Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Fine 1949 ‘H.M.S. Amethyst Yangtze Incident’ Naval General Service Medal awarded to Able Seaman E. N. Saunders, Royal Navy, who remained aboard H.M.S. Amethyst as part of a skeleton crew of about fifty men throughout its 101 day ordeal; he was a key member of the Damage Control Party which made the repairs that enabled Amethyst’s daring escape and dash to the sea

Naval General Service 1915-62, 1 clasp, Yangtze 1949 (D/SSX.815328 E. Saunders. A.B. R.N.) a few scratches to the obverse field, good very fine £2,800-£3,200

Dix Noonan Webb, March 2013.

Eric Noble Saunders was born in Liverpool on 23 February 1928 and enlisted in the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman on 21 August 1946, serving first in H.M.S. Raleigh, the basic training centre at Torpoint, Cornwall. Promoted to Able Seaman on 11 January 1948, Saunders transferred to the frigate H.M.S. Amethyst in the Far East on 8 July 1948.

The Yangtze Incident
In April 1949, during the Chinese Civil War, Amethyst was sent up the Yangtze River to Nanjing to relieve H.M.S. Consort as the guardship for the British Embassy (at that time Nanjing was the capital of the Nationalist republic of China). The south bank of the river was held by the Nationalists and the north bank by the Communists. About 09.30 on 20 April 1949 a Communist shore battery opened fire on Amethyst, hitting her bridge, wheelhouse and low-power room. Her Captain was killed and the frigate slewed to port and grounded on a sandbank. The shelling continued, ripping large holes in the hull (some near the waterline), the sickbay and the port engine room. Only one turret was able to bear on the hostile batteries; it fired under local control until it was disabled. Just after 10.00, the wounded First Lieutenant ordered the evacuation of all but essential personnel. Just over 60 men reached the southern shore. Shelling stopped at 11.00; 22 men had been killed and 31 wounded (the wounded were taken off by sampan the next day, and the evacuation of non-essential personnel completed). The ship had received over 50 hits, and People’s Liberation Army (P.L.A.) snipers continued to fire at any visible movement on board.

Amethyst was refloated after midnight, but the Communist batteries fired on her whenever she attempted to get underway. Two days later, the British Assistant Naval Attaché, Lieutenant-Commander Kerans, came on board and took over command of the ship and the 50 or so crew members, including Saunders, who remained on board throughout the entire ‘Yangtze Incident’. Amethyst remained a hostage under the guns of the P.L.A.; vital supplies were not permitted to reach her. Negotiations with the Communists made no progress, because they insisted as a precondition that Kerans must begin by confessing that the ship had wrongly invaded Chinese national waters and had fired upon the P.L.A. first (in 1988 the Chinese commander, Ye Fei, admitted that it was his troops that opened fire first).

According to Yangtse Incident by Lawrence Earl: ‘As early as mid-May Kerans reserved a corner of his mind for thinking about a possible break-out from the river in case his negotiations for a safe-conduct should fail. With this in his mind he decided to get the ship into seaworthy shape as soon as possible. He appointed Garns and Saunders, under the supervision of Strain, as a damage-control party, which soon became jocularly known among the ship’s company as the Wrecker’s Union. But Kerans did not mention to anyone his secret fears that a break-out might eventually become the only avenue to freedom.
Garns and Saunders pitched in with great enthusiasm. They busily stuffed hammocks with mattresses and blankets and old clothing - anything they could lay their hands on that could be spared. Then they took these bulging, sausage-like wads and stuffed them into the gaping shell-holes. They used from one to three of these at a time, according to the size of the hole. After that they shored up the damaged area with planks, using the stock of timber - which they cut down to the proper sizes - which, fortunately, had been taken aboard in Malaya some time previously. In a month they had succeeded in adequately filling in eight holes along the waterline; but one waterline hole, dead astern and directly over the rudder, resisted all their efforts.
Garns was a short, sandy-haired man of about thirty years of age [whose period of engagement in the Navy ended while Amethyst was trapped]. “Here I am, stuck,” he said sadly to Saunders. He had been in the Navy for twelve years. “One thing I can tell you, though: the Navy will never get me again after this. No, Sir!” Saunders grinned. “Don’t be an ass, Garnsey. Don’t you know you’ll never get out of this predicament? Don’t you know you’ll never be demobbed now?” Garns gave him a long, sideways look of suspicion. “You’ll be soldiering on, me lad,” he said, “long after I get back to Civvie Street. And, brother, am I going to have the laugh on you!”
Kerans was feeling pretty good about the break-out now that the decision had been made. He had worked out all the angles, quietly and alone, during the long, tiresome wait. He drew up a list of seventeen petty officers and key ratings, and ordered them to meet in his cabin at about eight that evening. The seventeen trooped silently into Kerans’ small cabin. There was not much room to spare. The door was shut, and almost at once the air became stifling. “I’m going to break out tonight at ten,” Kerans said matter-of-factly.
When Amethyst finally slipped her mooring, a brief maelstrom of firing, mostly inaccurate and causing much damage to the Communists themselves, enabled Kerans to steer Amethyst neatly through and under and around the wild barrage and make good his escape, [having suffered only one hit]. Reports came up from the engine-room that Amethyst was flooding badly from the one waterline hole, right in the stern, which Garns and Saunders had been unable to repair. Pumps were put into action to keep the water in check. Kerans prayed: ‘Dear God, don’t let it flood so badly that it will put paid to my steering”.’

Saunders was present throughout the hostage crisis and was instrumental in enabling the famous escape and dash down the Yangtze River that ended it (after 101 days) on the night of 30-31 July. Amethyst rejoined the Fleet and returned to England on 1 November 1949. The Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, notified the ship’s company that their conduct had been ‘up to standard’. King George VI was more effusive: ‘Please convey to the commanding officer and ship’s company of H.M.S. Amethyst my hearty congratulations on their daring exploit to re-join the Fleet. The courage, skill and determination shown by all on board have my highest commendation. Splice the mainbrace.’

Saunders took part in the celebrations when the ship returned home and sat on Table 2 at the Celebratory Dinner at the Dorchester Hotel, London, on 16 November 1949. He married in Liverpool in 1951, and was discharged from the Navy on 14 December 1953, after seven years’ service. He died in Liverpool on 15 January 1968.

Sold with copied research.