Trailing a long plume of coal smoke, the San Pablo docks at Changsha in the film The Sand Pebbles (1966).
In 1900-01, all China erupted in anti-foreign riots under the leadership of the paramilitary Society of Boxers. The foreign Powers retaliated with a massive military expedition which marched on Beijing, relieved the besieged foreign embassies, and wreaked fearful vengeance on the Chinese, sacking the Imperial tombs among other things. Under the terms of the treaty forced on China after this latest defeat, the western Powers and Japan were permitted to station gunboats on China's major rivers to protect their citizens and property. Under previous treaties which closed previous wars of aggression, citizens of the Treaty Powers living in China claimed extraterritoriality -- "extrality" to Old China Hands -- i.e. immunity from Chinese law. The gunboats enforced this nonaccountability and patently encouraged its gross abuse by their nationals in China. Such injustices which would never be tolerated today -- except in Israeli-occupied Palestine and U.S.-occupied Iraq -- were among the effects of the "unequal treaties" being protested in the Sand Pebbles story; Chinese outrage at this disrespect in their own country helped feed the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) revolution in 1926-28. Through China's revolutionary decades -- from the turn of the century until 1950 -- stirring up anti-foreign sentiment made good political sense for warlord, KMT generalissimo, and Communist cadre alike.
Above are two of the gunboats used to establish the U.S. Yangtze patrol in 1902: USS Villalobos, left, and Elcano, right. Like the fictitious San Pablo, these 2 vessels were captured from Spain in the 1898 takeover of the Philippines -- or purchased from Spain as part of the peace treaty. The 520-ton Elcano had been built in Spain in 1882 for the their navy. She featured an all-iron hull, was armed with four 4" and two 3-pdr, and could move at 13 kts. The 350-ton Villalobos was built at Hong Kong in 1896 and was of composite construction (iron plates over steel frame). She was armed with 6-pdr, 3-pdr, 1-pdr and Colt machine guns -- a pair of each; could do 11 kts. Villalobos' dimensions were 138' x 22' x 9'; Elcano's 165' x 26' x 12'. A third ship, the Quiros, was sister to the Villalobos, built by the same yard, Hong Kong & Whampoa Dock Co, the same year. The fictional San Pablo resembles a moldering Quiros, long marooned in a remote corner of China and well-grown with local customs, including a wooden palace for the men's quarters amidships. Click here for a more complete pictorial survey of the former Spanish gunboats in the U.S. Asiatic fleet. All of these gunboats were named after notable Spanish explorer/navigators from the Age of Discovery. All retained their original aristocratic names in American service. The U.S. also captured at Cavite and turned to eventual China service the 1888 iron gunboat Pampanga (country-built at Cavite) and the all-steel 1895 General Álava (Scotch built) and Don Juan de Austria (made in Spain). None of these ships was well suited to gunboat duty in the humid, subtropical climate of Central China. They were small, underpowered, overcrowded, and poorly ventilated. Nevertheless, many of them rendered greater than 20 years' service on the Yangtze Patrol, their duties much as described in The Sand Pebbles. McKenna based his story on tales of the Villalobos with her resident shadow-crew of coolies who did the ship's dirty work, leaving the American crew free to play soldier full time.
In 1914 the U.S. Navy began beefing up its inland China fleet. The old (1897) US-built gunboat Helena (below) first joined the flotilla. Two shallow draft, flat-bottomed, twin-screw vessels were purpose-built for Yangtze duty, joining the squadron the same year. Copying long-standing British practice, the Monocacy and Palos (above) were prefabricated in the States, disassembled at San Diego, shipped out to Hong Kong in pieces, and reassembled there to save the long ocean voyage. After WWI the armed yacht USS Isabel was added to the American flotilla and often served as flagship for the Yangtze operation -- a 26-knot ship, 231' long, armed with two 3" guns, she was a suitable flotilla leader anywhere there was 9 feet or more of water for her to hover. Isabel also had luxurious mahogany-paneled lounges and a spacious gourmet galley, more convenient for entertaining than the cramped quarters on the other gunboats.
In 1928, a further generation of somewhat longer patrol vessels issued from Jiangnan Dock & Engineering Works in Shanghai, after being assembled once again from prefab hull sections shipped out from San Diego. These three ships, the Guam, Oahu, and Panay, were 191' long x 28' in beam, drew 6'5", and could make 15 kts. At 450 tons, these twin-stack, twin-screw riverboats boasted a tall, blocky superstructure through practically their entire length; their masts were webbed with antennas. They replaced the worn-out, antiquated Spanish boats, nearly all of which were sunk as targets for the Asiatic Fleet in 1928-29. In 1937 the Panay (seen above in 1928) was caught up in the currents of history when an unprovoked and deliberate Japanese air attack sank her in the Yangtze near Nanking. Norman Alley, a Universal newsreel reporter, made a documentary of the Panay attack and sinking. The film is available online in its entirety.
