Philo Norton McGiffin (December 12/13, 1860 – February 11, 1897) was an American naval officer later serving in Chinese service as a naval advisor during the First Sino-Japanese War. Although primarily skilled as an instructor and administrator, he proved a talented tactician during the 1894 Battle of the Yellow Sea as well as the first American to command a modern battleship in wartime. Early life Born to Civil War officer Colonel Norton McGiffin and Sarah Quail in Washington, Pennsylvania, McGiffin attended local Washington and Jefferson College before transferring to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1877. When he was about 12, his older brother Thomas, got into some trouble when he shot the high school principal. While Philo was at Annapolis, he gained a reputation as a practical joker. In 1884, McGiffin qualified as a passed midshipman but was among several classmates who were discharged with one year's pay when there were no available positions in the body of commissioned officers (in those days, several years of sea duty were required before receiving a commission. In an era of limited U.S. naval spending, only a few commissions were available to each graduating class. Unfortunately for McGiffin, when he took the exam in 1884 he did not score highly enough and so did not obtain one of the few commissions available that year). Service to Imperial China Arriving in China soon after and seeking employment, McGiffin was able to earn a commission as a lieutenant in the newly modernizing Imperial Chinese Navy under Li Hung-chang in early 1885. In the midst of the Sino-French War, McGiffin was said to have captured a French gunboat in June before the end of the war that same year. A professor at the Chinese Naval College in Tientsin (Tianjin) for the next nine years, McGiffin was also said to have served as naval constructor supervising the construction of four ironclad warships in Great Britain before the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War in August 1894. Later career McGiffin was assigned to Admiral Ting Ju ch'ang's Beiyang fleet (literally "Northern Fleet"). The fleet was partially organized and trained by McGiffin, and he would serve as an executive officer aboard the Chinese battleship Zhen Yuan during the Battle of the Yellow Sea (1894). He was severely wounded during the battle and returned to the United States. He experienced mental instability due to his wounds. McGiffin was eventually committed