Images below: This set of rare photographs documents the the withdrawal of some of the Falcon's crew from Chungking. The Japanese invasion of China was well underway by 1939 and the Yangtze could not be navigated. Although the UK was then a neutral country to the conflict, the Japanese were quite prepared to attack any ship that moved and the Chinese had blockaded the Yangtze with sunken vessels and mines. The only way to remove crews from Chungking (some 1,300 miles up the Yangtze) was overland. The Falcon's crew was therefore forced to travel through southwest China into French Indo-China (Vietnam), through Hanoi and finally to Haiphong. In order to avoid attention they wore civilian clothes (more information regarding upper Yangtze gunboat crews leaving China can be found here). The photographs below and on the page that follows document the perilous trip.

Below: Ronald Lydon, the source of these photographs, is seen under the "X" below.

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