The second of her name, the first Bee was a screw paddle tug of 34 tons displacement built at Chatham and launched on February 29, 1842, H.M.S. Bee is of 645 tons displacement and was built by the Ailsa Company during the Great War. Completed in 1916, she left Troon on March 22 of that year for Milford Haven and later for service in. the Mediterranean. Reaching Port Said in October 1916, she was employed on Suez Canal service from then until May 1917. In June of that year the Bee served in Mesopotamia on the River Tigris. In January, 1918 she left for the Far East arriving at the China Station in April, having made the passage from Muscat Ing Hongkong ili three months. Ar-Tiving at Shanghai in the same month, though the Japanese bombed buildings within half-a-mile of the ship on numerous occasions not even so much as a splinter dropped on board. On September 20, the day before the Japanese had stated that Nanking would be severely bombed, the staff of the British Embassy embarked on the Bee, the latter returning to the city shortly after the raiders had visited the town and had carried out their" threat. On November 22 the Embassy staff was taken on board once more -and the ship sailed on the following day for Hankow.
During the second week in December-the report- spread that the Japanese would break through the Kiangyin boom and enter the Yangtze proper.and so or. December 10 the: Bee left Hankow flying the flag of Rear-Admiral R. V. Holt. From then until Christmas all aboard had more excitement than they. bargained for. Two days after leaving Hankow the vessel arrived at Wuhu, twenty minutes after the now famous Ladybird incident, and although one- shell was fired at the ship (fortunately it missed its objective) the Bee was saved from a similar fate to the Ladybird by the prompt intervention of Gaptain G. E. M. O'Donnell and Lieut.-Col. Lovat Fraser (H. M. Military Attache) who, at great personal risk, ran towards the Japanese battery and ordered them to cease fire.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.