Captain Philo Norton McGiffin

The first American to command a modern battleship in wartime

Jan 6, 2007

Five years before the famous Admiral Dewey sailed into victory in Manila Bay, a fellow Annapolis graduate had already been in command of a modern battleship

Philo Norton McGiffin, who was born on December 13, 1860, near Pittsburg. After spending a year at Washington Jefferson College, he received his commission as cadet midshipman at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1877. McGiffin was an adequate student but spent a large part of his time performing complicated pranks and other antics for which he is remembered to this day. He graduated near the bottom of his class and served two years at sea as a midshipman before being basically 'laid off' from the Navy in 1884. At the time, the US Navy was scandolously underfunded. Many elderly ships were in disrepair, steaming days and gunnery practice were limited due to shortages in the budget, and promotions had stagnated. In McGiffin's graduating class of ninety midshipmen there were only ultimately enough openings in the fleet for twelve of the graduates to be commissioned. McGiffin was not one of the top twelve in his class so he found himself discharged with the remainder of his class. The young unemployed officer had two things in his favor: a thousand dollar severance package and a first class officer's education in one of the world's few steam and steel navies. At that time the Tong King war was on between France and China, and he decided to offer his knowledge to foundering young Chinese Navy.

He reached China in April, 1885 and through the offices of Mr. Pethick, US. Vice-Consul to the Viceroy Li Hung Chang, he offered his services. He was offered a commission in the Chinese navy of a new torpedo boat providing he could pass a board of examination by the combined professors of the Chinese Naval College. He was examined in seamanship, gunnery, navigation, nautical astronomy, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, conic sections, curve tracing, differential and integral calculus and other naval subjects. He was recommended by the director of the Chinese Naval College to become a professor at the school, rather than be commissioned as a junior officer. He was promptly made professor of seamanship, gunnery, navigation and nautical astronomy. He was also to take on the roles of drilling the young new officer cadets in infantry, artillery, and fencing. He was given a house, servants, and $1800 a year. The 24-year old professor settled down at Tien-Tsin began teaching immediately. Almost all of those who in the Chinese-Japanese War served as officers were his pupils. During the next nine years McGiffin served as professor both at the academy and on board ships at sea, often devising new tactics for the handling of the new ships. In 1894 when war with Japan was declared he was placed as second in command on board the 7670 ton new battleship Chen Yuen. With fourteen inch thick steel armor and its powerful armament of four 12inch guns the Chen Yuen was one of the most capable ships in the world. On 17th of September, 1894, the battle of the Yalu was fought, and the new Chinese navy was basically battled out of existence with the help of another former US Navy officer. During almost the entire battle McGiffin's ship was ablaze as it had been full of combustibles and was heavily coated in multiple coats of flammable varnish and paint. However he saved his ship, drew Japanese fire away from the lighter vessels, and affected a fighting withdrawal to port. The Chen Yuen had been struck more than four hundred times during the battle.

Having suffered terrible wounds during the five hour fight in which McGiffin distinguished himself and saved not only his battered vessel but the remainder of the infant Chinese fleet, he resigned from the service. He moved back to the United States and lived for two years in a convalesance ward in New York. Blind and suffering, on February 11, 1897 he asked for his dispatch box to be brought to him so that he could go over his memoirs. Unknown to his nurses at the hospital, he had hidden his naval revolver in the bottom of the box under his papers. Captain Philo Norton McGiffin, USNA class of 1882, formerly of the Imperial Chinese Navy, died of his own hand at age 36, the first American to command a steel battleship in war. Author David Poyer memorialized McGriffin's Annapolis antics towards his otherwise fictional characters in "The Return of Philo T McGiffin".

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