship's doctor had lunch at the Hospital. Wuhu is also a treaty port, opened to European commerce in 1877. We are now over 260 miles up the everchanging Yangtze. This treacherous river is forever changing its course and cutting new channels. The old walled town of Wuhu is now one mile to the East of the riverbank but in the 17th century it was an island directly in the middle of the stream. Population of Wuhu is 130,000. Prominent in the city is the Roman Catholic Cathedral. This church claims some 200,000 members in the lower valley and the center of the diocese is here at Wuhu. At two p.m. we were underway again, following the Japanese gunboat in its winding course westward.

At one point in the river the Chinese had erected a barrier by sinking small steamships across the channel. There were 12 ships in all and the masts and superstructures projected above the water in varying degrees and angles. A narrow passage was left clear and we slipped thru. The story is that the Chinese general who was guarding the barrier with his troops gave orders not to fire the artillery commanding the channel during his absence under any conditions. While he was in a neighboring village at a banquet the Japanese came thru unmolested. How much the General was paid to be away just then is a matter of conjecture.

Above Wuhu we found the river a bit narrower and the current stronger, 'with 10 to 15 fathoms of depth. Picturesque villages dotted the banks. Here the natives lived exactly as their ancestors 2000 years ago, quite untouched by modern civilization passing by on the water. Little boys tended herds of water buffalo while men tended their rice fields or fished with nets from the river's bank. A prominent crop was a sort of millet which grew five or six feet high with stocks like corn. We passed the little village of Kuikienchen which is protected from evil spirits by a pagoda on a hill overlooking the river. The roof of this ancient tower has collapsed and foliage sprouts from it. We saw a similar old pagoda and temple on Barker Island, a few miles farther up. At Osborn Beach, just another wide open space we anchored for the night close to the left bank of the river. Three officers from the Japanese gunboat were invited to see our movies in the evening.

The fourth day found us en route from Osborn Beach to Anking. In the morning we paralleled a mountain range 1500 feet high, the largest thus far seen. The ship held routine emergency drills including (shades of captain Kidd!) repel boarders drill. It seems that river pirates drift down at night on unsuspecting anchored vessels. They use two junks abreast, some fifty feet apart with a large chain stretched between them. As the chain catches the bow of the victim the two junks are swept into the side of the anchored ship whereupon the pirates scramble over the side and take over than vessel before it's crew can brush the sleep out or their eyes. This ship will never be caught unprepared, as was the Panay. During the forenoon a Japanese seaplane was observed coming up from astern and at once the alarm for general quarters was sounded and within two minutes all battle stations were manned and every gun bearing on the airplane which passed onward up the river toward Tatung.

From Tatung to Anking the countryside to extensively cultivated and thickly populated with farms and hamlets dotting the landscape. Temples, joss houses and pagodas become more numerous but are all more or less of a pattern. At 4:3O p.m., we stopped for the night off Anking which boasts the most handsome pagoda on the river, a seven story tower rising out of a substantially built fort. In the basement floor of the pagoda is a marble obelisk said to contain the heart of a celebrated warrior of antiquity. This pagoda is often pictured on postcards, pictures and screens showing typical Chinese scenes. Anking is the capital of the province of Anhwei and contained a large hospital maintained by the U.S. Medical Mission. Shortly before reaching Anking we passed several ancient Chinese forts and a modern Japanese cavalry post. There is intense guerilla warfare in this area and the cavalry is doubtlessly used to combat this situation.

At Anking a Japanese tug came alongside with two American Missionaries to unload the numerous pieces of cargo we had for them. One missionary was an M.D. and the other a D.D., both attached to the American Church Mission Society Hospital. The surgeon was Dr. Root of the University of Chicago, and the minister was Rev. Pickens. They gave us some rather interesting military information that had not leaked out thru Japanese censorship. The Saturday before our arrival the Japs attacked a Chinese outpost of 100 men and killed 96 of them. This so infuriated the Chinese guerilla army that they quickly ambushed the Japanese force on its way back to Anking, and killed 200 of them and wounded 200 more. All this took place just a few miles outside of the city walls and the Japs brought their dead into the city for cremation which didn't improve the already strong odors in the town. We were not allowed to land at Anking as it is not a treaty port and is a center of Japanese military activity.

