HMS Robin on the West River (Si Kiang)

HMS ROBIN
For basic information regarding this gunboat click here.

ABOVE: HMS Robin

This was the second HMS Robin built for service on the West River (Si Kiang) and she was launched on March 7, 1934 (Information on the first HMS Robin can be found here). She clearly took up service on the West River but very little information exists about her, except relating to final days and demise.

Japan commenced its conquest of China in 1937. Japanese attacks were generally made upon major Chinese metropolitan areas centered upon the Yangtze, the China coast and Canton. In 1938 HMS Robin was detained at Canton (with HMS Cicala) as Japanese forces would not provide permission for her to leave.

With the departure of HMS Seamew to the Persian Gulf in 1941, the four remaining Royal Navy River gunboats in the Hong Kong-Canton area were HMS Robin, HMS Tern, HMS Cicala and HMS Moth. By this point, all of these vessels had managed to return to the British enclave of Hong Kong. Immediately following the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, the United Kingdom and Japan were at war and Japan commenced its conquest of Hong Kong.

Japanese naval records indicate that HMS Robin was sunk by HIJMS Inazuma and HIJMS Isuzu somewhere between December 4 and December 8, 1941. These reports are clearly false and, to my knowledge, these ships never engaged in an exchange of fire. On December 21, 1941 (some two weeks after the Japanese reported her sunk), HMS Robin lobbed 50 shells into Japanese forward positions in Hong Kong. On this date she received dive bombing damage with one man killed. Three Japanese air attacks occurred on HMS Robin on December 22, 1941. In order to avoid capture, HMS Robin was scuttled on Christmas Day, 1941 in Hong Kong.

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