Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat U.S.S. San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China.

THE SAND PEBBLES (597 pp.)—Richard McKenna—Harper & Row ($5.95). “Hello Ship,” Jake Holman whispers reverently to the U.S.S. San Pablo the first time he reports aboard. His new Navy ...

The vessel in question is the San Pablo, a U.S. gunboat all too patently presented as America in microcosm, which has orders to show the flag on China’s Yangtze River and shoot, if necessary, to ...

The title derives from a language perversion of San Pablo, formal name of the gunboat on Yangtze river patrol. Among the crew is Richard Attenborough, very believable in his role as a sailor who ...

Set in the mid-1920s, the story follows the crew of the US gunboat San Pablo up the Yangtze River from Shanghai, past the Treaty Ports of Hankow and Changsha in a film with more character ...

Fifty years ago, the Hollywood legend spent eight weeks making one of his finest films, The Sand Pebbles, in Hong Kong. But was he the brawling womaniser his reputation suggested, asks Stuart Heaver ...