Trailing a long plume of coal smoke, the San Pablo docks at Changsha in the film The Sand Pebbles (1966) - filmed in Tamsui, Taiwan.
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, which forms part of the background to the story. 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. Another similar Spanish gunboat, the Pompey, was among the trio that established the Patrol, based out of Shanghai after 1903. The 520-ton Elcano had been built at La Seyne, Toulon, France in 1882 for the the Spanish navy as part of a modest reinforcement programme. 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 encrusted with local customs. Her upper decks were enhanced by an airy, spacious wooden wooden deckhouse for the men's quarters. 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 aristocratic original 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 more 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 sux ships, the Luzon, Guam, Oahu, Mindanao, Panay, and Tutuila, 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.
All of these gunboats were swept up in the turbulent tides of war and revolution affecting China, as depicted in The Sand Pebbles. Both the Oahu and the Mindanao were sunk by enemy air attack at Manila in early 1942. Sister ship USS Tutuila (PR-4) was trapped in the Yangtze gorges by the Japanese invasion of China in 1938, and joined the Nationalist (KMT) exodus to inland Chungking (Jongqing) in Sichuan Province. There she huddled near the U.S. Embassy on the south bank of the Yangtze during the furious bombing of China's wartime capital. As a gesture of solidarity, once the U.S. had joined the war, she was turned over to the KMT military, who renamed her Mei Yuan (tr. "American origin"). As happened with most of the military matériel lavished upon Chiang K'ai-shek, the gunboat saw very little fighting. Instead she was hoarded for eventual use against the Communists in the showdown anticipated after the U.S. had beaten Japan for Chiang. The ship was scuttled at Shanghai in 1949 to prevent capture by Mao's victorious forces. Her sister ship the Wake (ex-Guam) (PR-3) had an even more amazing odyssey, being surrendered to Japan in 1941, recaptured by the U.S. in 1945, donated to Chiang to help in his civil war against Mao, and then captured and used by the Chinese Reds in 1949 and after. She thus served four flags under five separate names!
Yet another member of the class, the Luzon (PG-47), after being escorted to Manila through a typhoon during the final days before Pearl Harbor, was scuttled there by her crew, but raised by the Japanese, renamed HIJMS Karatsu, and refurbished as a sub chaser (although retaining her official designation as a river gunboat), based at Cebu. In this capacity she located and helped sink the U.S. sub Cisco (SS-290) with the help of two Nakajima Kate torpedo bombers. Vengeance was not long in coming to the turncoat gunboat, however. The submarine USS Narwhal (SS-167) torpedoed Karatsu on 3 March 1944, blowing off her bows and effectively putting her out of business for the duration. She was towed to Manila for repairs but, as Japanese occupation forces scrambled to ward off Gen. MacArthur's mighty army, they never got around to patching her up. Instead she was scuttled as a blockship at Manila on March 3, 1944. Presumably the wreck was scrapped to open the harbor mouth following the Allied takeover. Click here for a painting of the Luzon in Japanese service.
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 was perhaps the most stylish of the ex-Spaniards. You can see something of the grace of the galleons in her pert lines. The all-iron-hulled ship, built in France in 1882, was purchased from Spain under the peace treaty terms. She had been posted to the Philippines but was not present at Manila Bay and actually took an American prize during the war, a fully-loaded collier from Australia. Now she was thoroughly refitted. In 1902 she was despatched for mopping-up work in the Boxer Suppression, where she stayed for 5 years. She was not sent to China permanently until March 1911, but once in the Land of the Dragon, she returned only briefly for Philippine patrol duty during WWI. She then sailed for Shanghai and home. Vessel was sunk as a target in 1928. The inscription on this photo 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.
A model of the Panay, a 1928 addition to the Yangtze flotilla, shows the ship's stern quarter and after gun. Some critics have harshly insisted the movie prop San Pablo was not based on Panay. Perhaps not directly, one-to-one; but the resemblances seem rather obvious to your Armchair Admiral -- a long-standing student of naval architecture.
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.
