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Chinese-Canadian war vets tell their stories
Project hopes to store memories from thousands of veterans in an electronic archive
By Gerry Bellett, Vancouver SunMarch 3, 2010
Victor Wong (front) was among the Chinese-Canadian war veterans taking part in the Memory Project 'Stories of the Second World War' attending an opening presentation Tuesday at Vancouver's Chinese Community Centre.
Victor Wong (front) was among the Chinese-Canadian war veterans taking part in the Memory Project 'Stories of the Second World War' attending an opening presentation Tuesday at Vancouver's Chinese Community Centre.
Photograph by: Nick Procaylo, PNG, Vancouver Sun
When the Second World War broke out in 1939 more than 600 Canadian Chinese men volunteered to fight for a country that wouldn't recognize them as citizens though they were born here.
On Tuesday a small remnant of the soldiers, sailors and airmen of Chinese heritage who took up arms for Canada gathered in the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum & Archives on Columbia Street to tell their stories.
Their accounts of military service are being collected by the Memory Project, an electronic archive being assembled by the Historica-Dominion Institute based in Toronto.
"We have documented the accounts of about 800 veterans of the Second World War across the country and we hope to do thousands before we've finished in March 2011," said project manager Jenna Zuschlag Misener.
About a dozen proud old men in berets, one in the bonnet of the Canadian Scottish, and wearing blazers bearing their regimental or service badges with campaign medals across their chests, attended the event -- although none of it was necessary to mark them as soldiers.
The deportment of warriors is stamped indelibly into those straight backs and squared shoulders.
Unlike other Canadian soldiers these men were fighting two battles -- against the enemy without and for their rights within.
It was the theme of every speaker who recounted their war service to a group of teenage high school students.
Before the war they were unable to vote, buy property, gain admission to many professions, and were subjected to public segregation, discrimination and head taxes.
Veteran Victor Wong, who was part of the Canadian contingent with the British Army's Force 136 clandestine operations in Burma, said many Chinese-Canadians lost their lives and sacrificed themselves in order to get full civil rights for Chinese people, which was granted in 1947.
It was a direct result of their participation in the war effort, he said.
Gordon Quan of Victoria, another British special force's member, spent two years in Burma as a demolition expert.
"If it hadn't been for the atomic bomb ending the war I don't think I would have come home," he said Tuesday.
Like Wong, he spent his war behind the Japanese lines blowing up railways, boats and military installations while living in the jungle with a small group of British and Indian soldiers with two cyanide pills for company in case of capture.
If they suffered discrimination in civilian life it was not something they experienced as soldiers.
On the contrary, said Frank Wong, who was born in Alert Bay.
He recounted how before being shipped to England and eventually fighting in Normandy and Germany his unit was in Ontario where another Canadian Chinese soldier was prevented from boarding a cruise boat in Kingston.
"They refused to let him on the ship because he was Chinese so the rest of his comrades walked off.
"The management called the police and they called the military police and then when the officers from the camp arrived and heard what happened they placed the whole ship out of bounds to the military. It caused a big fuss. Because of this, the management had to apologize to the Chinese soldier," said Wong.
Victor Wong said when he first arrived in England he was approached by an Englishman who looked at his Canadian uniform and asked which tribe he was from.
"Iroquois," he replied.
A number of their recollections can be found at www.thememoryproject.com.
gbellett@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
--
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Chinese+Canadian+vets+tell+their+stories/2635142/story.html
Project hopes to store memories from thousands of veterans in an electronic archive
By Gerry Bellett, Vancouver SunMarch 3, 2010
Victor Wong (front) was among the Chinese-Canadian war veterans taking part in the Memory Project 'Stories of the Second World War' attending an opening presentation Tuesday at Vancouver's Chinese Community Centre.
Victor Wong (front) was among the Chinese-Canadian war veterans taking part in the Memory Project 'Stories of the Second World War' attending an opening presentation Tuesday at Vancouver's Chinese Community Centre.
Photograph by: Nick Procaylo, PNG, Vancouver Sun
When the Second World War broke out in 1939 more than 600 Canadian Chinese men volunteered to fight for a country that wouldn't recognize them as citizens though they were born here.
On Tuesday a small remnant of the soldiers, sailors and airmen of Chinese heritage who took up arms for Canada gathered in the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum & Archives on Columbia Street to tell their stories.
Their accounts of military service are being collected by the Memory Project, an electronic archive being assembled by the Historica-Dominion Institute based in Toronto.
"We have documented the accounts of about 800 veterans of the Second World War across the country and we hope to do thousands before we've finished in March 2011," said project manager Jenna Zuschlag Misener.
About a dozen proud old men in berets, one in the bonnet of the Canadian Scottish, and wearing blazers bearing their regimental or service badges with campaign medals across their chests, attended the event -- although none of it was necessary to mark them as soldiers.
The deportment of warriors is stamped indelibly into those straight backs and squared shoulders.
Unlike other Canadian soldiers these men were fighting two battles -- against the enemy without and for their rights within.
It was the theme of every speaker who recounted their war service to a group of teenage high school students.
Before the war they were unable to vote, buy property, gain admission to many professions, and were subjected to public segregation, discrimination and head taxes.
Veteran Victor Wong, who was part of the Canadian contingent with the British Army's Force 136 clandestine operations in Burma, said many Chinese-Canadians lost their lives and sacrificed themselves in order to get full civil rights for Chinese people, which was granted in 1947.
It was a direct result of their participation in the war effort, he said.
Gordon Quan of Victoria, another British special force's member, spent two years in Burma as a demolition expert.
"If it hadn't been for the atomic bomb ending the war I don't think I would have come home," he said Tuesday.
Like Wong, he spent his war behind the Japanese lines blowing up railways, boats and military installations while living in the jungle with a small group of British and Indian soldiers with two cyanide pills for company in case of capture.
If they suffered discrimination in civilian life it was not something they experienced as soldiers.
On the contrary, said Frank Wong, who was born in Alert Bay.
He recounted how before being shipped to England and eventually fighting in Normandy and Germany his unit was in Ontario where another Canadian Chinese soldier was prevented from boarding a cruise boat in Kingston.
"They refused to let him on the ship because he was Chinese so the rest of his comrades walked off.
"The management called the police and they called the military police and then when the officers from the camp arrived and heard what happened they placed the whole ship out of bounds to the military. It caused a big fuss. Because of this, the management had to apologize to the Chinese soldier," said Wong.
Victor Wong said when he first arrived in England he was approached by an Englishman who looked at his Canadian uniform and asked which tribe he was from.
"Iroquois," he replied.
A number of their recollections can be found at www.thememoryproject.com.
gbellett@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
--
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Chinese+Canadian+vets+tell+their+stories/2635142/story.html
