Yangtse Incident (film)

Yangtse Incident: The Story of HMS Amethyst
Directed by	Michael Anderson
Produced by	Herbert Wilcox
Written by	Eric Ambler
Starring	Richard Todd William Hartnell Akim Tamiroff
Studio	Wilcox-Neagle
Distributed by	British Lion Films Distributors Corporation of America (US)
Release date(s)	1 April 1957
Running time	113 min
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Yangtse Incident: The Story of HMS Amethyst (1957) is a British war film that tells the story of the British frigate HMS Amethyst caught up in the Chinese Civil War.

It was based upon the book written by Lawrence Earl. The film was known in the US by the alternative titles Battle Hell, Escape of the Amethyst, Their Greatest Glory and Yangtze Incident. Non-English language titles include the direct German translation of Yangtse-Zwischenfall, and Commando sur le Yang-Tse in France. In Belgium it was known as Feu sur le Yangtse (French) and Vuur op de Yangtse (Flemish/Dutch), both meaning "Fire on the Yangtse".

The film was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot

On 19 April 1949, the Royal Navy frigate HMS Amethyst sails up the Yangtze River on her way to Nanking, the Chinese capital, to deliver supplies to the British Embassy. Suddenly, without warning, People's Liberation Army (PLA) shore batteries open fire and after a heavy engagement, Amethyst lies grounded in the mud and badly damaged. Fifty-four of her crew are dead, dying or seriously wounded while others deteriorate from the tropical heat and the lack of essential medicines. The local Communist official Colonel Peng (played by Akim Tamiroff) is adamant: either accept responsibility for the entire incident, or the Amethyst will remain his prisoner.

After an attempt by HMS Consort to tow Amethyst off the mud bank fails, Lieutenant Commander John Kerans (played by Richard Todd) decides to risk steaming down the Yangtze at night without a pilot or suitable charts. After some subtle alterations to the ship's outline to try to disguise her, Amethyst slips her cable and headed downriver in the dark following a local merchant ship, which Amethyst uses to show the way through the shoals and distract the PLA.

Having finally broken through the boom at the mouth of the river, she sends a signal to HMS Concord: "Have rejoined the fleet south of Woosung ... No major damage... No casualties....God save the King."

Cast

• Richard Todd as Lieutenant-Commander John Simon Kerans, RN, British Assistant Naval Attaché, Nanking, and replacement Commanding Officer
• William Hartnell as Leading Seaman (Quartermaster) Leslie Frank, RN, Coxswain
• Akim Tamiroff as Colonel Peng, PLA Political Officer
• Donald Houston as Lieutenant Geoffrey Lee Weston, DSC, RN, First Lieutenant
• Keye Luke as Captain Kuo Tai, PLA
• Sophie Stewart as Miss Charlotte Dunlap, hospital matron
• Robert Urquhart as Flight Lieutenant Michael Edward Fearnley, RAF, replacement Medical Officer
• James Kenney as Lieutenant Keith Stewart Hett, RN
• Richard Leech as Lieutenant Strain, RN
• Michael Brill as Lieutenant Peter Egerton Capel Berger, RN
• Barry Foster as Stores Petty Officer John Justin McCarthy, RN
• Thomas Heathcote as Commissioned Gunner Monaghan, RN
• Sam Kydd as Able Seaman Walker, RN
• Ewen Solon as Engine Room Artificer 2nd Class Leonard Walter Williams, RN
• Brian Smith as Boy 1st Class Keith Cantrill Martin, RN
• Kenneth Cope Store's Rating HMS Amythest
• Alfred Burke as Petty Officer
• Richard Coleman as Lieutenant-Commander Bernard Morland Skinner, RN, Commanding Officer
• Ian Bannen as Stoker Mechanic Paddy Bannister, RN
• Ray Jackson as Telegraphist Jack Leonard French, RN
• Gordon Whiting as Surgeon Lieutenant John Michael Alderton, RN, Medical Officer
• Bernard Cribbins as Able Seaman James Bryson, RN (his feature film debut)
• Anthony Chinn as PLA Officer
• John Paul as Staff Officer Operations
• Basil Dignam as Sir Lionel Henry Lamb, British Ambassador to the Republic of China
• Ralph Truman as Vice-Admiral
• Gene Anderson as Ruth Worth, nurse
• John Horsley as Chief Staff Officer
• Tom Bowman as Commander Ian Greig Robertson, DSC, RN, Commanding Officer, HMS Consort
• Jeremy Burnham as Flag Lieutenant to Vice-Admiral
• Cyril Luckham as Commander-in-Chief, Far Eastern Station
• Allan Cuthbertson as Captain Donaldson, RN, British Naval Attaché, Nanking
• Ballard Berkeley as Lieutenant-Colonel Dewar-Curie, British Assistant Military Attaché, Nanking
• Keith Faulkner as Ordinary Signalman
• Rhett Ward as Lieutenant Milehouse, RN
• Philip Vickers as Surgeon Lieutenant Packard, RN
• Tsai Chin as Sampan Woman

Production

• HMS Amethyst was brought out of store to participate in the film as herself. As the Amethyst's main engines were no longer operational, her sister Black Swan-class sloop HMS Magpie stood in for shots of the ship moving and firing her guns.
• John Kerans, by then promoted to commander, served as technical advisor during the production.
• The destroyer HMS Teazer stood in for both HMS Consort and HMS Concord. As Consort, down from Nanking, she wore the correct pennant number D76; as Concord, up from Shanghai, her pennant number was covered by Union flags. Teazer is depicted firing her guns broadside and turning at speed in the narrow confines of the Stour estuary as Consort attempts to get a towing line to Amethyst under heavy gunfire.
• The rivers Orwell and Stour - which run between Ipswich and Manningtree, in Suffolk, England - doubled as the Yangtze River during the making of this film. The Chinese PLA gun batteries - depicted by old Royal Navy field guns on land carriages - were deployed on the sloping banks of the Boys' Training Establishment HMS Ganges which was sited at Shotley Gate, facing Felixstowe on the Orwell, and Harwich on the Stour, where the rivers converge.

Reception

The film was the 15th most popular movie at the British box office in 1957.

See also

• Simon (Amethyst's cat)
• Yangtze Incident

External links

• Yangtse Incident at the Internet Movie Database
• Yangtse Incident at the British Film Institute's Film and TV Database