WOOSUNG FORTS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3439, 5 March 1932, Page 6

WOOSUNG FORTS

HISTORIC INTEREST.

GUNS TURNED ON FRIENDLY BRITISH NAVAL VESSEL. MANDARIN’S LITTLE JOKE. The Woo sung Forts were further shelled and completely demolished and the garrison annihilated.—Press cablegram. This is not the first time within 40 years that the low-lying and extensive fortifications at the mouth Of the Whangpoo River have received attention from the Japanese, writes a correspondent in the Wellington Evening Post. They were dealt with in 1894. But after that they were covered by British naval guns. That was in the year of the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria. The commandant at Woosung at that time was Captain Sah, of the Imperial Chinese Navy. He was distinguished by all the marks of a Chinese gentleman (which is saying much), and he was a scholarly and cultured man. He thought as quickly in English and spoke that language as freely and With no trace of accent as any officer in the Royal Navy. This need cause no surprise, because Sah began his naval career as a cadet at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. He spent some years in pursuit of his profession serving on British men-of-war. When hostilities began with the Japanese and there were naval engagements in the Gulf of Pechiti, Sah was an officer serving on one of the Chinese cruisers that did not fight and run away from the Japanese, but struck hard and then went down with the yellow dragon allying.

Sah remembered what China had suffered at the hands of her hereditary enemies, and he determined to devote his whole time, his slender means, and, if need be, his life to the redress of his country's wrongs. This may explain why the captain engaged Sergeant Murplvy, a marine artilleryman from the British Navy, to lick the Woosung garrison into shape and, if possible to bring it up to British standards in gunnery and discipline.

British Standard. As a guest of Captain Sah on many occasions, I was in a position to see for myself something of the efficiency and alertness of these Chinese garrison artillerymen, not that I know anything of gunnery beyond the superstition that its whole art consists in attitude. If that indeed were all, then I can testify to the discipline, cleanliness, and soldierly appearance of these British-trained Chinese gunners. The troops stationed at Woosung under instruction of German and Hungarian officers were trained with clock-work precision. They were well set-up and well fed, and strongly built men; there was nothing of the rabble army about them; and when they paraded they marched with the regulation German goosestep. As automata they were a credit to their instructors. But, by way of contrast, they were not animated by the spirit distinguishing the men in the forts under Sah, a spirit not easy to define, but recognisable at once in the officers of our own Royal Navy, on duty or off. Sergeant Murphy had been true to British service traditions and methods, and so fulfilled Sah’s expectations of him. The difference in the forts and the Chines© soldiers outside was remarkable.

Now there came a day in that jubilee week when Her Majesty's faithful lieges were keeping high holiday in Shanghai (and not half-heartedly either). On that day a very high Chinese personage, a Censor, no less, was passing through Shanghai on his return to Pekin, and said he would review the foreign-drilled troops at Woosung. He was not unexpected, and the troops were kept hard at it for days before. The German officers produced a splendid show. The Censor was highly delighted with the

appearance of the troops, and said so. He congratulated the Chinese military mandarin in supreme command, and specially thanked the German officers for their work.

Unlooked for Target

Then the Censor thought he would like to see the forts and their armament. He inspected the men and guns, congratulated Captain Sah, and did not overlook Sergeant Murphy. Next he expressed a desire, in his gentlemanly way, to see a little big gun practice. There was a target somewhere out in the swirling yellow waters of the broad Yangtse delta, with a. reedcovered island to the north inhabited by fishermen and water fowl; there was nothing to the south but sundry navigation marks and low land beyond them, while towards the east was the open sea, and riding at anchor waiting to get over the Woosung bar was the cruiser H.M.S. Immortalite, obscuring the target. The censor appeared to assume command. At any rate, that was my impression at the time, for he said something, and then Sah and his officers looked in surprise, each at the other'and then at their exalted visitor. The native artillerymen loaded and sighted their guns with celerity. They fired on the-Censor's command, one shot seemingly passing about 20 feet astern of the British man-o'-war.

"Good!" said the Censor. "That's splendid. Excellent gunnery." He laughed outright. "Now," he said to the gunners, "how near, think you, can you put a shot to that ship, of war lying out there?" Sah and his officers again looked at each other, and then at the Censor

and his stolid but interested retinue. The gunners did their best by sending a shot between the foremast and fore-funnel of H.M.S. Immortalite. Immediately signs of unwonted activity aboard her were quickly discerned by Sah through his binoculars. He saw that she was cleared for action, that, her rigging swarmed with bluejackets, all top-hamper was sent down, the - guns were run out, and many more things were done in far less time than it takes to tell them. The third .shot was never fired. Sah saw to that, but he risked high official displeasure, probably sacrificed all chance of promotion. He dissuaded the great man from any further pranks of the sort. "The English," he explained, "are a people devoid of the sense of humour. They cannot see a joke. They think you are trying to sink their ship."