Desert Pearl | Chinese History in Arizona, USA (38) The earliest Chinese family in Flagstaff (6)

Arizona Chinese Historical Association: Zhang Zhaohong The earliest Chinese family in Flagstaff, with a total of twelve brothers and sisters. We are here to talk about…

Arizona Chinese Historical Association: Zhang Zhaohong

The earliest Chinese family in Flagstaff, with a total of twelve brothers and sisters. We describe some of them here.

George June wong, his job in the laundry is to maintain large washing machines. He is a member of the Bushmasters, 158th Infantry Regiment, Arizona National Guard. After the outbreak of World War II, he was drafted into the Army and sent to a base in Texas for training before being sent to the European battlefield. Due to his small stature and perhaps his race, he served primarily as an aide to General George Lucas, who commanded the Battle of Anzio Beach in Italy. In the battlefield, he was rewarded by traveling in a jeep instead of walking like other infantrymen. Huang Bingfen was one of the lucky ones to return home after the war and brought back Italian souvenirs for his mother. After retirement, he ran a carpet and furniture cleaning business and began a career as a master carpet and floor installer. He was only 58 years old when he died.

Robert Lincoln June, during World War II, he joined the U.S. Navy and held most of the ship design positions at Long Beach Shipyard. After retiring, he and his brother Lema founded a furniture and flooring business.

>William JuneWong, (no Chinese name left in the book), his family affectionately calls him "Lema". He was drafted into the Army in 1943 and assigned to the United States Army Air Forces. Fulfilling his dream of becoming a pilot. He passed the entrance examination most satisfactorily and was appointed bombardier. After training as a bomber in Victorville, California, he became a member of the Seventh Army Aviation Corps in the Mariana Islands. He was a bombardier on a B-24 bomber and flew more than 50 missions, regularly hitting targets. The bombers would drop 100-pound and 500-pound bombs and view damage to enemy facilities and aircraft below.

Lema has flown more than 600 hours of combat missions and flown 75,000 miles. In the Pacific, it flew over the atolls of Kwavarin, Waterje, and Malolapu in the Masora Islands, as well as Pohnpei, Yap, Wake, Guam, Chichima, and Iwo Jima. He told real-life war stories: "There were some tough moments. Our bomber was hit twice, once on the Truk when a large piece of anti-aircraft shrapnel punched a hole in the left wing. "The other time was on Iwo Jima when a 7.5mm bullet came through the right side of the nose of the aircraft. While on a mission in Guam, a Japanese Zero fighter struck the front of the aircraft and Lema fired about 100 rounds. Known as the "King of Equipment", he was decorated with five decorations and received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.

After the end of World War II in 1945, Lema stayed in the Army Air Corps to receive pilot training until his retirement on December 4, 1945. He is his mother's favorite son and her hero son!

Lema has always been everyone's favorite brother in the family, not only because he was a true fighting hero, but also because his love for family held us together as his parents passed away. His many courage and wartime experiences made things easy.

Everyone knows that they must try their best to survive without their mother. The author was still young at the time, and his sister Margaret and brother Lema became the leaders of the family, guarding the Huang family together. They are the ones that keep the family together until everyone takes their own path in life.

The author Jimmy June Wong, among many brothers and sisters, is the only one who went to college in Tucson and became a dentist. His sister Margaret, who was 96 when the book was written, had an innate sense of family and provided many memories of her father growing up in a laundromat with all his siblings. Many papers, pictures, documents and memorabilia about the family's history have been preserved.

Publishing the book "Never Alone" at the age of 80 was a result of his love for this family and his responsibility. He felt that it was necessary to tell the story of a big family in a small town during a historical period. This English version of the book has a total of 228 pages including photos, documents, etc. There is currently no translated Chinese version, and the original text is not available online. The editor learned about this record by purchasing books, which is the earliest record of Chinese family history in Flagstaff and even Arizona. After all, its span is so large and its content is so rich, both in time and region.

At the same time, it should be pointed out that due to space limitations, this article has excerpted and edited the main contents to introduce to you. The pictures in this article are also from the book "Never Alone". The editor will inevitably make errors and omissions during compilation. Please refer to the original English version for its content.

We would like to express our highest respect to the authors Huang Binghai and Margaret!