markets and drove them down to the striking workers. The following year Wong became the first president of the newly formed Chinese Youth League. The Chinese Catholic Action Group assisted Chinese refugees of their faith. Australia belatedly got the message. Many of Sydney's Chinese joined the Australian armed forces, as the Chinese war memorial in Chinatown attests. The local conditions generated by the Second World War were crucial to the slow collapse of the White Australia policy and many Chinese organised carefully to maximise their chances. At the outbreak of the Pacific war, many Chinese seamen walked off their ships in Sydney, and after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, they deserted in droves. In 1942 a branch of the Chinese Seamen's Union was formed in Sydney, with close links to the Australian Seamen's Union and the Chinese Youth League. As well as working for better conditions for seamen, all of these organisations were involved in concealing deserters, falsifying papers and finding unobtrusive jobs. By 1943 reluctant shippers were required to pay Chinese seamen the basic wage plus wartime bonuses. At the same time, labour shortages in Sydney encouraged others not to go to sea at all and it was officially estimated that around 500 seamen were illegally on shore. Some were gaoled and deported, but more were skilfully 'disappeared' into the general community. Employers desperate for workers did not ask too many questions, and even the state was complicit, with several hundred former seamen working on the construction of Warragamba Dam between 1942 and 1944. Documents restricting work options for legitimate residents were less frequently checked, and refugees arriving from the Pacific and from New Guinea were free to work anywhere. During and immediately after the war increasing numbers of Chinese were readily changing jobs and getting away with it, which helped build community tolerance and resistance to the immigration employment restrictions. So too did a newfound interest in Chinese cuisine, as diners took their cue from American soldiers on leave who appreciated Chinese restaurants previously ignored by non-Chinese Sydneysiders. The establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 also helped. There had been a concerted government effort to repatriate wartime refugees in 1947, with matching efforts by the community to hide and protect people, many of whom had by now married and settled into the local scene. This policy was overturned in 1949 as the newly elected conservative