[ { "id": 214456, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 314, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "281\n\nFIRST WORLD WAR LABOUR CORPS CEMETERIES IN FLANDERS\n\nBRIAN C. FAWCETT\n\nThis note follows on from that written by Dan Waters.\n\nThere are several cemeteries in Flanders in which members of the Chinese Labour Corps are buried, some containing as few as two or three graves; one of the largish is that of the Indian and Chinese British Cemetery at Ayette, which was a scene of fighting in 1918.\n\nWhilst on a battlefield tour in July, 1998, my wife and I were fortunate to make a very short visit to Ayette Cemetery. This is reached down an unmade dirt-track off the D919 about 16 kilometres south of Arras. It contains the graves of ten soldiers of the Indian Army, forty-two men of the Indian Labour Corps, one German prisoner, twenty-seven men of the British Chinese Labour Corps and six men of the French Chinese Labour Corps.\n\nInstead of the Cross of Sacrifice, there is a pagoda-shaped shelter at the back. A double flight of steps leads to the gravestones, those of the Chinese being on the left and those of the Indians on the right.\n\nUnfortunately during our fleeting visit I was unable to view all the gravestones but noted that, whereas the British Chinese Labour Corps gravestones were engraved with Chinese and English characters, giving the man's number and date of death, with a suitable inscription, those for the French Chinese Labour Corps had a small plate inserted therein giving the man's name, date of death and \"Mort pour La France.” The shape of the gravestones is also different, those for the French being more rounded at the top. I was unable to read the Chinese characters but for anyone interested details of each grave are recorded in the memorial registers which can be found in the cemeteries, or may be obtained, for a fee, from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.2\n\nAs with all Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries it was in immaculate condition, the grass being cut and the flowers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214457, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 315, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "282\n\nwell attended. Regrettably, I do not think that this cemetery is often visited. On leaving, I noticed large, white rose bushes in flower near the steps on the Chinese side, which I thought brought that final symbolic touch.\n\nI wanted to visit this cemetery as my family and I have had connections with China for many years, from the birth of my maternal grandmother.\n\nIn paying respects at this cemetery, I was also thinking of and paying respects to the fallen of the British Chinese Labour Corps in other cemeteries in Flanders.\n\nNOTES\n\n1. Dan Waters, The Chinese Labour Corps in the First World War: Labourers Buried in France, HKBRASJ Vol. 35, p. 199\n\n2. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission HQ, 2, Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berks SL6 7DX, U.K.\n\nPage 315\n\nPage 316", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214999, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "51\n\nyoung for demobilisation, he volunteered to join the HQ of the CLC instead of serving with the Army of Occupation of the Rhine, and served with them until being demobilised. In February 1920 he volunteered for repatriation duty and from Le Havre assisted to escort 1000 labourers on the S.S. Melita to St John's, Newfoundland, a voyage lasting five days. Seven days journey by Canadian Pacific Railways took them to Vancouver City and then by ferry to the quarantine station at William Head on Vancouver Island, where they were joined by another 5000 coolies who were also awaiting repatriation. After quarantine, with 12 British officers and other ranks, 4730 coolies sailed on the M. S. Dollar to Qingdao, a crossing of twenty-one days, where the coolies were demobilised. Mellor then sailed via Shanghai, Hong Kong [staying two months], the Suez Canal to London, where he was demobilised in late 1921.\n\nAgain, a further confusion in these figures of those who died arises, as, according to a list of names provided by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, of those labourers who have graves, world-wide, the number buried is 1952. Their list also includes, separately, names and graves of non-nationals [i.e. Brits, etc.] who were either serving with or were attached to the CLC from other regiments and these totalled 58. A total of 191 Chinese from the Corps served later with the Slavo-British Legion in Northern Russia in 1920. Between March and December 1919, 50,861 labourers were repatriated with shipments continuing for several more years. About 60 men remained behind in France to carve inscriptions on the tombstones of their dead fellow workers, and this may explain why some of the characters on the stones are unusual, if not incorrect. We understand that headstones are today replaced at fairly frequent intervals providing an enduring picture of well-cared for military cemeteries. The stones are produced nowadays in France by a team working for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission [CWGC] using automatic laser guided tools. This means that the Chinese characters are taken from identical templates which may explain why the character that we saw for the surname Liu has two different forms, each of which is identically turned out on headstones but without any apparent reason for the use of the popular version on some and the obscure version on many