USS Wake as IJN Tatara. |
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| Career (United States) | |
|---|---|
| Name: | USS Wake |
| Namesake: | Wake Island |
| Builder: | Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works, Shanghai |
| Launched: | 28 May 1927 |
| Commissioned: | 28 December 1927, as USS Guam (PG-43) |
| Renamed: | USS Wake, January 1941 |
| Reclassified: | PR-3 (River Gunboat), 15 June 1928 |
| Struck: | 25 March 1942 |
| Fate: | Captured by the Imperial Japanese Navy, 8 December 1941 |
| Career (Japan) | |
| Name: | Tatara |
| Acquired: | by capture, 8 December 1941 |
| Fate: | Recaptured by U.S. Navy, August 1945 Transferred to China, 1946 |
| Career (Republic of China) | |
| Name: | RCS Tai Yuan |
| Acquired: | 1946 |
| Fate: | Captured by Communist Chinese forces, 1949 |
| Career (People's Republic of China) | |
| Acquired: | 1949 |
| Fate: | active until the 1960s |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Gunboat |
| Displacement: | 350 long tons (360 t) |
| Length: | 159 ft 5 in (48.59 m) |
| Beam: | 27 ft 1 in (8.26 m) |
| Draft: | 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m) |
| Installed power: | 1,900 ihp (1,400 kW) |
| Propulsion: | 2 × triple expansion steam engines 2 × screws |
| Speed: | 14.5 kn (16.7 mph; 26.9 km/h) |
| Complement: | 59 |
| Armament: | 2 × 3 in (76 mm) guns (2x1) 8 × .30 in (7.62 mm) Lewis machine guns (8x1) |
USS Wake (PR-3) was a United States Navy river gunboat operating on the Yangtze River, that was seized by Japan on 8 December 1941.
Originally commissioned as the gunboat Guam (PG-43), she was redesignated river patrol vessel PR-3 in 1928, and renamed Wake in 1941.
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She was launched on 28 May 1927 as Guam by the Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works in Shanghai, China, and commissioned on 28 December 1927. Her primary mission was to ensure the safety of American missionaries and other foreigners. Later, the ship also functioned as a "radio spy ship," keeping track of Japanese movements.[1] However, by 1939, she was "escorted" by a Japanese warship wherever she went, as China fell more and more under Imperial Japanese control.
In January 1941, she was renamed Wake, as Guam was to be the new name of a large cruiser being built in the U.S. In March 1941, Columbus Darwin Smith—an old China hand who had been piloting river boats on the Yangtze River—was asked to accept a commission in the U.S. Navy and was appointed captain of Wake with the rank of commander.[1]
On 25 November 1941, Cdr. Smith was ordered to close the Navy installation at Hankow, and sail to Shanghai. When Pearl Harbor was attacked on 7 December 1941, Shanghai immediately fell to Japan. Smith was in command on 8 December 1941 (7 December in Hawaii), when the Japanese captured the ship, which was tied up at a pier in Shanghai. Smith had received a telephone call the night before from a Japanese officer he knew. The officer asked where Smith would be the next morning as he wanted to deliver some turkeys for Smith and his crew. The Japanese did the same to other American officers and officials so as to determine where they would be on December 8th. However, Commander Smith received word from his quartermaster about the Pearl Harbor attack and rushed to the ship only to find it under guard by the Japanese.[1] Surrounded by an overwhelming Japanese force, the crew attempted unsuccessfully to scuttle the craft. Wake surrendered, the only U.S. ship to do so in World War II.
Commander Smith and his crew were confined to a prison camp near Shanghai, where, coincidentally, the U.S. Marines captured on Wake Island were also later imprisoned.[1]
The Japanese gave Wake to their puppet Wang Jingwei regime in Nanjing, where she was renamed Tatara. In 1945, at the end of the war, she was recaptured by the U.S. The U.S. gave the ship to the Chinese nationalists, who renamed her Tai Yuan. Finally, the ship was once again captured by Communist Chinese forces in 1949.
As of 2010, no other ship of the U.S. Navy has been named Wake, though a Casablanca-class escort carrier launched in 1943 was named Wake Island.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.