We started our 5th day at 5:30 as usual and steamed onward thru flat rather uninteresting country. In the forenoon we met a Japanese army transport going down stream with a few troops. During the afternoon we passed Little Orphan. This is a conspicuous pinnacle rook famous as a Yangtze landmark. There is a pagoda at the top and a Buddhist monastery clinging to the side whose origin goes back to dim antiquity. There are many legends of this remarkable rock. One is that in a certain year of very heavy floods a farm was inundated and the father and mother drowned. The two children survived until a tortoise came along and kindly took them on his back. He landed the younger at a certain spot where he grew to be the Little Orphan. The elder was taken on into Poyang Lake, a little further up the right bank, where the tortoise landed him, and where he grew to be the Great Orphan. The tortoise then swam on to Nanchang and lived happily ever after. The sides of Little Orphan are nearly sheer and rise 300 feet from the water's edge while its circumference at the base is only 200 yards.

In the afternoon we passed Poyang Lake, one of the great tributaries of the Yangtze. This lake is 60 miles long and from 3 to 20 miles wide but so shallow that in the wintertime it is more marsh than lake. The southern shore is in free China and the northern in Japanese occupied territory. At the entrance is the most picturesque walled city we had seen yet. Not a large place, Hukow by name, it was surrounded by a broken down wall that looked particularly ancient. The usual Joss houses and pagodas kept away the evil spirits. It seems that fengshui, or luck, travels only in straight lines and it is very important to give this matter serious consideration when building houses or laying out city walls and gates. Good fengshui can be attracted and evil fengshui deflected by the contours of hills, rivers and streams. A little blank wall built as a screen opposite the gateway of a house or of a city will protect it from evil influences coming from that direction.

However if the surrounding hills attract the wrong kind of fengshui this may be remedied by building a pagoda to counteract their evil effects. Pagodas are of Near Eastern origin and were first erected in China in the third century. When Buddha died his body was cut into 40,000 pieces, each of which rests under a pagoda. They always have an odd number of stories, sometimes as many as thirteen. The finer ones are faced with colorful glazed tile.

From Hangkow to Kuikiang was the most picturesque part of the trip. On one side was a lofty mountain range 4,000 to 5,000 foot high and only 4 or 6 miles from the riverbanks. On the other side was a rich and level farming community where the farm houses were so numerous as to constitute almost one continuous village. Although most of the hours were mud shacks, one or two rooms, with thatched roofs and no windows, they nevertheless seemed cleaner and more prosperous than the ones lower down the river. It was harvest time and in front of every home there huge piles of grain. Men and women were everywhere to be seen threshing this grain by beating it with than old fashioned flails. Even over the river the air was filled with the scent of new mown hay. Practically the first pleasant smell experienced in China! There were many caribou along the river banks, all minded by small boys some of whom rode on the animals. At points where the bank sloped to the water's edge these buffalo were in swimming with just their noses sticking out of the water. A few were working in the fields pulling two wheel carts almost identical in construction and design with the bull cart so well known in the Spanish Americas.

At Kuikiang we anchored for the night, now more than 450 miles out of Shanghai. We tied up to a pontoon of the Standard Oil Company, about three miles below the main port of the city. Kiang means river and Kuikiang means nine rivers, it is a "treaty port" and therefore in normal times of commercial importance, particularly as a center of green tea export from the provinces of Anhwei and Kiangsi. Also there used to be a big trade in locally made chinaware. A railroad connects Kuikiang with Nanchang but it is not in use now as opposing armies hold either end of the line. A dirty hot and unhealthy town, the foreigners try to spend the summers at Kuling in the mountains a few miles southward. Ten or a dozen missionaries and some oil company representatives came aboard, some of whom stayed for dinner. There were eight middle aged American ladies from the mission hospital. Most of them seemed to be from around Indiana and Ohio. They only stayed for a few minutes as the Japs required that they be back inside their compound by sunset. What a life! I spent about half an hour ashore but saw nothing especially interesting. The next day we left at six a.m. and soon passed the populous market town of Wuseuh and shortly thereafter entered Hopeh province, nearly 600 miles from the sea. The country grow more rugged as we went on and here the Horse Spine Mts. rose 1500 feet from the water's edge, The river narrowed to the proportions of a gorge and the depth became as much as 160 feet with a current from 5 to 7 knots with numerous eddies and "chow chow" water, the latter a descriptive term for places where the river seems to fairly boil with undercurrents and backwaters. The mountains began to show forestation although the trees were not very large, mostly dark fir trees on the hills and willows along the bottomlands.

