USS Wake (PR-3) was a
United States NavyThe United States Navy is the sea branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. As of 31 December 2008, the U.S. Navy had about 331,682 personnel on active duty and 124,000 in the Navy Reserve. It operates 283 ships in active service and more than...
river gunboatA river gunboat is a type of gunboat adapted for river operations. River gunboats required shallow draft for river navigation. They would be armed with relatively small caliber cannons, or a mix of cannons and machine guns. If they carried more than one cannon, one might be a howitzer, for shore...
operating on the
Yangtze RiverThe Yangtze River, or Chang Jiang , Tibetan: Bri-chu, is the longest river in China and Asia, and the third-longest in the world, after the Nile in Africa and the Amazon....
, that was seized by
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
on 8 December 1941.
Originally commissioned as the gunboat Guam
(PG-43), she was redesignated river patrol vessel PR-3 in 1928, and renamed Wake
in 1941.
She was launched on 28 May 1927 as Guam by the
Kiangnan Dock and Engineering WorksJiangnan Shipyard is the main shipyard of Jiangnan Shipyard Co. Ltd, sited at 2 Gaoxiong Rd., Shanghai, China. Its primary businesses are ships, ship building, repairs and conversions, and sales...
in Shanghai, China, and commissioned on 28 December 1927.
USS Wake (PR-3) was a
United States NavyThe United States Navy is the sea branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. As of 31 December 2008, the U.S. Navy had about 331,682 personnel on active duty and 124,000 in the Navy Reserve. It operates 283 ships in active service and more than...
river gunboatA river gunboat is a type of gunboat adapted for river operations. River gunboats required shallow draft for river navigation. They would be armed with relatively small caliber cannons, or a mix of cannons and machine guns. If they carried more than one cannon, one might be a howitzer, for shore...
operating on the
Yangtze RiverThe Yangtze River, or Chang Jiang , Tibetan: Bri-chu, is the longest river in China and Asia, and the third-longest in the world, after the Nile in Africa and the Amazon....
, that was seized by
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
on 8 December 1941.
Originally commissioned as the gunboat Guam
(PG-43), she was redesignated river patrol vessel PR-3 in 1928, and renamed Wake
in 1941.
Service history
She was launched on 28 May 1927 as Guam by the
Kiangnan Dock and Engineering WorksJiangnan Shipyard is the main shipyard of Jiangnan Shipyard Co. Ltd, sited at 2 Gaoxiong Rd., Shanghai, China. Its primary businesses are ships, ship building, repairs and conversions, and sales...
in Shanghai, China, and commissioned on 28 December 1927. Her primary mission was to ensure the safety of American missionaries and other foreigners. Later, the ship also functioned as a "radio spy ship," keeping track of Japanese movements. However, by 1939, she was "escorted" by a
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese warship whenever she went, as
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
fell more and more under Imperial Japanese control.
In January 1941, she was renamed Wake
, as Guam was to be the new name of a
large cruiserUSS Guam was an Alaska class large cruiser which served with the United States Navy during the end of World War II. She was the second and last ship of her class to be completed....
being built in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In March 1941, Columbus Darwin Smith, an old China hand who had been piloting river boats on the
Yangtze RiverThe Yangtze River, or Chang Jiang , Tibetan: Bri-chu, is the longest river in China and Asia, and the third-longest in the world, after the Nile in Africa and the Amazon....
, was asked to accept a commission in the U.S. Navy and was appointed captain of the U.S.S. Wake with the rank of commander.
On 25 November 1941, Commander Smith was ordered to close the Navy installation at
HankowHankou was one of the three cities the merging of which formed modern-day Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province, China. It stands north of the Han and Yangtze Rivers where the Han falls into the Yangtze...
, and sail to
ShanghaiShanghai is the largest city in China, and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, with over 20 million people. Located on China's central eastern coast at the mouth of the Yangtze River, the city is administered as a municipality of the People's Republic of China with province-level...
. When
Pearl HarborPearl Harbor is a harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
was attacked on 7 December 1941, Shanghai immediately fell to Japan. Smith was in command on December 8, 1941 (December 7th in Hawaii), when the Japanese captured the ship, which was tired up at a pier in Shanghai. Smith had received a telephone call the night before from a Japanese officer he knew. The officer asked where Smith would be the next morning as he wanted to deliver some turkeys for Smith and his crew. The Japanese did the same to other American officers and officials so as to determine would they would be on December 8th. However, Commander Smith received word from his quartermaster about the Pearl Harbor attack and rushed to the ship only to find it under guard by the Japanese. Surrounded by an overwhelming Japanese force, the crew attempted unsuccessfully to scuttle the craft. The Wake
surrendered, the only U.S. ship to do so in World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Commander Smith and his crew were confined to a prison camp near Shanghai, where, ironically, the U.S. Marines captured on Wake Island were also later imprisoned.
The Japanese gave the Wake
to their puppet Wang Jingwei regime in Nanjing, where she was renamed the Tatara
. In 1945, at the end of the war, she was recaptured by the U.S. The U.S. gave the ship to the Chinese nationalists, who renamed her the Yuan
. Finally, the poor ship was once again captured by Communist Chinese forces in 1949.
As of 2006, no other ship of the U.S. Navy has been named Wake
, though a Casablanca
-class escort carrierThe Casablanca class Escort aircraft carriers were the greatest number of not only escort carriers, but also any size aircraft carrier ever built to a like-design by any nation at any time. Fifty were laid down, launched and commissioned within the space of less than two years - 3 November 1942...
launched in 1943 was named .
External links
Wake (PR-3)
USS "Wake" as "IJN Tatara" and "RCS Tai Yuan".