more. According to the CWGC a typical headstone would bear one of five phrases engraved both in Chinese and English, the name of the corps, number and date of death in English and the name and province of the casualty in Chinese. We only", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215006, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "58\n\nit was there that he first had dealings with the Chinese whom he came to like and respect. He was elected to the Tsing Chung-hui tong [secret society], pledging to serve Sun Yat-sen, to overthrow the Manchu dynasty and liberate the Chinese people. He joined the Canadian infantry and in 1917 landed in England, later being sent to France. He was seconded to the CLC, though the opinion he gained of the Chinese with whom he served, of a lower class to those he met and had business dealings whilst in Canada, was not very high. He rejoined his own unit in March 1918, was wounded and returned to Canada in February 1919. Later he went to China where he joined Dr Sun Yat-sen and, after his death, his son, Sun Fo.\n\nHe obtained the nick-name \"Two Gun Cohen” after an aide of Dr Sun saw him draw both his guns after a fracas in Canton. Dr Sun first called Cohen 'Colonel', then by his surname and then by the nickname of 'Mah Kun by which houseboys and coolies called him, being the next they could get to \"Morris Cohen.”\n\nBut all this is another story!\n\nObservations and Places Visited\n\nReturning now to our Friend's reconnaissance expedition, the first stop was at the extensive Duisans British Cemetery, Etrun, where one member of the CLC, Yang Feng-yung, 91948, is buried: he died on 4 December 1918. A beautiful American boxwood tree, flowering when we were there, stands behind this lone grave.\n\nAyette Indian and Chinese Cemetery also holds graves of members of the French Chinese Labour Corps. Their members tended to come from southern China and their duties were similar to those of the British CLC. The French graves here are of a similar shape to the British but with only their romanised name and the inscription Mort pour La France [Died for France]. I have not carried out any research concerning the French and their recruitment of Chinese and other nationalities who assisted in their fight for freedom. The 34 British CLC gravestones conformed to the usual Commonwealth War Graves Commission shape with each bearing the service number and/or name in Chinese and romanisation, the date of death and details of their place of birth in Chinese. The inscriptions in English, a straight translation of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215022, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "74\n\nOffice, Kew, London, to ascertain details from their records. This I leave to more qualified people. I thank the staff of the Reading Room at the Imperial War Museum for their help and assistance in locating and providing material in their archives from which I obtained some details for this article and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Maidenhead, for information supplied by them. To David Mahoney thanks are due for the various tit-bits sent to me. I also thank Mr. D. Fletcher, of the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset, and the Imperial War Museum, London, and also others listed for their permission to reproduce photographs from their archives. All other photographs were taken by myself. I would especially like to thank Keith Stevens for being my mentor and for all his assistance in deciphering the Chinese characters on the gravestones, translating the notebooks held at the Imperial War Museum in London, together with his invaluable comments and suggestions for this article. Without his encouragement and pressure this article would not have been written! Finally, I thank my wife, Claudine, for her patience, companionship and for acting as interpreter on our many visits and also for translating various articles written in her native French.\n\nAny errors or omissions are my responsibility.\n\n\"What, indeed, were the Chinese doing in France during the First World War?\n\nNoyelles and Tungkang\n\nAs far as we were concerned the story began when we were touring the British military cemeteries in northern France where Chinese Labour Corps members had been buried during or immediately after the First World War. In one small village, Noyelles-sur-Mer, we were surprised to see a pair of Chinese white stone lions mounted on small plinths within the small village square - albeit it was close to what is known as the Chinese Cemetery in which the largest number of Chinese had been buried - and so we sought an explanation.\n\nThe immediate response was, as far as we could make out, that in 1994 the pair of Lions had arrived unannounced, borne by four Chinese who proclaimed that they were bringing them from the town of Tungkang in recognition of their twinning with the village of Noyelles on the Somme. Again, as far as we could understand, once the lions", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215036, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 132, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "88\n\nBradley\n\n[Shanghai]\n\nAppx E to CLC in France\n\nChinese Labour Corps Cemeteries\n\nDetails from list of names from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, showing the graves of labourers and of other nationals who were serving with or attached to the CLC.\n\nThis list does not include names on memorials.