The Diggers Australia doubted

Chinese Australians had to fight for the right to be Anzacs.

taus inquirer p14 chinese diggers

The early recruiting drafts for World War I in Australia were very selective, refusing men with flat feet and bad teeth. Australians of Chinese heritage were also among those rejected.

The Defence Act of 1909 had specified individuals who were “not of substantial European origin or descent” would be excluded from enlisting for frontline duty.

Added to this was the proviso: “Only British subjects substantially of European origin should be recruited.”

There were also physical requirements, but these were soon lowered as the demand for reinforcements increased.

Short, small-bodied Chinese men now could find a place in the Australian ranks and there are, in various personnel files, men listed as being under 5’2” (152cm).

Despite abuse and racism across many years, and legislation aimed at preventing them joining up, the Chinese community rallied behind the nation’s war effort.

The Chinese press encouraged the enlistment of Chinese-Australians and took out advertisements encouraging the Chinese community to contribute to war loans.

They also contributed to battalion comfort funds and raised money for the Red Cross and for welfare benefits for those returning wounded.

Men of Chinese ethnicity also joined the enlistment lines. Many were second and third-generation “native-born” Australians, who showed few features to indicate Chinese ancestry and had non-Chinese names.

Of the 241 Chinese-Australians who enlisted, 62 have Anglo-sounding names, leaving 179 with some part of their name, usually their surname, being Chinese.

Perhaps the most famous Chinese Anzac was William “Billy” Sing — a horse driver who enlisted in Bowen in north Queensland in October 1914.

Sing had been born to a Chinese father, John Sing, aged 44, born in Shanghai, and an English mother, Mary Ann Pugh, aged 30, from Stafford in England.

Billy Sing had grown up in the bush, left school at 12 and worked hard to support his family.

He was tough, resourceful, could handle horses and was a great shot, attributes that would soon find a place in his dangerous and deadly life as a sniper.

Accepted into the 5th Light Horse Regiment, he found himself on the second convoy of troops destined for Egypt. He landed at Gallipoli on May 20, 1915.

Sing soon got to work, taking up a sniping position at Chatham’s Post, often with his observer, Ion Idriess, later a noted author.

They would carefully make their way to his sniping position, lie down on a ground sheet, and begin their day’s deadly work.

Waiting and watching, the observer would carefully scan the Turkish trenches, less than 200m away, looking for any movement, particularly around the small, brick-lined peepholes that dotted the Turkish parapet.

Once movement was detected, Sing would be guided to the spot and wait, his eye and rifle carefully sighted on the enemy trench. Then, a barely detectable movement and “bang”, Sing had fired and another Turkish soldier lay dead in the bottom of the trench.

By the time Sing was evacuated from Gallipoli in November 1915, he was officially credited with 201 kills. His commanding officer believed it was closer to 300.

This quickly brought him to the attention of General William Birdwood, the Australian commander; General Ian Hamilton, the British commander; and finally to Lord Kitchener, the secretary of state for war. On September 8, 1915, Sing was recommended for a Distinguished Conduct Medal.

By July 1916, the transfer of the Australians from Egypt was virtually complete. Meanwhile, in Australia, the pressure for more men saw a lessening of standards and recruitment requirements.

Age and height restrictions were lowered and many young Chinese-Australian men now found themselves eligible to enlist.

Enlisting at this time were two brothers, Caleb and Sidney Shang.

Caleb Shang was the eldest of 13 children, born in Brisbane in 1884. Sidney Shang was the fifth child and born in Rockhampton in 1891.

While working as a labourer in Innisfail, Sid Shang decided to enlist. He had distinct Chinese features so he travelled to Cairns where he was unknown and perhaps would have a better chance.

He was accepted in January 1916 and went into the 12th Battalion. When his brother also tried to enlist in Cairns he was ­rejected.

Caleb Shang was 34 at the time and working as a clerk at Babinda, south of Cairns. After being rejected in Cairns he travelled instead to Brisbane, where he was accepted into the AIF on June 5, 1916.

