The Douglas-Morris Collection of Naval Medals (Part 1)

Three: Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Yangtze 1949 (D/SKX 833816 S. J. Bannister, Sto. Mech. R.N.); Korea 1950-53 (S.M. R.N.); U.N. Korea, nearly extremely fine (3)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Douglas-Morris Collection of Naval Medals.

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Stoker Mechanic Samuel J. Bannister, a fresh-complexioned young Northern Irishman of twenty-one from Belfast, had joined AMETHYST at Hong Kong. When the ship came under attack from communist Chinese he was hit while below deck, a shell splinter lodging in his chest against the right branch of the windpipe. It was a very painful wound and made breathing very difficult. At the evacuation to Rose Island on 20 April Bannister was one of the four put into the whaler which was nearly capsized by a shell burst. He found himself alone in the water and was all but drowned, but just managed to scramble to the beach, where hands came forward to pull him up the bank and into the concealment of the long grass and bamboo.

With some sixty evacuees now on Rose Island, Bannister found himself in the party of which C.P.O. Heath took charge. This party, many of them in nothing but their underclothes, made their cautious way on hands and knees to the cover of the south side of the island, Bannister crawling with great pain. At the south bank the party were ferried across the river in sampans by Nationalist troops. The party was now clothed in Nationalist uniforms but no shoes were supplied for the long march ahead. Bannister, however, was unable to walk and was carried on a stretcher by four Chinese, the party arriving at a camp late in the evening after marching for most of the day. After resting, the party were now to continue to Shanghai where they were drafted temporarily to H.M.S. London. All, that is, except Bannister and Boy Keith Martin, who the Chinese considered too ill to continue the journey. Another long and weary stretcher journey lay ahead for them for a day and half a night, to be followed on 22 April by a tormenting ride over vile roads, before they arrived at last at Wutsin. Here, they were taken into the shelter of the Christian mission hospital. It was three days since they had been hit and, except for some morphia that Bannister had been administered at the very outset, they had received no trained medical attention. At the hospital Bannister was X-rayed and told that he would be operated on immediately for the extraction of the shell splinter bearing against his windpipe. This operation was carried out without any form of anaesthetic but Bannister bore his ordeal with fortitude. Two days later the town was occupied by the Communists and Bannister and Martin were interrogated in an attempt to get them to state that it had been the AMETHYST that had fired the first shot. This they resolutely refused to do, much to the frustration of the senior Communist Officer who was at this stage negotiating with Commander Kerans over the release of the AMETHYST. Kerans by now was aware that two of his men were missing and made repeated demands that they be returned to the ship. The Chinese, however, continued to hold the two men hostage while the negotiations were taking place, not even admitting knowledge of their whereabouts. Eventually the Communist General Yuan Chung-hsien decided that his hostages were of no more use to him, having got no ‘confession’ from them. On the 25th May, the two young ratings were returned to AMETHYST, carrying with them a letter to Kerans from General Yuan which read:
“These two ratings have been given medical care and have been provided with necessary supplies by the China People’s Liberation Army. It is for the friendship between the people of China and the people of Great Britain that we have given them friendly treatment. Now it is also for the friendship of the people of China towards the people of Great Britain that we send them back to the ship.”

Thus, Bannister and Martin rejoined their 70 comrades on the floating prison compound that AMETHYST had become. For the next two months they shared the privations imposed upon them by the insufferable heat, mosquito plagues and shortage of supplies until, on 30 July 1949, AMETHYST made her epic escape, through the night, down river to the open sea and freedom.