Among the actual units of the Asiatic Fleet mentioned in The Sand Pebbles is the USS Truxtun (DD-229). With her sister Clemson class destroyers Stewart and Paul Jones, this ship actually patrolled the Lower Yangtze from Shanghai to Hankow in the mid-1920s. In the story she is part of the treaty powers' fleet covering the foreign concession at Hankow while the San Pablo winters over there. Truxtun provides a squirrely way out of trouble for protagonist Jake Holman at one point. The shot above brings to mind a passage near the book's beginning:"Near Chinkiang the river narrowed and low green hills humped near the south bank. A pagoda stood on a wooded point. The Paul Jones passed them making thirty knots, with signals fluttering, deck guns manned, and boats swung out. She hailed, saying there was rioting in Chinkiang. The steamer people made a great fuss slamming and locking the steel gratings that shut the Chinese deck passengers away from topside." (The Sand Pebbles, First Edition, pp. 18-19)
A quarter view of the Clemson class destroyer USS Stewart (DD-224) anchored in the Yangtze. Enlarge The Stewart had one of the most adventurous careers of any Asiatic Fleet unit. At the start of WWII she became part of the Allies' weak force in the region, under the command of Dutch Admiral Doorman. Stewart saw more than her share of action against the Japanese in early 1942 until she was badly damaged in the Battle of Badung Strait. She was nursed back to Surabaja for repairs, but the small floating drydock there was hard-pressed to hold her bulk (for more on this little-known phase of the Pacific War, see our article on the cruiser USS Marblehead and the Battle of the Makassar Strait). The Stewart slid off the keel blocks onto her side while in the dock in Feb. 1942, damaging one of her propeller shafts. She was still in this awkward posture when the Japanese marched into Dutch Java, taking over its abundant oilfields to fuel their war effort. The Japanese refloated and repaired the ship. Renamed Patrol Boat No. 102, she sailed for 2½ years under the Rising Sun ensign, with her forward two funnels trunked together in the Japanese style. During this phase of her career she sank the American submarine Harder (SS-257) on Aug. 24, 1944 in Dasol Bay, the Philippines; the Gato class sub was lost with all hands. War's end found No. 102 holed up in Hiro Bay, Japan, near Kure. U.S. occupation forces repossessed the Stewart and after brief repairs, she set out for California. Her engines crapped out near Guam and the U.S. Navy was obliged to tow her all the way to San Francisco. After some months as a dubious war trophy, the ship was designated a target. In this capacity she was sunk off California in 1946.
In The Sand Pebbles, the crew of the gunboat USS Pigeon is characterized as a surly and combative lot, ultra-sensitive to jests about their ship's name -- indeed, quite willing to tear apart a bar in Hankow to defend their ship's honor. Perhaps combativeness was a good trait in a warship's crew, judging from Pigeon's two Presidential Unit Citations earned in the early days of WWII. The ship's galleried midships main deck and boat deck layout are suggestive of the San Pablo replica seen in the film, although the hull shape is more characteristic of an oceangoing vessel than the San Pablo's.
That is because she was designed as an oceangoing vessel. Pigeon was ordered as a Lapwing class minesweeper during the Great War but not delivered until 1919. After some years in limbo, she was converted to serve as a Yangtze Patrol gunboat, a duty she undertook from 1923 to 1929. Later she became a submarine salvage vessel, but during the early phase of the Pacific War she became a utility vessel, acting as minesweeper, sub tender, antiaircraft gunboat, and tug -- and performing each service with distinction. In the last days before Pearl Harbor, Pigeon escorted several of the larger Yangtze gunboats from Shanghai to Manila, nearly being sunk by a typhoon in the process. Later she proved indomitable in the defense of Bataan and Corregidor. She was sunk by a Japanese dive bomber on May 4, 1942, though her people escaped ashore. Her feisty crewmen had their spirit tested while staying in the notorious POW camp at Cabanatuan for the duration. Their fighting spirit stood the test. Skipper Lt. Cdr. Frank A. Davis took it upon the Pigeons to build a robust underground organization in the camp and to procure food and medicines for those most in need -- deeds for which he was awarded the Navy Cross and the Legion of Honor.
Dimensions of the Pigeon: 187'10" x 35'6" x 9'9" (57.25m x 10.8m x 2.97m) Displacement: 950 tons. Armament (in China): (1) 11 pdr., (2) MG. (In WWII): (2) 3"/50 guns, (2) 20 mm MG. Propulsion: 1,400-SHP Harlan & Hollingsworth vertical triple-expansion engine, single screw. Speed: 14 kts (36 km/hr). Crew: 72.
DANFS Entry for the USS Pigeon (AM-47)
McKenna's novel underlines the close cooperation between treaty power gunboats on the interior rivers of China. This is a mark of distinction from the deep-water sailors of the Fleet, awaiting the big clash with Orange (Japan), while their "river rat" counterparts were used to cooperating with the Japanese. In the story, Jake Holman is friendly with Banger Knox, the engineer of the gunboat HMS Woodcock. Woodcock and her identical sister Woodlark were actual historical vessels, members of the Fowl class (named for species of bird), and near-contemporaries of the San Pablo, having been built in 1897. In fact, this entire class of river gunboats was prefabricated by Thornycroft to assist in Kitchener's 1898 campaign against the Mahdist tribesmen in Sudan. The boats were to have been assembled in country when they got to Egypt; but with Britain's crushing victory at Omdurman, they were no longer needed: there were already plenty of British gunboats patroling the Nile. So they were sent to China instead, and most were operational by the time of the Boxer Rebellion, only two years later. These boats proved very handy and remained on station until the 1928-30 era, when they were replaced by the Insect class boats, built 1915-16. Together with a series of four 85-ton and three 195-ton gunboats, they were named for species of bird. Shown is HMS Woodcock on the Yangtze shortly after commissioning in 1898 (photo © 2004 by David Angove).
