Some of you may remember the British film Yangtse Incident (or possibly Battle Hell in the US), in which Richard Todd heroically sails HMS Amethyst through a deadly blockade during the Chinese Civil War in 1949. The adventure bears an uncanny resemblance to a similar occasion in 1904, commemorated on this stamp:
Apologies if you know this story, but I think it is sufficiently unusual to bear repeating. Apart from anything else, its subject was a keen philatelist whose voyages around the world provided him with ample collection opportunities!
The inscription reads as follows: "V.F.Rudnev, legendary commander of the cruiser Varyag". A vastly experienced sailor, Rudnev found himself in Chemulpo Bay, Korea (today Inchon), 'protecting Russian interests'. Korea was then neutral, but the Russo-Japanese war had begun a day earlier, and the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered Rudnev out of port. Such an order was both threatening and illegal, and Rudnev had no choice but to make a run for it. Under heavy fire from the Japanese warships who lay in wait for him, the smaller and outgunned Varyag caused some damage to her assailants, but soon caught fire and lost the use of her guns. Rather than surrender to the Japanese, Rudnev, by now wounded from shrapnel, order the Varyag to be scuttled. At the same time he managed to make his escape with the help of neutral vessels from the harbour, and eventually returned to Russia.
These were of course revolutionary times, and a year later Rudnev, with many of his crew militantly anti-Tsarist, was faced with a dilemma: hold faith with the men under his command, or stamp out the trouble-makers. He chose the former and, though honoured for the Chemulpo Bay action, was forced to resign.
In a remarkable coda to this story, Admiral Vsevelod Rudnev was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun at the end of the war by the victorious Japanese Emperor - an unusual and possibly unique recognition of an enemy commander. Rudnev accepted the honour, but never wore the decoration. He died in 1913, and unfortunately the fate of his stamp-collection is unknown.
I've always been a fan of Patrick O'Brian, and although this took place a century later, it seems the sort of scenario that O'Brian might easily have used in his Aubrey-Maturin novels. A Russian film was made in 1946, but I think you'll get the idea if you give Yangtse Incident another look.
I remember going to see The Sand Pebbles when it opened in London in April 1967. Apparently not based on any specific incident. McQueen took over a year to recover from the location shoot! I wonder what the Russian film was like (Kreiser Varyag, apparently released by Sovexportfilm but only in Austria).
The Sand Pebbles is one of our favourite films. We saw it in a big theatre in Kansas City either soon after it came out, just before or just after we were married in December, 1966. And we watched it again just a few few months ago. Moving stuff.