USS Monocacy was built as a Civil War double-ender paddle wheel gunboat, with vital parts of her wooden hull constructed of iron. The long-lived ship was assigned to the Asiatic Squadron early, becoming a common sight in the China Seas from 1889 on. As seen above, at Shanghai in the 1890s she appeared little altered from her Civil War rig. Monocacy ended her days in Asia, replaced by a new vessel of the same name in 1914 (shown below).
USS Helena was built as a coastal and river gunboat in 1897. The Spanish War veteran was assigned to the Yangtze Patrol in 1914; it became a substantial hitch for the big gunboat, working with contemporaries. Displacement: 1397 tons. Dimensions: 250¾'x 40' x 9' (8) 4"/40 and (4) 3-pdr guns; twin VTE, twin screw, 13 kts. Ships in class: Helena · Wilmington.
USS Elcano -- the inscription says, cryptically, "somewhere in China." Another view
The new Monocacy and her sister Palos were prefabricated in the San Diego dockyard, shipped out to China, and assembled for duty in country at Hong Kong. They entered service in 1914. Monocacy is seen here in 1916.
USS Isabel, a fast yacht commandeered by the Navy in 1917 to serve as a "destroyer," ended her days as the poshest gunboat on the Yangtze. She is seen here at Hankow, dressed over all for the coronation of George VI, 1937. Click here to enlarge.
The USS San Pablo was a brainchild of author and China sailor Richard McKenna. McKenna served in Yangtze gunboats during the Thirties, but based his fictional warship on an older and more colorful breed of China water-rats. After leaving the Navy, McKenna studied writing and published his only novel, The Sand Pebbles, in 1962.A sensitive handling of a complex and multi-faceted tale, rich in period detail and atmosphere, it held a place on the New York Times bestseller list for 28 weeks. McKenna sold the movie rights to Fox for a reported $330,000, but died in 1964 when the epic Robert Wise film was only in gestation -- a gestation that was so long, Wise was able to produce his entire feature The Sound of Music and then jump back into the casting and preproduction for Sand Pebbles. Indeed, it is through this movie, starring Steve McQueen and Candice Bergen, that most folks know the story today.
For the film, a full-size, steel-hulled replica of the San Pablo was constructed by Vaughan & Jung in Hong Kong (video), costing a quarter of a million 1965 dollars. It was generally conceded by the movie crew that -- McQueen's nuanced and powerful performance aside -- the San Pablo herself was the star of the picture. This ship was not an operational naval vessel, but rather a floating prop that looked the part. Her dimensions were dictated by the location: Keelung harbor and the Tam Sui River in NE Taiwan. The shallow river afforded only 3-4' of water at high tide, so the flat-bottomed mock-gunboat was built with a mere 2½ feet of draft! This made her swing like a weathercock in any wind. Consequently much time and effort were spent refloating the ship after her many groundings. The vessel was powered by twin diesels under the quarterdeck; the ridiculously tall, old-fashioned stack was built strictly for smoke effects. Coal was burned in a furnace forward to provide a plume of black smoke whenever the boat was under way and the cameras rolling.
As completed, the ship's dimensions were 150' x 24'6" x 2'6". She was capable of 10 kts under power. (Metric: 45.7m x 7.5m x 0.76m; speed 18.5 km/hr.) After filming was completed in 1966, she was sold to an American war contractor to serve as a floating dormitory -- some say floating whorehouse -- for technicians reconstructing sabotaged bridges in Vietnam.
Because a full-sized steam engine would not fit in the shallow bottom of the ship herself, an old Liberty ship engine was brought down the coast to Hollywood and re-erected on the Fox back lot. A complete engine and boiler room was assembled around it; all of the engine room scenes were filmed there. It is a tribute to the filmmakers' art that the transitions appear so seamless, the sense that the scenes take place in the same ship so utterly convincing: you would never guess the deck scenes and the engine room scenes were shot months apart in locations 5,000 miles apart. The engine used is now on display aboard the WWII Victory ship Lane Victory in San Pedro, CA (Port of L.A.), running at slow speeds on compressed air. Apparently the splendid antique brass gauges and telegraph dial used in the movie (above) have been supplanted by more mundane controls appropriate to a WWII cargo workhorse.Steve McQueen prepared for his rôle by studying all the weapons and machinery which he would have to manipulate, familiarizing himself with the Browning Automatic Rifle, the boarding axe, the sailor's duffel bag, the stoker's coal shovel. His obvious comfort, his athleticism and balance are an important part of McQueen's performance. But McQueen went beyond this to attain true verismo, learning just how to run and repair the ship's triple-expansion steam engine. This is one way he got inside the character of Jake Holman, the ship's loner chief engineer, a man so repressed his best relationship is with machinery -- at least until he meets some of the other characters in the book and begins to grow emotionally. McQueen comes off as a self-assured pro, with naturally athletic body language and the guarded persona of a man with a troubled past. The rest of the crew, brilliantly cast by Wise, are no end of fun to watch, even as one cringes at their crude racism and bullying ways.
HOLMAN. You mean being fair only counts between Americans?