Just before reaching Hwangshikiang we passed a huge iron smelter, formerly German owned but now Japanese controlled. There was minor activity in bringing ore from the mines inland on a small railway but the smelter was not in operation. It seems that the mountain ranges in this province contain tremendous resources in coal as well as iron but foreign enterprise is needed to push forward its development. It is easy to see why foreign capital is attracted to China, where the natives make no concerted effort to establish big business themselves. We stopped for about an hour at Hwangshikiang where there is a girls school run by a Catholic Mission of the Franciscan order. The priest came out to the ship for a brief visit and the ship's officers donated some fresh fruit and delicacies from the officers' mess.

Sunday morning we stopped for an hour and a half at Sanchiangkow where another Catholic mission runs a boys school. The priest was going to go along to Hankow with us but as we were ahead of schedule he was just holding mass as we anchored. Most of us went ashore and attended the services and then were briefly shown around the institution. The father is from Cincinnati and has four American sisters, and one Chinese sister who was educated in the States. The school is primarily for the care and education of orphans of whom there are countless numbers in this land of terrible floods and perpetual warfare. They prefer children four years of ago and upward but will take any and in fact frequently find babies left at the gate. They find nurses in private homes for the babies until of school age and the priest at the girls school told us it was quite a racket for a mother to abandon her child at the door, or have a friend present it as an orphan and then come around herself to offer her services as a nurse. In that manner she is paid to bring up her own baby until the deception is discovered. The boys school is a $50,000 (Chinese currency) institution, including the church and quarters for the Priest and the sisters. It was quite a large church with plain colored glass windows, the usual altar with images and candles and an old fashioned organ which one of the sisters played. There are fifty Chinese children in the school, all of whom were present, and also there were about a hundred townspeople in the congregation. The priest said that on special occasions there would be as many as 750 which is more than capacity and several times the population of the little village. The father has several interior villages in his district as well as the settlements on the river. The congregation chanted their prayers out loud in Chinese, sang certain songs in English and made proper responses in Latin. One of our ship's officers, who is a Catholic, said that it was the noisiest service be ever attended. I wouldn't have missed it for anything! The children were taught in two groups and in two separate classrooms. The younger group learned Chinese reading and writing and figuring while the older group learned English although what good it will do most of them is problematical. After they reach 14 years of age they leave the school which places them as apprentices in their chosen profession which may be carpentry, tailoring, farming or whatever they select an a life work.

The mission is as near self supporting as possible, making butter, even grinding its own wheat between ancient mill stones. During the Japanese advance the town was the scene of quite a struggle and one shell landed on a house next door but the only damage to the mission was one window pane broken by flying debris. Even now the opposite bank of the river is in Chinese hands as the Japanese maintain no garrison at Sanchiangkow and in no way directly molest the mission, although of course restrictions of travel and communication are annoying. The priest revealed that it is not always strictly the fault of the Japanese when mission property is damaged during the fighting for the Chinese commanders are prone to place their headquarters, artillery positions, and similar legitimate targets for Japanese guns and bombing planes as close to foreign buildings as possible to gain whatever protection such a site might offer.

Accompanied by the father, we were soon steaming onward to Hankow where we docked shortly after noon for a three day visit. In normal times Hankow was a miniature Shanghai, a bee hive of industry and commerce, but now the only trade is with the Japanese army whose members swarm all over the place by the thousands. Each morning we watched formations of bombers take off with their deadly cargos to drop on Chungking and each afternoon saw them return empty. At Hankow we were entertained by the American Colony with sightseeing trips to the nearby countryside, to idle factories, to the lonely country club now bravely trying to carry on with one-tenth of its old time membership. The Chinese forces defending Hankow built excellent concrete pill boxes at street intersections but with typical Chinese strategy took even more care to prepare a fine pontoon bridge over the Han river to effect their retreat. As the Japanese advanced, with almost no opposition, the defenders withdrew to Ichang. We did see one important railroad bridge in ruins on the outskirts of the city

We transferred from the Oahu to the USWS Guam for the return trip to Shanghai. These two gunboats alternate stations about every three months. The return trip was uneventful and occupied two days less time than the ascension due to the advantageous current. They say no round trip is ever made without seeing at least one body, or "floater", on the river, and ours was no exception as two were sighted on the return trip, one evidently a soldier judging from the clothing that could be seen. After a pleasant and interesting two weeks cruise we disembarked at Shanghai Bund, home again.