Chinese Seamen Disappear.

[Jim Brady]

Thousands of Chinese seaman served in the MN during the war and in fact there is a Memorial to those that were lost at the Pier Head in Liverpool.Many Chinese seamen settled in Liverpool and married local girls and had families.I have heard it many times on local radio regarding Liverpool/Chinese lads trying to trace the Chinese father that they never met.It was said that many Chinese were told to meet at a certain place in Liverpool and having done so were never to be seen again.I have just come across this website which I think maybe of interest.Blue Flu men will know this story.
Liverpool and it's Chinese Children.

Regards.
Jim.B.

[John Pruden]

jim NORMAN WONG bosun bf had to change his name to NORMAN LAYTON he was liverpool chines he had loads of trouble being british out in the far east i think he just stayed coasting because of it?he played the guitar very well.jp

[leratty]

Jim, there was a very, very sad doco on this some years ago, so many of the wives, girlfriends & children interviewed. Their stories were soul wrenching as they the father etc just disappeared they never ever knew why or where to. The hole it left in their lives was beyond calculable. What the hell did the authorities do this for? Apparently it was also so of the Arabs who served too from Geordie land around the mid-late 50's? Again there was a TV program on it, fictionalised based around that cop who drove a classic car & in real life the actor fly's a classic aircraft & has made a series of doco's on them, he crashed his I recall?

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi shipmates, I remember something about this they were deported to the U.S.A. and some were sent back to China something about shortage of labour? for building.

[Keith at Tregenna]

Hi shipmates, I remember something about this they were deported to the U.S.A. and some were sent back to China something about shortage of labour? for building.

Liverpool is a diverse city and home to people from many nations. The same was true during World War One.

There were thought to have been around 1,500 Chinese merchant sailors serving alongside the British forces in Liverpool at any one time during the conflict.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01qmc1g

[Jim Brady]

As far as I am aware nobody ever found out where they were sent to.I was in the Liverpool Museum a couple of weeks ago and there was an audio of a Liverpool woman who's husband disappeared I'm sorry I did'nt stop and listen to the whole story.What I did hear her saying was her husband (a Chinaman) left the house saying that he was going to join a ship.After over a week had gone by and she had not received her allotment she went to Blue Flu's office to enquire why not.They did not have any record of him joining any of their ships and he was never heard about again.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[Keith at Tregenna]

In the early 1940s, an estimated 20,000 Chinese merchant sailors were recruited into the British Merchant Navy and, almost entirely based in Liverpool, around 300 of these married or cohabitated with local women. Although the Chinese sailors played a vital role in Britain’s warfare, their demands for the same pay and equal treatment as local sailors in 1942, which led to strike action, saw them labelled as troublemakers. Post-war, the government, in collusion with the shipping companies, were keen to rid Liverpool of what they saw as an ‘undesirable element’ and, in October 1945, the Home Office opened a file on ‘the compulsory repatriation of undesirable Chinese seamen at Liverpool’.

http://www.mix-d.org/museum/timeline...n-in-liverpool

[John Gill]

Liverpool contains the oldest Chinese community in the world.

[cappy]

Liverpool contains the oldest Chinese community in the world.

what about peking

---------- Post added at 06:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:09 PM ----------

As far as I am aware nobody ever found out where they were sent to.I was in the Liverpool Museum a couple of weeks ago and there was an audio of a Liverpool woman who's husband disappeared I'm sorry I did'nt stop and listen to the whole story.What I did hear her saying was her husband (a Chinaman) left the house saying that he was going to join a ship.After over a week had gone by and she had not received her allotment she went to Blue Flu's office to enquire why not.They did not have any record of him joining any of their ships and he was never heard about again.
Regards.
Jim.B.

######we had a few chinese abs out of shields and a couple of bosuns ....as mentioned by js last week one family by the name of chow had seamen and a bosun .....good hands

[John Callon]

"what about Peking"

Is that not a duck cappy.

Regards
John