Unveiling silent heroes of Great War

Every November, across the United Kingdom, poppy flowers catch my eye. Their deep scarlet-red petals and black centers are everywhere — not real blooms, which appear from June to September, but brooches pinned to black coats, tags on bags, and stickers on windshields.

Because poppies could flourish in soil churned up by firing and shelling, they became a natural symbol for fallen soldiers on the battlefields. In Britain, they are particularly associated with those who died on active service during World War I.

Each year, the British people mark the First World War's Armistice Day — also called Remembrance Day — on Nov 11 by laying wreaths of poppies at war monuments and memorials across the country.

In London, a wreath-laying ceremony is held at the Cenotaph — Greek for "empty tomb" — near Downing Street. As one of Britain's main national war memorials, the cubic stone pylon bears no individual names, only the inscription "The Glorious Dead".

I met Peng Wenlan, Caroline Chu and Clive Harvey two years ago, when I first attended the ceremony.

They were among a group of around 30 people laying the wreath to remember the Chinese Labour Corps, or CLC — the more than 140,000 Chinese workers who served the Allies during WWI, providing construction, logistics and recovery support.

These workers, mostly from Shandong province, were recruited by the UK and France and shipped to the Western Front. From 1916 to 1919, they dug trenches, built roads and railways, transported ammunition in northern France and Belgium, and many stayed after the war to clear mines and bury the dead.

Their contribution and sacrifice put China among the victors of WWI. Official records suggest that around 2,000 lost their lives, though some believe the number was far higher.

Because of limited public exposure, the largest foreign labor corps to serve the Allies has remained little known in Britain and France.

Peng, co-founder of The Meridian Society, has spent almost a decade raising awareness of the CLC in the UK and produced an oral-history documentary, Forgotten Faces of the Great War: The Chinese Labour Corps, released in 2017.

"When we talk about war, we tend to think only of those who take up arms and fight at the front, but we forget those who work behind the lines," she told me.

At the time we met, Chu and Harvey were collaborating on a novel to bring the story of the CLC to a broader readership. Chu, a French filmmaker of Chinese heritage, has already produced a documentary based on interviews with French descendants of the Chinese workers.

Harvey, a British musician and author, has also published a historical novel on the subject.

"When I was in school, the World War I was taught with no mention of China, not even a line," Harvey said. "The purpose of my historical novel is to bring things back to life."

This month, I met the two again before the service, and they handed me an advance copy of their novel, For Whom the Temple Waits, scheduled for publication early next year.

"We have finished it!" they told me proudly. Chu said they hope the fiction inspired by true stories can resonate with more people.

Over the years, Chinese communities in Britain have also discussed ideas of a permanent recognition of the CLC. Mark Nam, a British-born Chinese priest, has recently launched a campaign to create and install a memorial plaque in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral — the resting place of some of Britain's most famous military heroes, including the Duke of Wellington and Lord Nelson.

"I first learned of the CLC in the summer of 2020, when I attended an online seminar organized by The Meridian Society. Until that moment, I had never heard of them," Nam said. "Across the UK, there are more than 50,000 memorials to the glorious dead, yet none that bear the name of the Chinese Labor Corps. This memorial seeks to change that."

When I reflected on this year's Remembrance Day, the Cenotaph, poppies, books, documentaries and memorials made me think that life can be remembered in different ways, a story can be shared via many forms, and the understanding of history in a society is not fixed but evolving, shaped by the commitment of individuals determined to remind the public of the forgotten.

And I tend to believe that the future generation will take a fuller view of the history that the scarlet-red poppies acknowledge not only the heroism of those on the battlefields, but also those who labored behind them.

The author is a correspondent at China Daily Europe based in London.