Times are tough in 1938 during the Great Depression when eighteen-year- old Leslie Charles hears that the navy shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, is hiring college students. A talented musician endowed with exceptional math skills, Leslie believes he's a good candidate for work now that he has one year of college under his belt at Mars Hill College in Marsh County, Virginia. Leaving his parents, siblings, and the rest of his family behind in Asheville, North Carolina, Leslie becomes a welder's helper at the yard, and soon the lure of the navy snags him. He becomes an enlisted man, endures basic training, and begins his journey both as a sailor and as a man. A novel of military fiction, China Sailor narrates the story of Leslie's coming-of- age, including his life as a sailor, his experiences in China during its civil war and its war with Japan, and his personal relationships with women. It provides a glimpse into this exciting time in history leading up to the start of World War II.
Xi Jinping has made his ambitions for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) perfectly clear, there is no mystery what he wants, first, that China should become a "great maritime power" and secondly, that the PLA "become a world-class armed force by 2050." He wants this latter objective to be largely completed by 2035. China as a Twenty-First-Century Naval Power focuses on China's navy and how it is being transformed to satisfy the "world class" goal. Beginning with an exploration of why China is seeking to become such a major maritime power, author Michael McDevitt first explores the strategic rationale behind Xi's two objectives. China's reliance on foreign trade and overseas interests such as China's Belt and Road strategy. In turn this has created concerns within the senior levels of China's military about the vulnerability of its overseas interests and maritime life-lines. is a major theme. McDevitt dubs this China's "sea lane anxiety" and traces how this has required the PLA Navy to evolve from a "near seas"-focused navy to one that has global reach; a "blue water navy." He details how quickly this transformation has taken place, thanks to a patient step-by-step approach and abundant funding. The more than 10 years of anti-piracy patrols in the far reaches of the Indian Ocean has acted as a learning curve accelerator to "blue water" status. McDevitt then explores the PLA Navy's role in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. He provides a detailed assessment of what the PLAN will be expected to do if Beijing chooses to attack Taiwan potentially triggering combat with America's "first responders" in East Asia, especially the U.S. Seventh Fleet and U.S. Fifth Air Force. He conducts a close exploration of how the PLA Navy fits into China's campaign plan aimed at keeping reinforcing U.S. forces at arm's length (what the Pentagon calls anti-access and area denial [A2/AD]) if war has broken out over Taiwan, or because of attacks on U.S. allies and friends that live in the shadow of China. McDevitt does not know how Xi defines "world class" but the evidence from the past 15 years of building a blue water force has already made the PLA Navy the second largest globally capable navy in the world. This book concludes with a forecast of what Xi's vision of a "world-class navy" might look like in the next fifteen years when the 2035 deadline is reached.
The U.S. Navy's patrol of the Yangtze River began in 1854 when the USS Susquehanna was sent to China to safeguard increasing American commerce in the region. As Kemp Tolley explains in this entertaining history of the patrol in which he was to later serve, the presence of gunboats along the river greatly benefited the integrity of the shoreline factories. Tolley was a young naval officer in the 1930s when assigned gunboat duty, first in the Mindanao, then in the Tutuila, and finally the Wake in August 1941. His colorful description of life as a ""river rat"" is filled with anecdotes about the resourceful and high-spirited sailors who manned the old riverboats in that distant land. In the process of telling their story he covers a century of Chinese history, replete with warlords and mandarins, bandits and kidnappers, missionaries and mercenaries, riots and revolution. He presents a knowledgeable summary of the political situation in China up to World War II, including the bombing of the Panay, the siege of Shanghai, and the Nanking incident. Far more than a routine account of naval operations on the great Yangtze, this book is an unforgettable reading experience that has attracted readers since 1971 when it was first published in hardcover.
Tells the story of the growing Chinese Navy - The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) - and its expanding capabilities, evolving roles and military implications for the USA. Divided into four thematic sections, this special collection of essays surveys and analyzes the most important aspects of China's navel modernization.
One hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began their voyages of discovery, fleets of giant junks commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the empire’s finest porcelains, lacquerware, and silk ventured to the world’s “four corners.” Seven epic expeditions brought China’s treasure ships across the China Seas and Indian Ocean, from Japan to the spice island of Indonesia and the Malabar Coast of India, on to the rich ports of the Persian Gulf and down the East African coast, to China’s “El Dorado,” and perhaps even to Australia, three hundred years before Captain Cook’s landing. It was a time of exploration and expansion, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship. In When China Ruled the Seas, Louise Levathes takes a fascinating and unprecedented look at this dynamic period in China’s enigmatic history, focusing on the country’s rise as a naval power that briefly brought half the world under its nominal authority. Drawing on eyewitness accounts, official Ming histories, and African, Arab, and Indian sources, many translated for the first time, Levathes brings readers inside China’s most illustrious scientific and technological era. She sheds new light on the historical and cultural context in which this great civilization thrived, as well as the perception of China by other contemporary cultures. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written, When China Ruled the Seas is the fullest picture yet of the early Ming dynasty—the last flowering of Chinese culture before the Manchu invasion.
