Bravery in extreme conditions

Gerald McNaughton Chong was the only Chinese New Zealander to be awarded the Military Medal in WWI. He received it for his work on the battlefield at Bapaume, when New Zealand soldiers were experiencing heavy losses and the intense enemy fire and continuous rain made getting the wounded to safety almost impossible.

Born in 1896, Chong was the youngest son of Chew Chong, a prominent Taranaki dairying pioneer and entrepreneur, and Elizabeth Whatton, who came from a pioneer Taranaki family. Like most other Chinese who joined up, he was New Zealand-born and of mixed heritage. Those born in China were not inclined to put their lives on the line for the British empire.

Chong was 20 when he volunteered in February 1916. His experience as a chemist’s assistant saw him quickly assigned to the New Zealand Medical Corp as a stretcher-bearer, attached to work with the No 1 Field Ambulance. He sailed to England that May on the troopship Willochra, along with the 13th Reinforcements.

By October of that year, Chong had been sent to the Front. He was just in time for the final denouement of the Battle of the Somme. Eighteen thousand members of the New Zealand division had been sent into action. Of these 6,000 were wounded and more than 2,100 lost their lives.   In total, the Battle of Somme claimed over 1 million casualties from Britain, the British Empire, France and Germany.

Having survived the Somme, Chong went on to spend most of 1917 stationed at St Omer and from here, was part of the operations in Belgium. For New Zealanders, as for all the Allies, it was a frustrating and demoralizing time The Battle of Passchendaele inflicted devastating loses. On 12 October alone, 843 New Zealand soldiers were either dead or lying badly wounded between the lines. Many died before men like Chong could reach them.

From January to September 1918, Chong was continuously on the front line in France supporting the defence against Germany’s massive Spring Offensive. He was wounded at Bapaume on 4 September. After just over three years, his active service was at an end. On 29 May 1919, he embarked for the journey home to New Zealand and was finally discharged from service on 1 August 1919.

Being a stretcher bearer was one of the hardest jobs of the war on the Western Front. They carried men to aid posts to receive treatment, and then dressing stations to have their  wounds seen to. While carrying the wounded out of the mud and shell craters of the battlefield, they were targets for all sorts of enemy fire, including bullets, shells, grenades and gas. Unlike other front-line soldiers, stretcher bearers were unable to take cover from these dangers.

It was also physically and emotionally exhausting. When the battlefield turned to mud it would take up to six men hours to drag a single man out to the forward aid posts. Perhaps the worst job was choosing which wounded man to bring back when the desperate cries of “stretcher bearer!” rang out across the whole battlefield.

For his actions on the battlefield at Bapaume, Chong was awarded the Military Medal for “conspicuous gallantry”. On 25 August 1918 the New Zealand positions came under intense German bombardment. There were heavy losses and more than 300 wounded. Continuous heavy rain made the conditions for the stretcher bearers almost impossible. Chong worked continuously for 36 hours carrying the wounded despite the weather and heavy shelling.

Chong never liked to talk about his bravery or his war experiences, but his son Brian recalls him saying that, “on Christmas Day they would yell out season’s greetings to the Germans—because their lines were very close,” adding that "they would throw tins of jam to each other."  Like many veterans, Chong only told his children the humorous stories from his war experience.

Chong was one of the very few who enlisted again in WWII.