Correspondence, memoranda, speeches, reports, articles, printed matter, and other papers related to the military aspects of U.S. policy toward China, naval and military strategy during World War II, reorganization of the U.S. Armed Forces following World War II, Yarnell's naval career, and his service as advisor to the Chinese military mission to the United States and to wartime secretary of the navy James Forrestal. Topics include lend-lease warships for the Chinese navy and identification of maritime supply routes safe from attacks by the Japanese navy. Also includes material on the U.S. Navy Asiatic Fleet, of which Yarnell was commander-in-chef (1936-1939), his Spanish-American War service aboard the Oregon, and his World War I duties with the War Dept.'s War Plans Division.

Correspondents include Hanson Weightman Baldwin, Chiang-Kai-Shek, George Fielding Eliot, James Forrestal, Thomas Charles Hart, Ernest Joseph King, Syngman Rhee, T. V. Soong, and Alfred T. L. Yap.