Between Two Fires

U. S. S. Isabel, flagship of Rear Admiral Henry Hughes Hough, churned the waters of the Yangtze River last week. Passing between Nanking and Pukow, the gunboat ran into the Chinese war. Bullets spat from both sides of the river, whistling across the decks, flattening themselves against the armor.

Then the sharp metallic rat-tat-tat-tat of machine guns sounded high above the din of battle as the Isabel replied in deadly fashion to the fire from both banks. Eventually, the Chinese, defeated, ceased fire, and the Isabel passed proudly on downstream. One sailor received two slight flesh wounds.

Rear Admiral Hough, 56, reported the incident to his superior, Vice Admiral Clarence Stewart Williams, Commander-in-Chief of the U. S. Asiatic Fleet. He recalled, too, that while commander of the Yangtze patrol, the post he still occupies, he narrowly escaped death while playing golf on the Hankow course when Chinese soldiers fired upon him and his party. What the Admiral said on that occasion is not recorded.*

* Admiral Hough is one of the most distinguished of U. S. naval officers. Having been graduated from the Naval Academy in 1891, he saw active service seven years later in the Spanish-American War. Subsequently, he was appointed to many ships and was steadily promoted through all grades to his present rank. From 1911 to 1914 he was Naval Attache at Paris, and at St. Petersburg, (now Leningrad).

At the outbreak of the World War he was a Commander on the Wilmington. The following year he was assigned to duty at the Naval Academy, which post he left in 1918 to become District Commander at Brest, France. Later the same year he was sent as a U. S. representative to the Prisoner of War Conference at Berne, Switzerland.

Since the War he has commanded the New York, been Governor of the Virgin Islands, Director of Naval Intelligence at Washington. Two years ago he was appointed again to an active service post as Commander of the Yangtze Patrol Force.