‘Not substantially European’: the Chinese Anzacs who fought for Australia in first world war had to fight racism first
- The author’s great-uncle, Fred Goon, was among some 250 Chinese-Australians who fought in World War 1, defying a ban on non-white recruits
- Goon, who was gassed on the Western Front, was rejected eight times before he successfully enlisted – and he may have walked 700km (435 miles) to do so
The first world war was raging in Europe, and Australian greengrocer Fred Goon, son of Louey Fong Goon and Elizabeth Johnson, wanted to fight. Desperately.
But to do so he would have to defy a Defence Act that banned men “not substantially of European origin or descent”. Australia was in the grip of the White Australia Policy, used for decades to exclude Chinese immigrants; the recruitment rules reflected similarly racist intent.
Eight times Goon tried to sign up, and eight times he was rejected. But on his ninth try, on January 12, 1917, he succeeded. The medical officer noted the 23-year-old recruit’s dark complexion and hair, but not his Chinese heritage.
A little over a year later, Goon was gulping down German drift gas in the trenches of the Western Front, and he was hospitalised for months. He returned to the Belgian front in time to take part in the last battle of the war involving Australian troops.
The persistence of Goon, my great-uncle, may be some kind of record.
“Multiple rejections, I’ve come across,” said Emily Cheah Ah-Qune, who curated an exhibition and research project on the Chinese Anzacs (the acronym for the Australian and New Zealand Amy Corps) for the Chinese Museum of Melbourne.