Jewel in the crown
Unintentional ironies abound in Hong Kong. Among the least known is the fact that, 15 years after the handover, a sizeable building in the former British Forces headquarters in Central is still called the Amethyst Block. No, it's not named after a semi-precious stone, but a mostly forgotten British frigate. HMS Amethyst's escape from the Yangtze in 1949, during the closing stages of the Chinese civil war, gave the People's Liberation Army its first internationally recognised slap in the face.
By April 1949, most of northern China, beyond the Yangtze, was under communist control. Increasingly beleaguered, the Nationalist government still controlled the southern side of the river. To protect British nationals, a Royal Navy vessel, HMS Consort, was anchored in Nanking (modern-day Nanjing) to help should an evacuation be required. With Nationalist agreement, the Amethyst was sent upriver to provide relief to the Consort.
On April 20 of that year, the Amethyst, as it was returning from Nanking with the Consort, was shelled without warning from the communist-held side of the river, sustaining almost 60 casualties, including the ship's commander, and became stranded on a muddy bank. The Consort had to abandon the Amethyst after receiving more than 30 direct hits, with almost 40 men killed or seri- ously wounded.
A young Royal Navy commander, John Kerans, was tasked with making contact with and taking command of the Amethyst and - after being given detailed river charts and safe-passage documents by the Nationalists - eventually reached the stricken ship and vital repairs were undertaken over several weeks.
Edward Youde, then a young Foreign Office official at the British Embassy in Nanking, was one of the principal negotiators with the communist side. He hiked on foot over a couple of hundred miles of hostile territory to reach the ship and eventually aided its escape. Awarded an MBE for this exploit, Youde later served as a highly popular governor of Hong Kong, from 1982 until his death in office in 1986.
The situation was complicated by the fact that the communists refused to formally recognise any treaty arrangements entered into by Chinese administrations earlier than their own, and refused to acknowledge that the Amethyst was a neutral vessel as far as the civil war was concerned. Successful resolution was further hampered by lies on the communist side. For decades, the PLA steadfastly maintained that it was the Amethyst that had fired first. In 1988, then-PLA commander Ye Fei eventually acknowledged that his side had initially opened fire.
The Amethyst was besieged for almost three months while negotiations dragged on. Finally, under cover of night, Kerans engineered an escape. After proceeding down the river at full speed, the ship broke through the booms at the mouth of the Yangtze and met up at sea with HMS Concord, which had been sent from Japan to accompany the ship back to Hong Kong. On encountering the Concord, Kerans flashed out a signal, headlined around the world, which made him an immediate national hero: 'Have rejoined the fleet off Woosung. God save the king!'
Kerans was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for the Yangtze action, and was widely feted on his return to England. Kerans' subsequent naval career, however, was spent under the shadow of the 'Amethyst Incident', which proved an impossible act to follow. Later elected a member of parliament in Britain, Kerans died in 1985.
From being world headline news for months, and a key turning point in international perceptions of the Chinese civil war, the Amethyst Incident has been mostly forgotten in Hong Kong. Except, of course, for that unintentionally ironic, architectural namesake on what used to be the Central waterfront.
The 1957 film Yangtse Incident focuses on the Amethyst exploit. John Kerans made a cameo appearance and HMS Amethyst starred as herself.