Dimensions of the Woodcock: 145½' x 24' x 2' (44.4m x 7.3m x 0.6m) Displacement: 150 tons. Armament: (2) 6 pdr., (4) MG. Bullet-proof hull, pilothouse. Coal: 28 tons. Propulsion: 550-HP triple-expansion engine, single screw. Speed: 13 kts (24 km/hr). Crew: 25.
Photo album of the Woodcock & Woodlark -- from HMSFalcon.com
One of the British gunboats celebrated in The Sand Pebbles is HMS Cockchafer, which battled a Chinese warlord at Wanhsien in the Yangtze gorges during August and September 1926. Both ship and incident are historic. It seems the warlord, Gen. Yang (an ally of Gen. Wu P'ei-fu), was capturing British-owned steamers in the rapids. Cockchafer, together with HMS Wigeon, sailed into Wanhsien, recaptured several of the half-dozen victims, and released their imprisoned crews. Gen. Yang retaliated by seizing more ships and by holding several of the gunboat's Chinese crewmen ashore, publicly executing one of them in grisly fashion in full view of Cockchafer's crew -- an incident possibly inspiring the murder of Po-han in the novel. On Sept. 5, 1926 a volunteer crew, largely composed of Cockchafers, went into Wanhsien on a disguised merchant vessel and succeeded in recapturing all British merchant seamen and ships held in port. The incident concluded with a one-hour firefight between the 3 British gunboats and Gen. Yang's forces on land. The recaptured cargo vessels were scuttled.
Cockchafer was named for a large and destructive European beetle (not an abrasively hardened jockstrap), as befit her place in the Aphis or Insect class. Our picture above is of the Cricket, but Cockchafer was identical to her sister. These ships were made for combat in the Danube in WWI. Built by Barclay Curle in 1915 under the supervision of Yarrows', they were shipped through Murmansk and by rail to the Black Sea to be assembled. All found their way to China around 1920; nearly all survived to fight in WWII, mostly in the Mediterranean. Dimensions: 72.5m x 11.0m x 1.2m (237'10" x 36' x 4'). Displacement: 645 tons. Armament: (2) 6” guns (152 mm). Propulsion: Coal-fired boilers. (2) vertical triple-expansion engines shafted to twin screw. Service speed: 14 kts (26 km/hr). Maximum speed: 15.8 kts (29 km/hr).* * SAND PEBBLE TRIVIA QUESTION * *
Q: In Shanghai at the beginning of the story, what ship is Holman leaving?
A. "Flagship, Asiatic Fleet" -- in 1926, the armored cruiser USS Pittsburgh.
The USS San Pablo was the brainchild of author and China sailor Richard McKenna. McKenna served in Yangtze gunboats during the Thirties, but based his fictional warship on an earlier and more colorful breed of China river-rat. 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. Due to its faraway location, technical demands, and shipbuilding requirement, this was a long-term project -- so long, in fact, that Wise was able to start preliminary work on it, change gears to shoot and release the musical gem The Sound of Music in its entirety, and then jump back into the casting and preproduction for Sand Pebbles. Indeed, it is through this classic movie, starring Steve McQueen and Candice Bergen, that most know the story today.
Throughout, the director, script doctors and production personnel, all were at pains to be true to the novel; many of the film's quirks derive from that deep grounding in the book. Such a rarity for Hollywood! As may be seen from the cover art at left, believed to be by McKenna himself, the ship seen in the movie also conformed closely with the author's intentions. Though many episodes from the 600-page book were left out and others condensed to fit the film's running time, one imagines McKenna would have nodded in approval had he seen the finished product. It manages to capture both the rich texture and sense of place, and the moody existential dilemma that pervade the novel.
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: Danshui Harbor and the Danshui (Tam Sui) River near Taipei, at the northern tip of Taiwan. The shallow river afforded only 3-4 feet 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". Like the prototype in the novel, 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 San Pablo's shallow bottom, 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 distant. The engine used in teh film is now on display aboard the WWII Victory ship Lane Victory in San Pedro, CA (Port of L.A.). It is run at slow speeds on compressed air for the benefit of museum visitors. Apparently the splendid brass gauges and telegraph dial that appear in the movie 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 physicality, 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, 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, First Edition (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 223-224.
