A Yesterday's Witness series of six programmes.
3: The Escape of HMS Amethyst
On 18 April 1949, His Majesty's Frigate Amethyst set sail from Shanghai up the Yangtze River to relieve the British Embassy in Nanking. China was in the throes of the Civil War between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and Mao-Tse Tung's Communists and the next morning Amethyst came under heavy fire from the Communist forces on the north bank of the river. Seven of Amethyst's officers and ratings recall the attack and HMS Amethyst's subsequent 100 days' imprisonment in the river; a captivity that was only brought to an end by a dramatic dash for freedom.
Editor SAXON LOGAN
Written and produced by CHRISTOPHER COOK
(Winas orer Waziristun: 7 December)