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PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY EIGHT
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William Humphries
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The photographs appearing in this gallery come from the records of Telegraphist
William Humphries as he served on HMS Bee in late 1937. The Japanese commenced
their conquest of China in 1937 and had reached Nanking by the end of that
year. HMS Capetown, upon which Humphries then served, was ordered from
Hong Kong to Nanking, arriving at the city on August 1, 1937.
At this point the Japanese had begun their attack in earnest upon Nanking
which ultimately resulted in the rape of the city and the intentional slaughter
of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Capetown was the only large RN vessel
(a cruiser) on the Yangtze at the time and, in an attempt to interfere
with the attack, the Chinese began erecting booms (consisting of sunken
vessels) down river of the city and the ship. HMS Capetown was therefore
trapped and she eventually moved further upriver to Hankow, a large portion
of her crew being evacuated overland to Hong Kong.
William Humphries had been training as a Telegraphist on HMS Capetown and
on October 5, 1937 he was transferred to the Yangtze flagship, HMS Bee.
Bee remained in the Nanking area as the situation worsened and on November
3, 1937 Humphries was transferred to Bee's sister ship, HMS Cricket. The
most probable reason for the transfers between ships was the dire need
for information from the area as the Japanese attack on Nanking developed.
During this service, William Humphries was promoted to a full Telegraphist
and he was ultimately returned to HMS Capetown in December of 1937, remaining
with the ship until she was able to proceed down river and back to England
The three photographs in this gallery show a Japanese attack on the railway
yard at Pukow which lies across the Yangtze from Nanking. The pictures
were taken from HMS Gnat and the notations on the reverse state that they
show ships flocking to the side of HMS Bee during the aerial bombardment.
These shots were probably taken between August and December of 1937.
I am immensely grateful to the Humphries family for permitting these photographs to be posted on the site. Requests to use these photographs are welcome, but publication (by any means) may only occur with prior approval of the Humphries family. Any inquires regarding these photographs should be made to Tim Humphries via the site webmaster.
The images below appear in low, high and very high resolution formats.
Viewers of the site who connect to the internet via a telephone modem should
view the images in low resolution so that download times do not become
prohibitive.
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All rights reserved. No photographs or information appearing here may be
reproduced without permission. Inquiries regarding the photographs or information
appearing here should be directed to wampit@warstrike.com. Copyright 2005 - Tim Humphries
Webmaster: wampit@warstrike.com
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