HMS AMETHYST war 1949

What would've happened had Britain gone to war with China over the HMS AMETHYST incident in 1949 ? This ship in April 1949 was an RN frigate steaming up the Yangtse to secure the British embassy at Nanking and relieve the guardship HMS CONSORT, and was fired upon by Communist forces, with the ship being severely damaged and immobilised, and heavy casualties among the crew due to shore bombardment and snipers. The relieving HMS LONDON and BLACK SWAN, together with the CONSORT, were also fired on by the Communists and suffered casualties when attempting to assist their sister ship and take her in tow. The AMETHYST finally managed to make a break for safety in July, running the gauntlet of Communist shore batteries and eventually reaching the open sea. WI Britain decided to go to war with the Commies after their ship had been attacked ? How would the Chinese civil war have been affected, and what would've been the US reaction ?
 
Sounds interesting- but with the Empire in dissarray I really don´t see a massive intervention likely: India gone, the Malayan emergency has started, British commitment to military presence in west germany.

Do you know the zones of influence in China of the warring parties- especially who controls the area around Hong Kong? Risk of the crown colony overrun by the commies)

Also, the state of the british economy would surely forbit a new pacific campaign.
And I think it´s at least dubious that the Dominions/ "White" Commonwealth members would like the idea, either.
 
I don't know the relative positioning of Chinese troops at this time, but it seems to me that if China invaded or even appeared to significantly threaten Hong Kong soon after this confrontation, GB (and its alliance partners,including the USA) would have had no but to go to war.
 
Norman said:
I don't know the relative positioning of Chinese troops at this time, but it seems to me that if China invaded or even appeared to significantly threaten Hong Kong soon after this confrontation, GB (and its alliance partners,including the USA) would have had no but to go to war.


To defend Hong Kong, ground forces would have been needed.

Given the state of US ground troops in Asia at the end of the 40´s ( a book about the Korean war I´ve read some time ago had the chapter describing it titled "Sergeant Bilko goes to war")

and the empire breaking apart I would think Washington and London would back down IN ORDER NOT TO RISK Hong Kong.

But if the chinese had attacked Hong Kong along with massacres or other atrocities, some reaction would have followed, airstrikes or some other face-saving gesture.

But a real war for the bombardment of a minor ship sounds more "victorian-aged.", especially against a huge country with such a large population.
And to nuke china to equalize the numbers would see just like a little bit out of proportion, also. :)
 
1949 China

Britain was already fighting China in 1949. That's why the ship was there, despite the Chinese telling the Brits to blow.
Britain was broke and didn't have nuclear weapons. To all intents and purposes, neither did the US. We had to save them to threaten the Russians to keep them from overrunning Western Europe. Remember, Russia had had four years to recover from the war and integrate the Eastern Europeans into the Warsaw pact.
Also, China didn't really have any cities worth nuking with the primitive multikiloton bombs we had. No refineries, no large dams, no anything, really.
 
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