Yates Stirling Jr.
On July 20, 1924, he became Captain of the Yard, Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., with additional duty as Assistant Superintendent of the Naval Gun Factory. He was promoted to rear admiral on October 6, 1926 and in December that year Stirling was designated Chief of Staff to Admiral Charles F. Hughes, Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, based at San Pedro, California. At the October 27, 1927 Navy Day Ceremonies at San Pedro harbor, despite an all-day downpour, thousands of Southern Californians gathered for the festivities, including ships' tours, band performances of patriotic music and the key-note address given by Stirling, "Merchant Marine, the Navy and the Nation".
Yates Stirling Jr.
The year 1923 was a particularly chaotic one on the Yangtze. By the early 1920s, the Patrol found itself fighting river bandits while maintaining neutrality between the regional warlords that were battling the Nationalist Kuomintang forces and Communist Forces in an ongoing civil war. To accommodate this difficult military balancing act and the increased perils to U.S. citizens and economic interests, in 1925 Congress authorized the construction of six new shallow-draft gunboats. Construction took place in Shanghai at Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works during 1926–27, with the "new six" launched in 1927–28, and all commissioned by late 1928 during Stirling's time as "COMYANGPAT". These powerful new river gunboats, expressly designed to navigate the treacherous Yangtze and the 250 miles of rapids "upriver" from Ichang (1,000 mi. upriver) to Chungking, were to replace the three coal-fired Spanish–American War gunboats seized from Spain in the Philippines more than a quarter century earlier. "Elcano", "Villalobos", and "Quiros" had been patrolling the Yangtze since 1903; however age and their deeper drafts were proving increasingly problematic. The two gunboats built in the United States for service on the Yangtze, "Palos" and "Monocacy" were "obsolete even as they slid down the launching ways in 1914."
All of the new oil-burning, triple-expansion steam engine gunboats were capable of cruising at 15 knots and reaching Chungking, 1,250 miles upriver from Shanghai, at high water during the summer. Their principal armaments were two (2) high-angle 3" guns fore and aft and eight (8) .30-caliber Lewis machine guns in swivelling bullet proof mounts. The two smallest gunboats, and with the shallowest draft, could reach Chungking year-round, including the winter when the river depth decreased by as much as thirty feet. During the high-water season, they could reach Suifu, 1,500 miles upriver. and were the largest and and were next in size. These vessels gave the navy the capability it needed at a critical time of expanding operational needs. Stirling detached from the Yangtze Patrol in April 1929 and upon his return to the United States, was appointed President of the Naval Examining Board, Navy Department, Washington.