October 28, 2021

Sing Lau Kee

Forgotten Hero of World War I

By Philip Chin 

Sing Lau Kee should be remembered as a great American hero today, but his legacy as a war hero of World War I became mired in discriminatory United States immigration policies.

Sing Kee was born in 1896 in Saratoga, California. His father operated a store and labor contract business in Saratoga and later lived in San Jose. Sing Kee was educated in American schools in Oakland.

By 1917 he enlisted into the United States Army and, because he was living in New York at that time, was assigned to the 306th Infantry Regiment of the 77th Infantry Division. The division was mainly made up of New York City draftees, thus their official unit name was the "Statue of Liberty Division" and even had a patch insignia of the famous icon. Unofficially they were known as the "Cosmopolitans" because they were a polyglot of nationalities and languages with many first generation immigrants from Western, Eastern, and Southern Europe mixed in with Irish and German Americans of several American generations and every other nationality that had immigrated to New York City.

The 77th Infantry Division arrived in France in April 1918 to join what was then known as the Great War (World War I). The division fought their first action at the Battle of Château-Thierry in July 1918. Life on the front was difficult with the constant heavy artillery shelling, occasional aerial bombardment, machine gun fire, and the horror of poison gas attacks. The shelling became so heavy that it prevented any reinforcements from moving forward. Shell craters in the official division history were described as being as large as eighteen feet in diameter and ten feet deep.

On August 14, the shells were coming in fast at thirty per minute as the 306th Infantry Regiment exchanged positions with another unit. Exhausted frontline units were regularly replaced with comparatively fresher units coming from a quieter part of the line a little further away.

Private Sing Kee was staffing a message center for the regiment. With the constant rain of shells there was no way to maintain an intact field telephone wire. This was also before the days of small and reliable military radios. To insure that communications were kept up, especially during the vulnerable period when one unit was replacing another on the line, runners would literally run to the various units carrying orders and information. It was an incredibly dangerous but vital job with a high casualty rate as the runners couldn't hide anywhere as they moved as quickly as possible across the battlefield.

One by one all of Sing Kee's comrades were killed or wounded. Despite being gassed and severely wounded, Sing Kee refused to be evacuated and stayed at the job singlehandedly for 24 hours. The Independent, a weekly publication from New York, described it as "running eight miles thru shrapnel and machine gun fire as messenger…" One of the "Yanks" of the 306th said about Sing Kee that, "He's the best American in our regiment."

Sing Kee was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for his heroism, the second highest combat medal of the United States. He was the first Chinese American to receive a combat medal in United States history. The DSC is second only to the Medal of Honor. He was also awarded the Purple Heart by the US Army for his wounds and the Croix de Guerre with silver gilt star by France.

A French division was to the left of the 77th Infantry that day and Sing Kee reportedly saved a French unit with his actions as well. The Croix de Guerre is awarded for being mentioned by name for particular heroism by a superior officer in their report to their higher commanders. In Sing Kee's case the silver gilt star meant that his heroism had been noticed by a French corps commander, the equivalent of a US Army lieutenant general. The official division history said about Sing Kee's heroics that, "It was only one more evidence of the fact that in the cosmopolitan composition of the Division lay its strength."

Distinguished Service Cross

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Private Sing Kee (ASN: 1702357), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Company G, 306th Infantry Regiment, 77th Division, A.E.F., near Mont Notre Dame, west of Fismes, France, August 14 - 15, 1918. Although seriously gassed during shelling by high-explosive and gas shells, Private Kee refused to be evacuated and continued, practically single-handed, by his own initiative, to operate the regimental message center relay station at Mont Notre Dame. Throughout this critical period he showed extraordinary heroism, high courage, and persistent devotion to duty, and totally disregarded all personal danger. By his determination he materially aided his regimental commander in communicating with the front line.

General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 99 (1918)

Action Date: August 14 - 15, 1918

Service: Army

Rank: Private

Company: Company G

Regiment: 306th Infantry Regiment

Division: 77th Division, American Expeditionary Forces

The 77th Infantry Division showed its own appreciation for Sing Kee's heroism by promoting him from Private to Color Sergeant in November 1918, bypassing several ranks in between. When military forces used to carry their flags into battle in the years before World War I their vital purpose was to show where the unit was during the confusion of battle and provide a place to rally for the soldiers. Only the most reliable and steady men were allowed to protect the "colors" because obviously the sight of the flag running away or being captured by the enemy could cause a panic and then defeat in battle. A junior officer would be assigned to carry the colors but he would always be protected by trusted enlisted men led by a color sergeant who'd been proven in battle and could be trusted to carry the flag himself if it became necessary (or take the flag away from the junior officer if that too became necessary.) Sing Kee was being acknowledged by his superiors and fellow soldiers as being the best and most reliable man in the division.

