Bill Chong Story — page 2
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About 600 Chinese-Canadians joined the Canadian and British forces during the Second World War, and approximately 200 are still alive. Around Remembrance Day, they keep busy selling poppies and going to schools to tell their story.
When war broke out in Europe in 1939, the local Chinese community was divided over whether Chinese-Canadians should volunteer to fight.
"There were pros and cons," says Charles Lee, 79. "Some people said 'Why go, because they treat you like second-hand citizens?' But others felt if we would go out and fight for our country and come back and we'll see [if Chinese could become full citizens].
"We weren't demanding something extra, we just wanted to be equal."
But when some Chinese-Canadians tried to join the Canadian forces, they were rebuffed because of their race. The British forces had no such institutional racism, and began recruiting Chinese-Canadians to fight in southeast Asia.
"They were looking for people who could be trained for work behind the enemy lines," said Howe Lee, president of the Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society. "They could blend in with the native [population], because the Chinese had emigrants into many countries."
A Canadian engineer working for British intelligence in southeast Asia, F.W. Kendall, was instrumental in getting Chinese-Canadians allowed into the Canadian army.
"Kendall petitioned the minister of national defence and even met with the prime minister, more or less threatening that if Canada would not accept these people for military training, the British were going to come over and actively recruit Canadian-born Chinese," said Howe Lee.
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