River Patrol in China
Departing Shanghai on 28 July 1928, Mindanao conducted shakedown up the Yangtze River, steaming to Chungking and Wansien and returning downstream to Shanghai on 31 August. The gunboat stood out again on 10 September to return to Wansien and take up station. Arriving on 22 September, the ship remained there on convoy and patrol duty until sailing back to Shanghai for fuel and repairs on 28 December. She underwent overhaul until 21 March 1929, and then cruised upriver on patrol, returning intermittently to Shanghai to investigate political conditions. On 2 May, the warship called for Hong Kong and thence to Canton, arriving 14 June where she became flagship of the South China Patrol Force, U.S. Asiatic Fleet. For the next 12½ years, Mindanao cruised the southern coast of China, based alternately at Hong Kong and Canton, protecting American and Allied interests in China and suppressing piracy. In October 1938, following the Japanese invasion of southern China and seizure of Canton, she commenced operations to guard American neutrality.
Read more about this topic: USS Mindanao (PR-8)
Famous quotes containing the words river and/or china:
“A river seems a magic thing. A magic, moving, living part of the very earth itself—for it is from the soil, both from its depth and from its surface, that a river has its beginning.”
—Laura Gilpin (1891–1979)
“Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law,
Or some frail china jarreceive a flaw,
Or stain her honour, or her new brocade,”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)