Australia had cause to be grateful for his persistence. He sailed from Australia in September 1916, and saw his part in the fighting at Messines, Belgium, on the Western Front in June 1917, where he was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal, an action for which he was mentioned by Australian historian Charles Bean in the official history.

Caleb Shang was again in action at Dernancourt in France in early 1918, where a gallant defence by the Australians stopped the German advance.

He was awarded a bar to his DCM (a second DCM) and again saw action at Villers Bretonneux, for which he was awarded a Military Medal.

Younger brother Sidney Shang, meanwhile, joined his battalion in September 1916. He had been part of the Australian attack on Mouquet Farm near Pozieres and during the terrible winter of 1916-17 he suffered from trench feet, the freezing of the lower legs and feet, and was admitted to hospital. He remained with his battalion until his return to Australia in August 1919.

Despite Caleb Shang’s decorations, probably the most famous Chinese Anzacs after Sing were the Langtip brothers from Tarraville in rural Victoria.

In January 1916, six brothers travelled to Melbourne to enlist together but, given the concern that so many from one family were going to war, initially three, and then two, were sent home.

The four boys found themselves in the 4th Light Horse before transferring to the Camel Corps. The amazing thing was that all four brothers returned home.

Of the brothers, Leslie Langtip drew the most attention. He rode in the famous Light Horse charge at Beersheba and was to have been awarded a DCM.

However, one day outside Dam­ascus he came upon an English officer berating his Arab troops. Langtip told the Englishman what he thought of his attitude and when the Englishman ignored him, Langtip stepped forward and “punched him on the nose”. Little did he know at the time that the officer, Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, was the famous Lawrence of Arabia.

By war’s end it is believed a total of 46 Chinese-Australians were killed serving in the AIF. While they made up a tiny proportion of the 330,000 Australians who went to war, they certainly gave their all, with 19 Chinese Anzacs awarded medals for bravery.

During this time the Chinese Anzacs would not have been treated any differently from the Australian Diggers. While the camps in England were dreary, tedious and wearisome, the big question was: “When are we going home?”

Many men took the time to travel and fraternise with the local English girls, and many men married (an estimated 6000 marriages took place).

Sing met and married Elizabeth Stewart, a waitress from Edinburgh, on one such trip. She was 21, 10 years younger than Billy, and apart from the details of their marriage in late June 1917, she did not travel to Australia and disappeared into obscurity.

Like so many veterans who returned in 1918 and 1919 to a very different Australia, the Chinese Diggers faced a lack of work prospects, educational opportunities and indifference to their service and sacrifice.

To be of Chinese descent would not have helped and, although we know very little about the circumstances of the Chinese Anzacs, we can be sure their opportunities and their future prospects would have been grim. Men such as Sing, for all his decorations and fame, found there was little for them in Australia on their return. His marriage was short-lived and, while briefly feted as an Anzac hero, he soon slipped into obscurity.

He returned to the bush and the trades he had known, working on remote stations or as a gold prospector but never striking it rich.

He died in obscurity during World War II and was buried in a pauper’s grave in Lutwyche Cemetery in Brisbane.

While the Chinese Anzacs fighting with the AIF had earned the high regard of their mates, this was not the case back in Australia.

The White Australia policy, while principally enacted to prevent non-white immigration, also held pernicious clauses that affected the Chinese-Australian population already in the country.

Socially, they were barely accepted, made to feel unwelcome and outcast. Now they were also legislated against.

The biggest discrimination came in the form of employment opportunities. Chinese workers were given notice from commonwealth jobs and from mining.

Many jobs were made unavailable to them. They were also excluded from business enterprises, unable to establish a company or purchase land, and they could not be naturalised.

Australia was not a happy place for even long-established Chinese residents or for those who served.

Will Davies is a historian, documentary-maker and author of books including Beneath Hill 60 and Somme Mud. His next book, The Forgotten, about the role of Chinese-Australians in the Great War, will be released this year.