A Plain Sailorman in China is a biography of Cdr. Irvin Van Gorder Gillis, USN that recounts both his extraordinary family history – a fascinating slice of Americana in the 1800’s – and Irvin’s multi-faceted career as a naval officer for 25 years and then as successful rare Chinese book collector. Son of a U. S. Navy Rear Admiral, as a U.S. Naval Academy graduate in 1894 he distinguished himself academically at the Academy and soon operationally while serving aboard his first U. S. Navy warships. Assigned to a torpedo boat in the Spanish-American War, he was hailed a hero for disarming a live Spanish torpedo while it was still floating in the sea. A talented naval engineer as well as leader of men, Gillis rapidly was selected to command a series of U.S. Navy warships, initially the torpedo boat in which he served during the war. His second command, USS Annapolis, took him to Asia for the first time where he saw action in the Philippines during the insurrection there. After another tour in command of a monitor assigned to China and service in two battleships, he was assigned as Assistant U. S. Naval Attaché in Tokyo to observe the Russo-Japanese War. Following more sea duty in the Atlantic he was sent to Peking as the first U. S. Naval Attaché to China, a job he held three times over the following 12 years. Following the second of these tours, and during his first period of retirement from the Navy in 1914, he was designated as chief intelligence officer for the Navy in China – and perhaps for other government intelligence collectors as well – while simultaneously working for Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Electric Boat Company as their China representative to sell warships to the Chinese Navy. In 1917 he was recalled to active duty for his third tour as U. S. Naval Attaché to China to replace the incumbent who was reassigned to command a destroyer in World War I. Following the end of the war, Gillis was released from active duty and settled into his life as a civilian. Married to a Chinese princess – possibly with two children —he remained in China from 1914 until his death in 1948, primarily collecting, sorting, cataloguing, binding and shipping tens of thousands of volumes of rare Chinese manuscripts that ultimately were to reside in Princeton University’s East Asian Library. During World War II, he and his wife were interned at the former British Embassy in Peking, returning after to war to his old home near the Forbidden City until his death a few years later."
This new biography, part of Longman's World Biography series, of the Chinese explorer Zheng He sheds new light on one of the most important "what if" questions of early modern history: why a technically advanced China did not follow the same path of development as the major European powers. Written by China scholar Edward L. Dreyer, Zheng He outlines what is known of the eunuch Zheng He's life and describes and analyzes the early 15th century voyages on the basis of the Chinese evidence. Locating the voyages firmly within the context of early Ming history,itaddresses the political motives of Zheng He's voyages and how they affected China's exclusive attitude to the outside world in subsequent centuries.
Captain Glenn F. Howell kept a detailed account of his activities in China for 62 years. His journals now make up 202 leather-bound volumes--one of the largest sources in existence, perhaps the largest, of servicemen's observations of service in China during that country's struggle to oust one power and come to grips with a new one between World War I and II. This work presents Howell's diary from June 6, 1920, to September 23, 1921, during which time he commanded the naval gunboat USS Palos on the Yangtze River. First comes a biography of Howell, an overview of Chinese history from 1800 to 1920, and a history of the United States military involvement in China during those years. Howell's time as commander of the USS Palos is divided into three sections. Preceding each, the editor comments on the nature of the upcoming diary entries. Howell covers a range of topics, including the Chinese people, various important locales (e.g., the Three Gorges), making official visits, (his first as a captain), officer-enlisted man relations, opium, the steam navy, people who influenced him (S. Cornell Plant and Captain Joseph Miclo, skipper of the Meitan), missionaries and other foreigners in China (including U.S. military retirees), and "trackers" (China's human beasts of burden.)
A definitive study of the Yangtze craft, complete with carefully detailed scale drawings, the result of the author's research and experience during his 30-year career as a river inspector in China. A lavishly produced volume. "There is really nothing to compare it with, and it is unlikely that it will be superseded in the foreseeable future."--The New York Times "Definitive in its genre."--Publishers Weekly "The best single reference on the subject."--American Neptune "Worcester's imposing work has no equal and not even a close competitor."--Dolphin Book Club News Ever since Marco Polo came home from Cathay some seven hundred years ago with colorful tales of a strange land, westerners have marveled at the timelessness and vastness of China, and the infinite variety of all things Chinese. One such aspect of China was noted by another traveller, Gabriel Magaillans, who nearly three hundred years ago wrote ". . . there are more vessels in China than in all the rest of the known world." In a country so dependent on water transportation for thousands of years, this was most true. The rivers and harbors of China teem with junks and sampans, and almost as amazing as their numbers is the multitudinous variety of types, evolved over the centuries to meet the needs of special and sometimes rather exotic kinds of waterborne commerce. What one brings home from China depends in part on what one took there; what Worcester took was curiosity and understanding, and what he brought back was the warp and woof with which he has masterfully woven a rich fabric of Chinese culture and customs. The China seen by Marco Polo has disappeared, and that known by Worcester is fast going. Here is a chance to let an old China hand take you to one of the great rivers of the world for a last look at a timeless land just before time there ceased to stand still. In The Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze, G. R. G. Worcester has written and illustrated a definitive work that will excite the historian, traveler, collector, naval architect, sailor, and modelmaker alike. "This unique book is a comprehensive and authoritative record of the vessels which for centuries provided practically the sole means of communication and transportation in the vast area drained by one of the world's greatest waterways," writes L. K. Little, former Inspector General of the Chinese Customs Service. "These remarkable ships deserve an unusual biographer, and in Mr. Worcester they have found one." 656 pages with over 900 illustrations, fully indexed, including margin notes and personal comments on the author's 30 years among the resourceful and ingenious junkmen of the Yangtze River.