\n\n \n Chinese\n Other nationals (non-Chinese)\n \n \n \n \n \n \n BELGIUM\n \n \n \n Brandhoek New Military No 3, Ieper\n 1\n \n \n Croonaert Chapel, Heuvelland\n 1\n \n \n Dozinghem Military, Poperinge\n 3\n 2\n \n \n Gwalia, Ieper\n 4\n \n \n \n Haringhe (Bandaghem) Military, Poperinge\n \n \n \n \n Kezelberg Military, Wevelgem\n \n \n \n \n Klein-Vierstraat British, Heuvelland\n \n \n \n \n Kortrijk (St Jean) Communal, Kortrijk\n \n Lijssenthoek Military, Poperinge\n 4\n 8\n \n \n \n 35\n 3\n \n \n Mendinghem Military, Poperinge\n 8\n 7\n \n \n New Irish Farm, Ieper\n \n \n \n \n Poperinge New Military, Poperinge\n \n Poperinge Old Military, Poperinge\n \n Reninghelst New Military, Poperinge\n \n \n Westoutre British, Heuvelland\n \n \n \n \n CANADA\n \n \n \n Halifax (Fort Massey), Nova Scotia\n 1\n \n \n EGYPT\n \n \n \n Alexandria (Hadra) War Memorial Cemetery,\n I\n \n \n FRANCE\n \n \n \n \n 1\n I\n \n \n \n 7\n 3", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215041, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "93\n\nWaters, D. D: The Chinese labour Corps in the First World War : Labourers buried in France : Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society: Vol. 35 : 1995\n\nThe Commonwealth War Graves Commission,\n\n2 Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 7DX\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nTel: 44-1628 634221 Fax: 44-1628 771208\n\nImperial War Museum\n\nNOTES\n\n1\n\n3\n\nLambeth Road, London, SE1 6HZ Tel. 020 7416 5000\n\nLiang Shiyi (1869-1933). Chinese government official and financier. Under the Qing government, amongst his financial dealings, he helped found the Bank of Communications (1907). He was President of the Board of Communications (1912), Chief Secretary in the Presidential Office and General Manager of the Bank of Communications, acting Finance Minister (1913-1915); Director-General of the National Revenue Administration and Director-General of the Domestic Loans Office. He was linked with Yuan Shikai and in 1916 fled to Hong Kong. He formed the Wei Min Corporation for the recruitment of Chinese labourers to serve in France, as a proponent of China's entry into the war. Returning to Beijing in 1918, he was made Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Communications; Speaker of the National Assembly; Director of the Domestic Loan Bureau (1920); and Prime Minister (1921-1922). After exile (1922-1925) he again served in the Beijing Government under both Duan Jirui and Zhang Zuolin. He retired to Hong Kong in 1928 after the Northern Expedition reached Beijing.\n\nThis was usually referred to by “real” soldiers as the Crosse and Blackwells, as this British provision company had a very similar crest.\n\nLt Col. Bryan Charles Fairfax, a Yorkshireman, was born on 12th September 1873, the second son of Col. T.F. (or L?) Fairfax of the Grenadier Guards and passed through the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, being commissioned on 8th March 1893 into the Durham Light Infantry (DLI). He was posted to the 2nd Battalion, then serving in India. In 1898 he volunteered for service with the newly raised 1 Battalion, The Chinese Regiment of Infantry, stationed in Weihai", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215043, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 139, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "suggest that this is interchangeable with \"Faithful unto death”. \n\nThese phrases were: A noble duty bravely done \n\n95 \n\n勇往直前 \n\nA good reputation endures forever \n\n流芳百世 \n\nThough dead he still liveth \n\n難死猶生 \n\n鞠躬盡瘁 \n\nFaithful unto death \n\n12 These figures reflect the Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists. \n\n13 X is illegible in the place name. \n\n- \n\n14 The CWGC list gives his name as Wu Shieng-sheng; however, there is no such word as Shieng and his first personal name could just as easily be Hsiang or Sheng.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215552, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 329, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "279\n\n167 HKGG Notice 725 of 16th September 1947.\n\n168 Present Wong Chuk Hang Road.\n\n169 HKGG Notice 721 of 16th September 1947.\n\n170 Present Chai Wan Road.\n\n171 HKGG Notice 720 of 16th September 1947.\n\n172\n\nReport of the Urban Council and Sanitary Department for the financial year 1st April, 1948-31st March, 1949, p. 29.\n\n173 The cemetery was later renamed 'Sai Wan War Cemetery'. This cemetery was and still is managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. There is another military cemetery located just below Sai Wan War Cemetery. Established in 1967, the new military cemetery is not related to Sai Wan War Cemetery, nor the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.\n\n174 This was the pre-war Chai Wan Cemetery, not to be confused with those established in the area in the early 1960s.\n\n175 HKGG Notice 214 of 13th March 1947.\n\n176 HKGG Notice 381 of 13 May 1947.\n\n177 Annual Departmental Report by the Chairman of the Urban Council and Head of the Sanitary Department for the financial year 1950-51, p. 11.\n\n178 Later regazetted as Sandy Ridge Cemetery and Sandy Ridge (Urn) Cemetery in 1950.\n\n179 Annual Report by the Chairman of the Urban Council and Head of the Sanitary Department for the year ended the 31st March, 1950, p. 8.\n\n180 Annual Departmental Report by the Chairman of the Urban Council and Head of the Sanitary Department for the financial year 1950-51, p. 38.\n\n181 Annual Report by the Chairman of the Urban Council and Head of the Sanitary Department for the year ended the 31st March, 1950, p. 8.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]