Amethyst incident
Incident during the Chinese civil war involving the British navy / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Amethyst incident, also known as the Yangtze incident, was an historic event that occurred on the Yangtze River for three months in the summer of 1949, during the late phase of the Chinese Civil War. The incident involved the Communist People's Liberation Army (PLA), who were in the middle of a river-crossing offensive to overthrow the Nationalist Government, and four British Royal Navy ships HMS Amethyst, HMS Black Swan, HMS Consort and HMS London. The British warships, whose right of passage along the Yangtze had been unchallenged previously since the late Qing dynasty, came under bombardment by PLA artillery and were forced to withdraw permanently from Chinese territorial waters.
Amethyst incident | |||||||
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Part of the Chinese Civil War and the Yangtze River Crossing campaign | |||||||
HMS Amethyst, photographed during the Second World War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United Kingdom | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
HMS Amethyst HMS Consort HMS London HMS Black Swan HMS Concord[4] | Small arms, field guns, artillery battery | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
1 frigate heavily damaged 1 heavy cruiser, 1 destroyer and 1 frigate slightly damaged Amethyst: 22 killed, 31 wounded, 1 cat wounded[5][6] Consort: 10 killed, 23 wounded[7][8] London: 15 killed, 13 wounded HMS Black Swan: 7 wounded[6] | 252[9][10] |
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Traditional Chinese | 紫石英號事件 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 紫石英号事件 | ||||||||||
Literal meaning | Amethyst ship Incident | ||||||||||
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The incident has been widely celebrated in the communist People's Republic of China as a milestone incident that marked the end of Western gunboat diplomacy in China and as one of the last nails in the coffin for the Century of Humiliation.