WW2 Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) - China Convoy - Enamel Lapel Badge

Circa 25mm in diameter, with no damage to the enamel. Chinese characters to bottom of front circle. Stamped A111 to reverse. Original pin fitting.

A rare find, this is an enamel lapel badge to the Chinese section of the Friends Ambulance Unit. Only some 460 members served in the China Convoy over the five years of WW2, in a remarkable range of medical and civilian support activities.

The China Convoy was the most international section of the FAU. Over the five years roughly 200 foreigners and about 60 Chinese had taken part. Of the foreigners, the British were the largest group, but there were substantial numbers of Americans, Canadians and New Zealanders, and a handful of other nationalities. The Chinese members were mainly Christian students from the West China Union University at Chengdu. 200 or so other Chinese also served, in various roles.

As with the FAU overall, the Convoy’s membership was at first exclusively male, but eventually, like the FAU as a whole, women made up over 10% of its number. Mirroring the FAU as a whole, only around half of Convoy members were Quakers, although many others later joined the Society. They shared a common commitment to pacifism and to doing what they could to relieve the abject suffering of the Chinese people in a society where most civil administration had ceased to function and disease and malnutrition were rife amongst the many millions displaced and made destitute by the war.

The Unit continued to work on re-establishing hospitals until 1946, when they handed responsibility for work in China to the AFSC. At that time the Convoy was operating across the Provinces of Yunnan, Kweichow, Guizhou, Sichuan and beyond - an area greater than the size of France and Spain combined. Over the 5 years of the Convoy, eight members had died. Several others had suffered injuries or illnesses that affected them for the rest of their lives.

The FAU ceased operations on June 30th 1946.

E26

Code: 59811