The 77th Infantry Division returned to New York in April 1919 and held a parade through the city's streets. Prominent among them was Distinguished Service Cross winner Sing Kee. "Back in New York a reporter asks him what on earth a 'Chinaman' could do to be the first to earn such recognition. Sergeant Kee (who is originally from California and speaks perfect English) looks at him slyly and replies, 'Me no savee Inglis,' and then turns smartly and joins the victory parade, receiving the accolades of New Yorkers of all stations and races as he marches with his unit up Fifth Avenue."

On June 13, 1919, Color Sergeant Sing Kee received a hero's parade through the streets of downtown San Jose, California with his parents beside him in the car. He was lauded as the most highly decorated soldier of World War I to come from San Jose, a distinction that nearby Saratoga also claimed as its own since he'd been born there.

After his return from World War I, Sing Kee had to find a civilian job. Chinese businesses in New York where Sing Kee made his home were dominated by those born in China who distrusted the American born Chinese with their Western ways and thinking. Most of the jobs outside of Chinatown were also closed to him because whites refused to hire Chinese. Oftentimes even a highly educated Chinese American college graduate would face the unpalatable choice of going to seek work in China, which to many of them meant a nearly alien language and culture, or accepting the same type of unskilled subsistence jobs that their immigrant father or grandfather might have held.

Sing Kee finally found a job working as a translator with the US Immigration Service, an organization that was hated and feared in the Chinese American community. The task of the Immigration Service, in regards to the Chinese, had been to keep out and deport as many of them as possible since the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. All Chinese immigration had been completely banned by 1902 when the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended and made permanent. The Immigration Act of 1917 had additionally created an "Asiatic Barred Zone" that banned all immigration from countries stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Middle East.

Chinese interpreters were caught in a difficult position. Many Chinese with a legitimate right to enter or reenter the United States were denied entry and sent back to China. It could stem from making a minor mistake in answering the extremely detailed questions posed by immigration inspectors. Questions could encompass decades worth of detailed information that few people could remember, especially in the case of people who'd left places as children. Any discrepancies could lead the inspector to declare that person to be not who they claimed and order their deportation from which there was no appeal.

By the 1930s, Sing Kee had left the Immigration Service and become a restaurant manager in New York's Chinatown. Like many restaurant managers in New York City he joined the On Leong Tong (later On Leong Chinese Merchants Association) which had a close association with New York's Tammany Hall and Democratic Party machine.

In the 1940s he switched jobs again and made use of his experience with the US Immigration Service to become an immigration broker and travel agent. Unfortunately, he used that experience to also help some people try to get around US immigration laws and was caught doing so in 1956.

Sing Kee, who until then was looked upon as a respected community leader and war hero, was caught up in the effort to investigate the Chinese American community. There is no question that he profited greatly from illegal activities and was not an innocent party. He usually received $400 to $600 ($7,000 to $14,000 in 2014 dollars) for his services, part of which he paid to attorneys and others. He admitted that he netted $23,000 in 1951 and 1952 after expenses (about $550,000 in 2014).

Sing Kee was convicted and sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison with a fine of $6,000, $1500 for each of the counts he was convicted of in March 1957 ($115,000 total today). When compared to the admitted profits from the criminal enterprise this seems like quite a low fine. Perhaps there was some sympathy for him as a Distinguished Service Cross winner. We'll never know the reasoning behind the prosecutors or the trial court beyond their written arguments and judgment but Sing Kee was never accused of helping known criminals, revolutionaries, or other such objectionable people get into the United States. The government certainly could have done so if they'd found any and increased the resulting prison sentence and fine. The judgement in his appeal to the federal circuit court even mentioned the difficulties that Chinese had in immigrating to the US because of discriminatory laws, perhaps as a mitigating factor. This was something that the federal judges had no obligation to mention in a case that never touched on that aspect on why Sing Kee had committed such crimes at trial.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, just nine years after Sing Kee's 1956 conviction, opened up immigration to the United States and removed many of the perverse incentives that had led Chinese Americans into creating paper sons and operating in illegal immigration rackets. It is impossible to say what Sing Kee would have done in this new legal environment but he certainly had the longstanding community and political contacts and standing to have made a lucrative and legitimate immigration brokerage business after 1965. But all those changes in the immigration laws came too late for him.

Sing Kee lived on Staten Island in New York until his death in 1967 at the age of 71. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery where many of the most honored military heroes and statesmen of America are interred. Sing Kee was lauded in parades, featured in newspapers and magazines, and honored upon his return from France in 1919 as an American hero and was then forgotten. His tragedy, like many Chinese Americans, was that he lived at a time when anti-Chinese attitudes and laws prevented him from becoming all that he could have been.

Read the full original article, which contains much more detail about the legal case against Sing Kee,  the unjust immigration system at that time, and sources and further reading links, on the ChineseAmericanHeros.org website.

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