Pungdo, Kowshing, and the lost brigade

Kowshing was a British-owned transport chartered by China to carry roughly 800 of its best-trained troops and foreign advisers to reinforce Asan. Captain Thomas Ryder Galsworthy initially accepted a Japanese order to follow Naniwa after protesting that his ship sailed under a neutral flag. The Chinese soldiers refused, held the crew aboard, and fired on sailors who eventually jumped overboard. Naniwa then sank the transport, leaving only a small number of survivors. The loss removed much of the intended brigade and probably its rapid-fire weapons before the land battle, turning a naval interception into an immediate operational advantage ashore.