Goofs

During the battle scene at the blockade, Holman is sent forward on the port side with two men manning a B.A.R. position. When the main battery on San Pablo fires and hits the mast of a junk, a group of men near midships who are part of the boarding party are seen laughing, Holman being one of them.

At the end in the missionary's courtyard, two Chinese soldiers are shot at the obelisk. One falls in the right open portion, while the other falls to the left. The left soldier disappears in subsequent scenes.

When the San Pablo first gets underway, Holman is wearing a clean set of dungarees, yet in the next shot, when he is noticing an engine problem, he is wearing old, worn, and dirty dungarees with no undershirt.

Upon seeing the boom in the river, the Captain (Richard Crenna) leans forward, grabbing the forward handrail. In the next scene, he again leans forward, grabbing the forward handrail.

When Lieutenant Collins turns and faces aft to watch his men hurry to battle stations before the battle at the boom, the view shown is from the stern deck house looking forward, not what he is actually seeing from his position on top of the bridge.

When the San Pablo is in danger of being boarded by hostile Chinese, the crewmen are issued Springfield rifles. But they are not given any ammunition belts. Even if the rifles were loaded, which they would not normally be while in storage, they would hold only five cartridges (six with a round in the chamber). Such a limited supply of ammo would not have been enough to turn back the large number of Chinese if they had attempted to board the ship.

In the bar room fight scene, Scots soldiers - most bizarre uniforms ever, no Glengarry caps, but an odd red bobble. So, not Black watch. Sporrans are if anything band ones. Badge does not accord to any Scots regiment. Kilts could be Black watch or Argylls but they weren't in China in 1926.

There are several scenes in which Browning Automatic Rifles are being reloaded with fresh 20-round ammunition magazines. But the hollow sound made by the mags while they are being inserted indicates that they are empty.

During the final shootout, the crickets never stop chirping. They always stop when loud noises or movements are being made.

At the fight at the boom, the cannon on the USS Sand Pebble has a recoil cylinder on top of the barrel, but when fired, the barrel doesn't recoil. There is also no recoil shown for the muzzle loading cannon on the Chinese Junks.

The Machinist Mate First Class (MM1c) rate patch that Holman wears on his left shoulder is a post-1941-type where the "crow" faces to its right side. In 1926, when the movie is set, the crow on a Machinist Mate's rate patch faced left, looking away from the wearer's face. After 1941, all USN petty officer rate patch "crows" faced forward, like their wearer, to "face the enemy".

The Captain is shown on the bridge, and behind him is shown a round black aluminum radar reflector. Radar had not been invented in 1926.

Near the end of the fight between Stawski and Po-Han, when Frenchy charges forward, a boom mike can be seen dipping into the frame for a moment.

When Holman reports aboard San Pablo, he salutes twice, once ostensibly for the National Ensign and once to the Officer of the Deck. As it is after dark, the Ensign is not flying, and there is no saluting it.