All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French

Daryl Klein – Ex-CLC – after the war

Posted: January 31st, 2018 | No Comments »

I’ve blogged a lot in the last few years on the history, the men and the role of the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC) in World War One, the force of workers recruited by the British government in World War One to free troops for front line duty by performing support work and manual labour (just use the search box to see previous posts). I also noted that the Imperial War Museum republished the memoirs of 2nd Lieutenant Daryl Klein, a British officer with the CLC. His memoirs were published under the rather un-PC title With the Chinks. Like many other British officers assigned to the CLC Klein was already an old China Hand having worked in the country and spoke Chinese. Klein is also interesting in that he was involved in the recruitment of the Chinese corps members in Weihai, accompanied them to Europe and served with them in France.

Of course Klein survived the war and returned to Peking to work and here’s his entry in the 1922 Peking Who’s Who working for Dunlop in China and his book acknowledged.



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