Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a black person, esp. an African; also attrib.

1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 12 Mar. n.p.: What white man would receive her [...] Her prospect for the future is only to herd with the Pongos [...] and drag out a wretched life.
1901		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 65: When I got on board the first thing I heard was the little pongo band playing ‘More Work For The Undertaker’.

2. (Aus./N.Z.) a marine, a soldier.

1917		Rising Sun 5 Feb. 1/2: He gets the roughest tucker; and lice infest the frame — of the Pongo—the blessed Pongo!
1918		Aussie (France) 4 Apr. 2/1: But the pongos will remember in the good old bye-and-bye / How they helped us like a cobber w’en we came out from the line.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 227: Pongo: A soldier.
1937		West. Mail (Perth) 23 Sept. 11/3: Ammunition. spare parts, water [...] which, by reason of their superior status over the ordinary ‘pongo,’ the machine gunners were graciously allowed to carry.
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 8: A gaggle of pongos on leave.
1959		G. Slatter Gun in My Hand 219: This Pongo business annoys me. You haven’t even got it right. Pongo’s the naval word for soldiers or marines. Out here they use it as just another form of Pommie.
1963		C. Wood ‘Prisoner and Escort’ in Cockade (1965) I ii: Get your hair cut Pongo.
1984		(con. WW2) T. Jones Heart of Oak [ebook] The women and girls, catching sight of our naval uniforms, smiled and waved [...] sailors were a rarer sight than pongos.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 86/1: pongo British person; originally used by British sailors to describe marine or soldier they were required to join forces with in WWI, probably not unaware that the word meant ‘monkey’, though derivation credited to forage cap resembling that worn by the dog Pongo in a Punch and Judy show; brought back by Anzacs as name for their British counterpart.
2002		J. Meades Fowler Family Business 194: Jacks from Chatham [and] pongos from Brompton Barracks.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 150: [He] was off with some fellow pongos to hunt anything that moved.

3. (Aus./N.Z.) a British person; also attrib.

1945		J. Henderson Gunner Inglorious (1974) 129: The successful applicant, an elderly, quiet-spoken Pongo, was a dinkum butler.
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 165: Like that pongo cobber of yours, the homo. Nigel Mead.
1957		J.M. Hosking Aus. First and Last 123: We call them New Australians now; once we called some Dagoes, / Others Balts and Squareheads, Pongoes, Grills and Rice and Sagoes .
1959		(con. 1940s) G. Slatter Gun in My Hand 93: The Pongo red-cap stopped us to demand where our hats were. Bloody cheek said Mick, as if we’re in their damned Pongo army [...] The poor old Pongos in their hairy battledress, on skimpy rations and poor pay, the poor old Pongos with their white skins, calling their sergeants sir and saluting right left and centre.
1972		G.W. Turner Eng. Lang. in Aus. and N.Z. 109: New Zealanders call the English pommies, but also have the variant pongo.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 27: Mr Foster is at the table, slinging off about the choongs and the pongos.
1988		see sense 2.