"Boatmen and fishermen turned to watch their passing; brown, stooping farmers straightened to stare; white birds flew up screaming and buffaloes snorted off in terror across green fields. ... Underway or at anchor, the Sand Pebbles ran slashingly through their drills, and they strolled and lounged along the clean teak decks, themselves neat and clean in white shorts, barbered and well-fed and rested, watching the swarming Chinese life all around them on land and water with a comfortable feeling of being in control of things. That was ... how it felt to be a Sand Pebble."
-- The Sand Pebbles, First Edition, 288. Enlarge photo
The vessel that made all this cinematic mayhem possible was designed as a movie set for this one film and performed brilliantly in her one starring rôle. The San Pablo replica 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, and also true to McKenna's description. 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 rather than the high seagoing forecastle of the Helena or the yacht lines of Villalobos. 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 aggressively 1890s -- as are the racial and imperial attitudes she embodies. The rake of masts and stack is barely perceptible; their vertical lines matched by the plumb stem. Finally, to comply with McKenna's description, the ship was armed only with one 3-pdr gun forward and one 1-pdr aft, plus two machine guns on the bridge, and the infamous steam hose in the waist. As seen in the film's battle and "Repel Boarders" drill scenes, the San Pablo was well stocked with rifles, automatic pistols, and cutlasses, too, enabling the captain to pull off his obsession with taking an enemy vesssel by boarding -- and with tempting death.
The film's climax comes in a pitched naval battle. Seeking to rescue American missionaries stranded in a time of unrest, the gunboat encounters a long boom of junks cabled together to deny entry to the Chien River. The San Pablo's well-fed, middle-aged warriors are pitted against the force manning the boom: Chinese peasant militia spiked with firebrand students. Though the tone of book and film is skeptical of imperialism, the battle (known among Old China Hands as "the Action on the Chien") is a thrilling sequence. There are moments that will surely tug at any American's heart -- and there are several "hooks" to make the viewer think rather than blindly root for the Yanks. One must remember that Vietnam was escalating into the bloodbath it became at the very time the film was being made. Although the story is presented faithfully to the book, it seems certain that Wise et al. were questioning the wisdom of unleashing a big land war in Asia. The issues of servicemen's overt racism and crude, sexist behavior while on liberty are presented in unforgiving detail in the film. These problems bear on America's ability to sustain a faraway war effort and maintain goodwill with its nonwhite allies. The long-running Okinawa base controversy comes to mind as proof that these irritants are still with us 50 years after Vietnam -- 85 years after The Sand Pebbles' period.
Through the entire picture, McQueen portrays a man of torn loyalties -- a loner whose people skills are somewhat lacking, whose timing is always a bit off kilter. In a crowning irony, after the bloody fight is over and most of the crew pretty cut up, the missionaries are in no mood to be rescued. In a chilling turn-about, the Sand Pebbles' heroics at the boom write the death warrant for the Rev. Jamieson, the story's most outspoken critic of "gunboat diplomacy". The Captain's death wish is gratified. Holman, too, dies heroically, ironically becoming in death the ultimate Sand Pebble -- a role he could never attain in life. One is comfortable predicting that Jake's Last Stand will pass into San Pablo legend, to resonate through the presumably brief post-battle phase of the gunboat's career, and perhaps a bit beyond.
As Jake Holman, Steve McQueen chops through the woven cable holding the boom of junks together to bar the San Pablo's path. I give him credit: aside from LOTR's Gimli the Dwarf, never have I seen an axe so wielded! The ship's fully enclosed bridge with its armored flaps folded down, based on the Panay and other later China gunboats, can be seen to advantage in the background. Battle flag -- key image in the pre-battle montage -- streams from the foremast over a scene of simulated carnage in this studio publicity still.
Now you can own the whole epic yourself -- The Sand Pebbles' long-awaited re-release was recently 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; the score by Jerry Goldsmith has been presented as standalone concert music, but works famously as a soundtrack for an edgy story with moments of deep tenderness and ribald humor. This is not strictly an action film: You get a seething brew of politics, rich period atmosphere, one of the funniest boxing bouts ever filmed, a mercy killing, and a gory industrial accident. If that's not enough, there's major male bonding, gut-twisting female degradation, and a helping of romance -- plus a bar brawl and a couple of all-out battles. All this with the production values of a full-budget Hollywood feature, with the star power of McQueen, Attenborough, and Bergen, and solid performances by all the supporting players. What's not to like?
HD fanatics will be excited by the film's release in Blu-ray, just out in early 2010 (see link below for more on the Blu-ray release.)
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.
- Sand Pebbles Blu-Ray Review
- Richard McKenna: The Writer From Mountain Home
- 1890s Spanish Gunboats - All Later Used in U.S. Fleet
- Official History of the Yangtze Patrol
- Robin Class and Aphis Class: Britain's 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 -- Prelude to 50 Years of War
- Amazon.com Video (to Purchase Sand Pebbles DVD)
