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Memoirs of Lloyd Moss: 1927

Directly across the river was a large factory building with a big sign facing the water that said "Keith's Eggs" a place where they dried and packaged millions of eggs and next to it down-river stood a very large electric plant: "The Shanghai Municipal Light Plant". Most all other signs were in Chinese and the same drab-colored scene extended up-river as far as wee could see. I said drab-colored but it was far from drab in actuality for there was a bee-hive activity of every imaginable kind going on all the docks and all the little narrow streets and alleys leading back from the wharves. Little family-type factories were interspersed among the shops. The factories were likely to be making anything and the shops were just as varied. For example one of the things they made and sold were papermache articles to be burned on the graves of ancestors. I have seen paper model T Fords that burned on a man's grave would insure him transportation in the next world. So far I have mentioned only the visual things to I must hasten to assure you that the smells and sounds were fully as strange and exciting as the sights. The smells were not always pleasant and aromatic, but no one can say they weren't potent. At first they seemed unbearable, but one gets used to if after a while. The chattering of human voices seemed to be everywhere punctuated constantly by the gong tone of the traveling food vendors and the bamboo clack of the blind beggars and the clip clop of running rickshaw men. As we came abreast of the Standard Oil compound we saw that a cruiser identical to ours was already tied up to the dock.

We pulled a little upriver and then allowed the river current and rudder action to drop us back directly alongside the U.S.S. Richmond. Heaving lines were then thrown across and soon we were tied up securely to the other ship where we stayed for some weeks. The military situation in the city had become stable just as we arrived in Shanghai and the existing forces had decided not to offer any resistance - quite a common occurrence in China in those days. It was said that money and understanding had been exchanged in high places and all was settled peacefully. In any case conditions had settled to the point where life was normal except that there was an 8 P.M. curfew and no one could be on the street in the International section after that. Liberty was soon allowed to our crew in the afternoon and a special Navy police force was sent in from all the ships in port. So, as my gyro compass duties were nil in port I quickly managed to be assigned to this patrol. The setup I found in existence was most interesting. First of all, a headquarters was set up for us at the YMCA downtown at the corner of Szechuen and Hongkong Roads. All we had to do was appear there at 4 P.M. and be assigned a section to patrol then we were on our own until the next afternoon at 4. At our disposal was one of the most exotic and cosmopolitan cities of all the world, roughly eight miles long and three miles wide. An English sector, a French sector, a Japanese sector and the rest loosely American, German and other nationalities combined. That doesn't mean there were only Europeans. Actually there were Chinese by the millions everywhere except the Public Garden along the river in front of the English Concession. This was kept in the old tradition and the only Chinese in there were the nannies (ahmas in Asia) with their baby carriages and little children. Sailors were tolerated if they were quiet and well-mannered.

The city was governed by a commission made up of Western residents entirely separate from the Chinese outside the Concessions. Service men in trouble were turned over to their own commanding officers to be dealt with by military law. That could be pretty stern in those days, but it was pretty mild compared to the justice meted out by the Chinese courts. We saw plenty of evidence of that in photographs of the death by a thousand cuts etc. that were circulated around. I have seen Chinese prisoners being carted off to a place of execution. Life seemed to be awfully cheap for the Chinese, there were such hordes of them in the city that it was hard to see how they could find enough food to eat.

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