River Gunboat SAN PABLO

Star of the Motion Picture THE SAND PEBBLES

~ Background ~ The Sand Pebbles is a highly popular historical novel that was first published in 1962. The book relates the adventures of the crew of the SAN PABLO, a fictional American gunboat representative of those that served in China as part of the Yangtze Patrol. The actions dramatically described are based, in part, on events that actually take place in 1926. The Yangtze Patrol was a prolonged naval operation that protected American interests in Chinese 'treaty ports' and along the shallow Yangtze River, hundreds of miles inland between 1854 and 1941. Civil unrest in China in the 1920s precipitated a number of armed conflicts that on more than one occasion also involved American and European military units stationed there. The book's author, Richard McKenna [right], served in a newer class of gunboats on the Yangtze River in the mid-1930s. The story reflects life onboard a gunboat as he experienced it. His novel became an action-packed film which was completed in 1966. Unfortunately, McKenna passed away two years before that at age 51.

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In his novel, McKenna refers to the SAN PABLO by the nickname 'Sand Pebble' and calls her crew, collectively, 'The Sand Pebbles' - hence the book's title. His description of the SAN PABLO is based on the USS VILLALOBOS (PG-42), a former Spanish Navy gunboat that was active in 1926 on the Yangtze River. She was 156 feet long, with a beam of 23 feet and a draft of just 7.5 feet. She was lightly armed with six cannon of various sizes, had a crew of 57 and her coal-fired propulsion plant enabled this vessel to attain a top speed of 11 knots.

The VILLABOLOS was captured in 1898 by the US Navy in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. She served as a unit of the American Asiatic Fleet between 1903 and 1928. When newer, shallow draft gunboats, better suited to the Navy's needs were sent to China, the obsolete VILLABOLOS was sunk in gunnery exercises.

~ Creating a Full-Scale, Operational Replica ~

When the movie was in the planning stages, no Yangtze Patrol gunboats remained in existence. Twentieth Century-Fox decided that to do justice to the novel, they needed to create a replica gunboat that could move under its own power and be filmed in Asian waters. Typical of Hollywood liberal license, they also decided that such a vessel should resemble gunboats more often seen by the American public in newsreels and newspaper photos during the 1930s. Accordingly, the replica built was 150 feet long, and bore a reasonable resemblance to the larger gunboats WILMINGTON and HELENA (the latter is depicted on the right), both of which were built in 1897 at Newport News Shipbuilding. Both of these gunboats served in the Yangtze Patrol in the early part of the 20th century. The film company spent $250,000 (around $2 million in present-day dollars) to have the fictional USS SAN PABLO replica gunboat built in Hong Kong. To build it in America would have cost four times as much, plus transport. Because filming took place in Taiwan, the steel-hulled movie prop had to be seaworthy. It was powered by a pair of diesel engines that produced a top speed of 10-knots.

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The photograph on the right shows the replica vessel nearing completion while being constructed in Hong Kong. Most of the filming took place in Taiwan. The motion picture took four years to complete. No expense was spared in shooting the film in authentic Far East locations. However, the Communist government that controlled mainland China refused to allow any filming to be done there on the Yangtze River. Chinese junks, antique automobiles and rickshaws were obtained for use during the filming. Depending on what scene in the movie was being set up on any particular day, anywhere between 300 and 1500 extras were utilized. Chinese civilians wore vintage costumes, while translators passed on the director's instructions. When the film was finally finished, its budget had doubled.

In addition to building the replica gunboat, barges, like the one shown on the left, were obtained, then fitted with cameras placed on elevated scaffolds. Scenes of the SAN PABLO underway included massive amounts of thick, manufactured smoke that such an actual coal-fired vessel would have generated.

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~ The SAN PAULO's Engine ~ A numer of scenes in the movie, such as the image displayed below, showing movie star Steen McQueen in his role as a member of the SAN PABLO's engineering department , were shot in a studio in Burbank, California, since the replica vessel's diesel engines were far from authentic. The engine used as a movie prop was an actual 1,000 horsepower reciprocating engine built in 1920 in England. It had powered a fishing trawler until that vessel was scrapped in Vancouver, Canada. After being purchased for use in the film, this 20-ton machine was moved to Burbank and fitted with a hidden electric motor which allowed its piston rods and crankshaft to move during filming. When filming was complete, the engine [right] was sold to a San Diego collector of maritime artifacts. Eventually, it was acquired by the non-profit group that manages the restored Victory Ship SS LANE VICTORY. After hundreds of hours of restoration work by volunteers, the engine is currently on display in one of the holds of that museum ship, berthed in San Pedro, California.

~ A Movie Prop's Decline ~ Once the film was completed, the motion picture firm had no further use for the large scale replica gunboat. After removal of all her mock armaments and other simulated naval apparatus, a small crew sailed her back to Hong Kong, where she was sold. Exactly who purchased her and for what purpose(s) is somewhat of a mystery. One published report indicates that in the 1960s she was sold to an American construction company to serve as a floating hotel in Viet Nam.

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Another version is that she was sold to the De Long Timber Company in the Philippines. That may...or may not...have happened after she spent time in Viet Nam. In any case, she was renamed the NOLA D. Named in honor, perhaps, of either the wife or daughter of the owner of the De Long Timber firm. In 1975, the NOLA D was photographed in Tarakan, Indonesia, where she was being utilized as a base of operations for a seismic survey company. By then her engines had been removed and several boxy deck houses added; apparently to maximize her use as a floating dormitory, office and laboratory complex. She had also been fitted with a helicopter pad. In the following photo, a helicopter can be seen atop the large deck house near her stern.

Apparently, shortly after the above image was created, this once-proud gunboat replica was ingloriously towed to Singapore and scrapped.

~ Replica Retrospective ~ Throughout the history of film-making, ship models, full-scale sections of ships and in a few cases...like for the movie The Sand Pebbles...large-scale floating replicas of ships were created. Other than the replica gunboat SAN PABLO, the only self-propelled sea-going vessels specifically built for use in motion pictures were sailing ships. A good example...two, actually...are the full-scale replicas of HMS BOUNTY, built in 1962 and 1978. Both survived film-making, but sadly the first vessel sank in a storm off the Atlantic coast in 2012. The second one [right] is still afloat and functional, and serves as a tourist attraction in Hong Kong.

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By far the most expensive ship movie set was the huge, albeit partial, full-scale reproduction of the TITANIC. This massive movie set was built seaside in Baja, Mexico and featured in the well-known 1997 film. That film cost around $200 million, and a sizable portion of that expenditure was undoubtedly required to create the massive movie set depicted below.

When the movie TITANIC was completed, the water-soaked and rapidly deteriorating partial ship replica was scrapped. The site remains in use for the production of newer movies. With the advent of very realistic computer-generated models, it is unlikely that any full-scale movie sets...afloat and/or self-propelled like the SAN PABLO...will ever be created again.

Bill Lee

December 2017