FYI as you clearly struggle with anything your goggles won't...

FYI as you clearly struggle with anything your goggles won't allow you to see.



The head of military history at the Australian War Memorial, Ashley Eakins, says there was an unknown number of people from China or with Chinese ancestry who served as soldiers in the First World War.

He says that's because enlistment in the Australian Imperial Force was at first confined to those of European descent, although the rules were relaxed as the war went on.

Mr Eakins says two soldiers were particularly outstanding, including perhaps the best-known, Billy Sing, whose father migrated to Australia from Shanghai.

"He ended up being the most outstanding sniper on Gallipoli. Billy Sing became a legend and we're not even sure how many Turkish soldiers he accounted for in his time there, but he was certainly a very effective sniper. He then went on to the Western Front and even displayed his skills there for a while. He came back to Australia a celebrity and then his life, like many returned soldiers, all fell apart in the inter-war years. He died in poverty, his decoration had been lost or sold, and he was virtually an unknown figure when he died."

Ashley Eakins says Billy Sing suffered in part the way many returned soldiers did, from mental and physical effects of the war, but also because of his ethnicity.

"There was considerable anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia at the time when he was growing up, but he overcame that. I mean, nobody is more equal than a soldier in a unit. But I think his return as something of a celebrity presaged a return to civilian life where all of that equal status he'd had and the celebrity that he had was going to vanish very quickly. And of course he came home badly wounded too. He'd received gunshot wounds and he was definitely suffering from gas poisoning from the Western Front as well."

Another Chinese-Australian Anzac that Ashley Eakins says was outstanding was Caleb Shang, known as Charlie.

Mr Eakins says Charlie Shang enlisted in the AIF in 1916 as a clerk, but then became an outstanding soldier.

"He found his mark in the AIF as a runner, a message runner, and a very brave signaller, and also as a sniper on the Western Front. He served in a number of battles and, indeed, became the most highly decorated Chinese soldier that we have any record of, and in fact one of the most highly decorated Australian soldiers. He won the Distinguished Conduct medal not once but twice.

Australian War Memorial data shows Charlie Shang returned to civilian life, married and lived and worked in Queensland.

"He had a relatively successful and prosperous life until the Second World War when again with the threat of Japanese invasion he was made to suffer the occasional racial slur. People might have taken him for Japanese perhaps, or maybe it was just as a result of his Asian appearance. He's never marched in an Anzac Day parade but in 1943 he changed all that and just for this one time in his life he marched. A very modest man, but he put on all his medals and I think he was making a point to the local community about who he was."