Welcome to the May 2025 edition of The Despatch, the Military Communications and Electronics Museum Newsletter
Museum News
May is a very busy month at the Military Communications and Electronics Museum. Canada celebrates Canadian Jewish History Month and Asian Heritage Month. Links to Jewish Military WWII service are here and to Asian Military Heritage here. On Saturday May 17, 2025 is World Telecommunication and Information Society Day that this year focuses on gender equality in digital transformation. And on Sunday May 18, 2025 the current location of the Military Communication and Electronics Museum will be 29 years old!
But the biggest May news is that it is the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day on May 8th 2025! VE Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945 marking the official surrender of all German military operations. The Museum will be open and we have an extensive WWII collection of artifacts. As always CAF serving members and Veterans are free!
Finally we are pleased to announce a partnership with Military Museums along the 401 corridor this summer.
Check our website and our Facebook site for further information.
New Exhibition at ROM
IMAGE CREDIT: The gate in Birkenau. Image © Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.
Marking the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, ROM (Toronto, Ontario) is hosting the internationally acclaimed exhibition Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away., on view until September 1, 2025. One of the most comprehensive exhibitions ever created on the subject, it examines the history and legacy of the Auschwitz camp complex, which is today the most recognizable symbol of the Holocaust, and features hundreds of original objects – never before seen in Canada – as well as archival documents, historic photographs, and survivor testimonies. Explore the dual identity of the Auschwitz camp as a physical setting — the largest documented mass murder site in human history — and as a symbol of the borderless manifestation of hatred and human atrocity. The exhibition underscores a critical need to understand the underlying conditions that allowed the Holocaust to happen and invites visitors to consider their role in creating a more inclusive and tolerant society.
Save 20% off Admission. Buy Tickets online and use promo code MILITARYMUSEUMS.
Presenting Sponsors: The Azrieli Foundation, Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, The Jay and Barbara Hennick Family Foundation, The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation. Philanthropic Partner: UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. An exhibition by Musealia, Spain, in collaboration with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, Poland.
Foundation News
For the third year in the row the Military Communication and Electronics Museum Foundation will be fundraising through CanadaHelps Great Canadian Giving Challenge!
Through request by email or asks online through our social media pages the Foundation is requesting donations to support the continued existence of the Military Communications and Electronics Museum now in its 64th year of operation. This Museum is funded by your donations and your support of Communication and Electronics Branch history, a history that goes back over 120 years! The funds are used to pay for exhibits, education projects and staff wages. Please consider donating generously to support the largest Military Communications and Electronics Museum in North America. Thank you in advance!
Not Forgotten – The Chinese Labour Corps
Article by Sean Maas-Stevens
Edited by Christopher Mack
References:
A. https://www.cwgc.org/our-work/news/commemorating-the-chinese-labour-corps/
F. https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/medals-and-decorations/medals/british-war-medal
G. https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/pantheon-de-la-guerre-wwi-painting/index.html
In 1916, with the First World War raging, there was a high demand for able-bodied labourers to fill logistical roles, build railways and docks, and repair vehicles. The British military established the labour corps to fill these roles across the empire. The need, however, was greater than the available personnel. Britain turned to China, who was neutral at the time, to provide people to support the war effort in what would come to be called the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC). The British military promised a good pay, food, housing, and medical support.
Volunteers were predominantly farmers. They faced a long and daunting journey to France and Belgium which began by sailing across the Pacific Ocean, landing in British Columbia. The Canadian Government at the time waived what was known as the Head Tax for the nearly 81000 volunteers of the CLC. In order to conceal this fact from the public, the CLC members were then loaded onto train cars and moved across Canada. This movement typically lasted six days, during which the passengers were forbidden from leaving the trains. Even the news was censored to ensure their movement into, out of, and across the country remained a secret.
The CLC members then departed Canada from Halifax and travelled across the Atlantic and England to reach the War in France and Belgium. The graves of those who died throughout the journey remain, with known locations in Vancouver and Liverpool. One particular volunteer, Chou Ming Shan, was found to have been buried near Petawawa in an unmarked grave. A proper headstone was installed in 2019 by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Members of the CLC served in Northern France and Belgium. Despite their noncombatant role, they still faced dangerous conditions. One particularly hazardous task was explosive ordnance clearance. Their tasks also included exhuming graves to repatriate the remains of fallen soldiers or rebury them in Commonwealth War Graveyards. Conservative estimates approximate 2000 members were killed near the battlefields of the First World War. A Chinese Cemetery was built to inter the remains of over 800 casualties where the CLC base Depot stood, in Noyelles-sur-Mer in France. However, graves of CLC members can be found across Commonwealth Graveyards.
At the end of the War, the members of the CLC continued their work to exhume graves and clear ordnance until 1920. At the end of their service, they returned to China. While soldiers who served in the armed forces received the silver British War Medal, those who served in the CLC and other labour corps received a bronze version.
The Panthéon de la Guerre is a massive 402-foot by 45-foot painting which was started in 1914 and unveiled a month before the end of the War. A group of French artists painted a series of 5000 people from the Entente and allied nations. Before 1917, the Chinese, despite being initially neutral in the First World War, were represented on the painting as well. When the United States joined the War in 1917, the Chinese representation in the painting was painted over and replaced with the United States.
The Chinese Labour Corps has been described as Forgotten Men. But in recent years, with the recognition of their graves in Vancouver and Petawawa, they are being remembered for their sacrifice. The graveyard of 21 CLC members in Vancouver was the site of a memorial service in 2019, the same year the grave of Chou Ming Shan received its headstone.