The scandal of Liverpool's missing Chinese sailors

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

During World War Two, thousands of Chinese sailors and engineers served in the British Merchant Navy, keeping supplies flowing into the port of Liverpool and risking their lives in crossings of the Atlantic. Many settled in the port city and started families with local women but, after fighting ended in 1945, the British authorities began forcing them to leave. Simon Watts talks to Yvonne Foley, whose Chinese father was pressured to return to Shanghai, never to be seen again.

PHOTO: Chinese sailors in Liverpool in 1942 (Getty Images).

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
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0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. Hello and thank you for downloading the podcast of Witness History from the BBC World Service
0:40.0	with me Simon Watts. Today I'm bringing you a little known story that happened in the British Port of Liverpool in the aftermath of World War II.
0:50.0	Thousands of Chinese sailors have been based there serving in the merchant navy,
0:55.0	but after the fighting ended, most of them vanished.
0:59.0	I've been finding out why.
1:02.0	Today, Liverpool is the greatest outlet for the... why.
1:03.0	Today, Liverpool is the greatest outlet for the nation's exports.
1:06.0	In any one year, more than 30,000 vessels sail in and out of the porch.
1:11.0	In the first half of the 20th century Liverpool in northwest England had one of the
1:17.4	biggest commercial ports in the world. The hub of the British Empire
1:21.8	it sent liners across the Atlantic and cargo ships to China and the far east,
1:27.5	and that made the city a cosmopolitan place.
1:31.5	We lived up in Parliament. political place.
1:33.3	We lived up in Parliament Street area and it was lots of mixed rates, you know, it was a seaport, so there
1:39.8	was lots of intermarries, there was lots of different nationalities.
	...

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