BRONSON. Well, white men... I mean, fair's different with slopeheads. They're sneaky. They lie and steal. They're dirty. Their yellow goes clear to the bone. There ain't one in all China with guts enough to stand up and fight like a man. Fair's different with people like that.
-- The Sand Pebbles (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 223-224.
Coolies whose lives haven't changed much since the days of Marco Polo gaze after the San Pablo from their paddy field by the shores of Tungting Lake. Authentic Hunanese peasant garb was among the thousands of costumes provided the Taiwanese extras by the film company. Chiang K'ai-shek's KMT military government made considerable demands on Wise's production, among them the building of a new municipal hall in Keelung (which represented Changsha in the film). The structure, used as production HQ during the 7-month shoot, is still used every day by town officials and citizens in today's more democratic Taiwan.
The San Pablo in the movie was created by veteran production designer Boris Leven in collaboration with director Robert Wise and a marine architect. The replica is truly sui generis, not resembling any of the actual Yangtze gunboats very clearly, but borrowing a pinch of one and a few scoops of another to create an effect that is more visually arresting than any of the actual vessels. In size she most closely resembled the Elcano, a bit bigger than the original inspiration, Villalobos. A true riverboat, she had the overhung bulwark of the Monocacy and Panay generations (compare the stern with the British boats). The Spanish vessels clearly come out of the age of sail; with a yachtlike counter stern and tall, prominent masts, they hint at the galleons of bygone times. An enclosed bridge and a smallish deckhouse comprised their modest superstructures; but in the novel, the San Pablo is described as being forever banished to the wilds of Hunan Province, so antiquated she is forbidden to come down the Yangtze. In her long residence and to suit the evolving on-board culture, large and luxurious quarters have been built amidships for the naval crew, permitting the coolies to move aboard and occupy the old crew quarters.
Brilliantly, Leven combined a downsized version of the Panay's blocky superstructure with the tall, spindly stovepipe and ventilator cowls described in the book. The result: a ship that looks at once a more formidable fighting unit, and a bit anachronistic, with more elegant proprortions than seen in any of the historical ships. The 1920s was the age of the motorship; even the new turbine liners such as the Bremen and Europa aped the diesel look with their short, squat stacks and racy, horizontal profile. The San Pablo's appearance, by contrast, is distinctly antebellum. The rake of the masts and stack is barely perceptible, their vertical lines matched by the plumb stem hinting at a ram. Finally, to simplify matters (and comply with McKenna's description), the ship was armed with only one 3" gun forward and a 1-pdr aft, plus two machine guns on the bridge -- though as seen in the film's battle and drill scenes, she was well stocked with rifles, automatics, and cutlasses. The vessel was designed as a movie set for this one film and performed brilliantly in her one starring rôle. Throughout, the script doctors and the set designers, all were at pains to be true to the novel; many of the film's quirks derive from that deep grounding in the book. What a rarity for Hollywood!
The film's climax comes with a pitched battle in which the San Pablo's well-fed, middle-aged warriors take on the Chinese peasant militia, launching themselves at a long boom of junks cabled together to close the Chien River. Though the tone of book and film is skeptical of imperialism, the battle is an exciting sequence -- one with a few "hooks" to make the viewer think rather than blindly root for the Yanks. McQueen brilliantly portrays a man of torn loyalties, whose timing is always a bit out of synch. I give him this: before LOTR's Gimli the Dwarf, never have I seen an axe so wielded!
As Jake Holman, Steve McQueen chops through the woven cable holding the boom of junks together to bar the San Pablo's path. The ship's fully enclosed bridge with its armored flaps folded down, based on the Panay, can be seen to advantage in the background.
Now you can own the whole epic yourself -- The Sand Pebbles' long-awaited re-release has just been consummated. 20th Century Fox Cinema Classics has reissued The Sand Pebbles in a deluxe 2-CD set restoring many scenes cut from the original release, plus definitive commentary from director Wise and his cast members. Featuring carefully restored color and digital sound, this is a gem for your collection. The Armchair Admiral gives this release 2 thumbs up. All fans of old ships, things Chinese, and fine filmmaking should enjoy this feature.
All production photos and logo artwork shown are copyright © 1966 by 20th Century Fox. Original gunboat photos are courtesy U.S. Naval Historical Center, and are public domain.
- Richard McKenna: The China Sailor's Homer
- Spanish Gunboats - All Later Used in U.S. Fleet
- The Building of the Gunboats for Spain
- Official History of the Yangtze Patrol
- Robin Class: The British Yangtze Gunboat Fleet
- Life in a Treaty Port
- Video: 1885 Gunboat Battle on the Nile - from Khartoum (1966 feature film)
- Film of the Sinking of the Panay - 1937 Air Attack
- British Prefab Gunboats on the Nile, 1896-98 -- a Ripping Yarn
- British Prefab Gunboats on the Nile -- A Lengthy Exegesis with No Photos
- The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 -- Setup to What Followed
- Amazon.com Video (to Purchase Sand Pebbles DVD)
