This is one of two photos of USS Avocet in the 1928 album of William Richmond Fell. Avocet was indeed at Chefoo in May and June 1928 during the same period that WRF was commanding HM Submarine L3 on the China station. There is also a naval record of Avocet going aground in a typhoon in August 1928. A second similar photo in WRF's album describes Avocet as aground, but gives the date as August 1929. In the above photo we can see a boat alongside Avocet with members of the crew in it and also crew members aboard the ship. To my amateur eye, the ship does look dangerously close to the shore.
Here is the second photo:
Date picture taken
1928
Gallery
Comments
USS Avocet
I think both photos show the grounding of the Avocet off Chefoo in August 1928 post-typhoon. As you say, there is no record of the Avocet being aground in 1929.
Likely, a typo in date of the second photo posted. I think the USS Jason appears in the background at centre left in the second photo.
A mention made many years later of the grounding of the Avocet at: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ACTC/actc-3.html
"One summer night, while the Jason lay at Chefoo, a gale came up and ships began to drag anchor. I and Commander Turner had already retired ashore for the night. A rumor came to me at our hotel that the Avocet was aground on Chefoo beach. I went out and verified this and then returned to our hotel and told Turner. Without any grumbling he turned out and together we went to the beach and began salvage operations. My duties next here to take the heavy Jason, anchor as near the Avocet as safety permitted, get out hawsers to the Avocet and keep them under tension. With the aid of some sand sucking gear, the Avocet came off easily. No aid was requested from outside our own organization."
Report in the North China Herald 1 September 1928: https://archive.org/details/north-china-herald-1928.09.01/page/362/mode/2up?q=avocet
Further information: https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/a/avocet-i.html
Avocet grounded at Chefoo
Thanks moddsey for this confirmation of the Chefoo location of the grounding of the Avocet and for identifying the probable USS Jason in the background. It seems that it was quite tricky to avoid the possibly shifting sandbanks. Thank you too for the various links to descriptions of the incident. I think it's worth copying the following one that describes what a complicated exercise it was in effect to shift the Avocet off the mud bank:
Heron attempted, unsuccessfully, to get a line across while working parties from the destroyer tender Black Hawk (AD-9) and the light cruiser Trenton (CL-11) came on board to assist. Bittern, meanwhile, started laying out anchors to seaward. Bittern, Finch, and Heron all attempted to free their stranded sister ship but without success on the 27th, as surging surf and heavy swells moving in from offshore complicated matters of getting divers over the side with high-pressure hoses to try and blast away the mud holding the ship fast. Three destroyers, MacLeish (DD-220), Parrott (DD-218), and Simpson (DD-221), were even enlisted to try and free Avocet by steaming by at high speed and attempting to create a wave that would rock the ship free. Ultimately, after working parties from three cruisers arrived to help lighten the ship by transferring stores and ammunition to lighters and boats, a dredge was brought alongside and a fuel oil barge took on the ship's fuel. The combined efforts of Avocet's three sister ships, the waves again created by the three destroyers, and the ship's own engines, finally allowed Avocet to slide free at 2135 on the 29th