page_title: Chinese Labour Corps
section_title: Service
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese Labour Corps / Service
caption_attribution_description: English: The Battle of Passchendaele, July-november 1917 Men of the Chinese Labour Corps at work in the timber yard at Caestre, 14 July 1917.
context_page_description: The Chinese Labour Corps was a force of workers recruited by the British government in World War I to free troops for front line duty by performing support work and manual labour. The French government also recruited a significant number of Chinese labourers, and although those labourers working for the French were recruited separately and not part of the CLC, they are often considered to be so. In all, some 140,000 men served for both British and French forces before the war ended and most of the men were repatriated to China between 1918 and 1920.
context_section_description: A deal between the Chinese government and the allies resulted in the enlistment of thousands of Chinese who formed the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC) mainly poor Chinese men from the north who were told they would be in non-combatant roles. The Canadian government had restricted the arrival of all Asians and the CLC were secretly landed at Victoria, British Columbia. They were drilled in the old quarantine station at Metchosin, British Columbia on Vancouver Island. Roughly 81,000 Chinese men were then taken on Canadian Pacific Railway trains to Halifax to board steamships to England. On arrival, they crossed the English Channel to France. After the War, over 40,000 returned by ship to Halifax and then by train to Vancouver; they were returned by ship to China. 
   Unknown numbers never made it to the war front, died and buried in unmarked graves in British Columbia (including 21 at William Head Prison) and Ontario (1 known grave of Chou Ming Shan in Petawawa, Ontario).
  A total of about 140,000 Chinese workers served on the Western Front during and after the war. Among them, 100,000 served in the British Chinese Labour Corps. About 40,000 served with the French forces, and hundreds of Chinese students served as translators.
  By the end of 1917, 54,000 Chinese labourers were with the British Imperial Forces in France and Belgium. In March, the admiralty declared itself no longer able to supply the ships for transport and the British government were obliged to bring recruitment to an end. The men already serving in France completed their contracts. By the time of the armistice, the CLC numbered nearly 96,000, while a further 30,000 were working for the French.
  In May 1919, 80,000 Chinese Labour Corps were still at work. The British soldier Arthur Bullock, in his wartime memoir, gives a vivid account of the interactions between the British soldiers and Chinese workers. He also drew a sketch of one Chinese man, Tchung Camena Tungwa, who invited him to have tea in Beijing when he was next there (he never was).
  The workers, mainly aged between 20 and 35, served as labour in the rear echelons or helped build munitions depots. They were asked to carry out essential work to support the frontline troops, such as unloading ships, building dugouts, repairing roads and railways, digging trenches, and filling sandbags. Some worked in armaments factories, others in naval shipyards, for a pittance of one to three francs a day. At the time, they were seen just as cheap labour, not even allowed out of camp to fraternise locally, dismissed as mere coolies. When the war ended, some were used for mine clearance, or to recover the bodies of soldiers and fill in miles of trenches. Men fell ill from poor diets and the intense damp and cold, and on occasion, they mutinied against their French and British employers or ransacked local restaurants in search of food. The harshness of the conditions in which some of these men worked is recorded by Arthur Bullock in his wartime memoir, along with the contemporary justification for it. Bullock also recalls the differences between the 'coolies' and the German prisoners of war, in terms of their attitudes to work and to each other.
  After the armistice, the Chinese, each identified only by an impersonal reference number, were shipped home. Only about 5,000 to 7,000 stayed in France, forming the nucleus of the later Chinese community in Paris. Most who survived returned to China in 1918. The contribution of these Chinese men went forgotten for decades until military ceremonies resumed in 2002 at the Chinese cemetery of Noyelles-sur-Mer.
  Throughout the war, trade union pressure prevented the introduction of Chinese labourers to the British Isles. Sidney and Beatrice Webb suggested that the CLC was restricted to carrying out menial unskilled labour due to pressure from British trade unions. However, some members of the corps carried out skilled and semiskilled work for the Tank Corps, including riveting and engine repair.
  One member of the corps, First Class Ganger Liu Dien Chen, was recommended for the Military Med
caption: Members of the Chinese Labour Corps and British soldiers working at a timber yard, Caëstre, July 1917
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