[1] Initially, the Yangtze Patrol was formed from ships of the United States Navy and assigned to the East India Squadron.

During the 1860s and 1870s, American merchant ships were prominent on the lower Yangtze River, operating up to the deepwater port of Hankow 680 mi (1,090 km) inland.

The added mission of anti-piracy patrols required U.S. naval and marine landing parties be put ashore several times to protect American interests.

In 1874, the U.S. gunboat, USS Ashuelot, reached as far as Ichang, at the foot of the Yangtze gorges, 975 miles (1,569 km) from the sea.

During this period, most US personnel found a tour in the Yangtze to be uneventful, as a major American shipping company had sold its interests to a Chinese firm, leaving the patrol with little to protect.

[3] In 1901, American-flagged merchant vessels returned to the Yangtze when Standard Oil Company placed a steam-powered tanker in service on the lower river.

At the same time, the United States Navy acquired four Spanish vessels (the gunboats USS Elcano, Quiros, Villalobos, and Callao), which it had seized in the Philippines during the Spanish–American War.

Passenger and cargo service by American-flag ships began in 1920 with the Robert Dollar Line and the American West China Company.

To accommodate its increased responsibilities on the river, the United States Navy constructed six new gunboats in Shanghai during 1926–1927 and commissioned them in late 1927–1928 during the command of Rear Admiral Yates Stirling Jr. to replace four craft, originally seized from Spain during the Spanish–American War, that had been patrolling since 1903.

After the Japanese took control of much of the middle and lower Yangtze in the 1930s, American river gunboats entered into a period of inactivity and impotence.

[4] Just prior to the Attack on Pearl Harbor, most of the ships on the Yangtze River Patrol were brought out of China, with only the smallest gunboats, Wake (the renamed Guam) and Tutuila remaining behind.

A few days after Japan's surrender, Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, commander of the United States 7th Fleet, sailed south aboard USS Rocky Mount to rendezvous with Task Force 73 and continue on to Shanghai.