Another Important Cut and Paste from www.angryasianman.com
FYI - I have three uncles and one auntie that have extensive service
time (that i know of) in the U.S. Armed Forces and each gained very
high status. One of them was the highest rank attainable the in
field and lived in Washington DC for four years away from family in CA
to serve our country.
I have a great appreciation for Asians in the US Armed forces.
Against many forces they serve to protect the US. Many join up
not to just join up but often it is for American Citizenship for them
and their family. They put their lives on the line to better
their family status. These efforts are often overlooked as the
"face" of the armed forces are traditionally seen as white or black,
but never Asian. They all fire the same bullets and can die by
the same bullets, so glory and appreciation should be equal.
Chinese American veterans' service often gets overlooked
By MIKE BARBER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
From left, Chinese American
veterans Dick Kay, Jimmy Chinn, Bill Sing and Bill Chin gather Thursday
at Hing Hay Park to share their experiences. In Seattle, 14 Chinese
American vets came home from World War II and founded the American
Legion's Cathay Post 186. (November 11, 2005)
The air raid siren sounded as 26-year-old Arthur Chin lay helpless
in a full-body cast, trapped in China by severe burns suffered when he
was shot down by a Japanese plane.
It was late 1939. Japan and China were at war. Servants were rushing
Chin's wife, Eva, and the couple's two children to the safety of the
cellar. Eva, however, refused to leave her husband's side.
Then it was over. With the smell of cordite, dust and smoke still in
the air, servants and children made their way upstairs. Eva lay across
Arthur, limp. A small piece of shrapnel had pierced her body, killing
her.
"She gave her life for him," Susie Ennis, 59, Arthur Chin's daughter
by a second wife, says from her home in California. "Each of us girls
in the family, our middle name is Eva."
The tale of love and war that Arthur Chin lived illuminates the
often-overlooked contributions of Chinese American veterans. Chin was
the first American "ace" fighter pilot, but it took 50 years for that
recognition.
In Seattle, 14 Chinese American veterans came home from World War II
and founded the American Legion's Cathay Post 186 in Chinatown. Sixty
years later, they are still some who keep their sacrifices alive.
Korean War veteran Dick Kay, 76, feels the touch of war each time he
walks by Chinatown's Hing Hay Park. His brother's name, Lawrence Lew
Kay, is among 10 carved on a granite block of Chinese American
servicemen who never returned from World War II.
"I was 11 when my parents were notified that he went down with a troop ship in the Mediterranean Sea."
Like veterans organizations nationwide, Post 186's membership has
fallen despite its long record of community service, educational
scholarships and contributions. Prominent Seattleites such as the late
Wing Luke, the first Chinese American city councilman, and Ark Chin, a
University of Washington regent, came from its ranks.
Today, Post 186, which never owned a building and meets at Marpac
construction company, numbers 130 members from all backgrounds.
"We need younger members to join, but they're not," laments Bill
Chin, 80, who grew up in Chinatown and served with the 13th Armored
Division in Europe during World War II.
Bill Chin, Kay and Bill Sing, 85, an aerial gunnery instructor in
the Army Air Corps during World War II, joined Jimmy Chinn, 76, an Air
Force veteran of Korea and Vietnam, at Hing Hay Park on Thursday to
share their experiences.
Chinese Americans numbered nearly 13,500 in the armed forces in World War II.
Chinese Americans fought and died even as the Chinese Exclusion Act
remained in effect, severely limiting job opportunities while
encouraging ugly stereotypes.
Congress repealed the act in 1943, 61 years after it was enacted as
a temporary measure to limit Chinese immigration but which was made
permanent in 1902, making Chinese immigration illegal.
Chinese American veterans like those from Seattle laid the foundation for that repeal.
"The way to overcome is not by whining but by working harder and
gaining a little respect, and demonstrating by example," says Sing. The
group admired Arthur Chin, whose father was Cantonese and mother
Peruvian, and how he and 13 young Chinese Americans went to fight Japan
nearly a decade before the United States entered the war.
Concerned about Japanese aggression against China, Chin and the
others took flying lessons in Portland, and in 1932, when Chin was 19,
signed up for the Cantonese Provincial Air Force. Among their numbers
were the late John Wong and Clifford Louie Yim-Qun, both of Seattle.
Though outnumbered and outclassed in their comparatively primitive
biplanes, Chin recorded nine victories over Japanese pilots, becoming
an "ace" for having at least five victories.
Chin was awaiting evacuation to the United States when his first
wife was killed. He returned to China after the United States entered
the war and flew supplies over the dangerous Himalayan "Hump." He
retired to a quiet life as a postal worker in Beaverton, Ore., and
married two more times.
A half-century after the war ended, the U.S. government recognized
Chin as an American veteran by awarding him the Distinguished Flying
Cross. Chin died in September 1997 and his ashes were scattered over
the Pacific Ocean.
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