A study of the history of the US Navy's gunboats and their role in
building a worldwide American naval presence abroad and in combat,
from the Yangtze era through to World War II. For more than half a
century, American gunboats were the ships often responsible for
policing small crises and provided deterrence and fast-response
capabilities around the world - showing the flag, landing armed
parties, patrolling river and littoral areas, and protecting
ex-pats. They were often the United States' most-visible and
constant military presence in far-flung foreign lands, and were
most closely associated with the Far East, particularly the
Philippines and China. Most famous, of course, was the
multinational Yangtze Patrol. Many US gunboats were built,
purchased or reassembled overseas where they usually served out
their entire careers, never coming within 7,000 miles of the
national homeland which they served. Numerous gunboats were
captured from the Spanish during the 1898 war, many being raised
from shallow graves, refurbished, and commissioned into USN
service. The classic haunt of US gunboats was the Asiatic Station
of China and the Philippines. Gunboat service overseas was
typically exotic and the sailors' lives were often exciting and
unpredictable. The major operational theatres associated with the
US gunboats were the pre-1898 cruises and patrols of the earliest
steel gunboats, the Spanish-American War of 1898 (both the
Philippines and the Caribbean), the guerilla wars of the early 20th
century Philippines and Latin America, the Asiatic Fleet and
Yangtze Patrol of the 1890s-1930s, and finally World War II, which
largely entailed operations in China, the Philippines, the Dutch
East Indies, Alaska, and on convoy routes. It was Japan's sudden
1941-1942 'Centrifugal Offensive' that effectively spelled the
beginning of the end not just of most American gunboats, but also
the century-old world order in Asia that had provided US gunboats
with their primary mission.
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