| KOREAN ODYSSEY 1999 In B&C No 87 Dec 96, on p N11, Tom Latham asked members of 10 Pl, D Coy, who had served in Korea, to get in touch with him. Tom is pictured in Sep 01 at the Norwich Reunion Dinner with some of the 1951 10 Pl. DJ Jerry Willmott CBE QFSM made the contact and B&C No 90 Jun 98 carried the fascinating tale by Jerry of the provision of some Asahi ale to D Coy members Tom Latham, Alan Edgeley, Brian Bandy and himself. |
| Now we have a moving article by DJ Jerry Willmott,
10 Pl, D Coy, 1st Bn The Royal Norfolk Regiment, sent on disc, (good chap!) about a return
he made to Korea in Apr 99 with John Denny, Gillie Gilchrist (died
2000) and Ray Raynor. Pictured right, they are at the British Commonwealth cemetery
in Pusan, Korea, April 1999.
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| Sitting with my three colleagues in the
Ambassador Hotel, Seoul, I realised that I had captured the true spirit of the British
Army within one word, 'Delegation'. The Major (Retd) amongst us turned to the
Captain (Retd) on his right and said: 'We must write an article for the Britannia and
Castle.' (Note the 'We!'). The Captain (Retd) said: 'Good idea,'
and turned to the RSM (Retd) on his right, who, turning to his right, looked at me. I,
turned to my right and seeing no one junior, realised that I had been volunteered for the
task. Just like old times, the Sergeant (Retd) running the organisation with the officers
(Commissioned and Warrant) looking on. How then do I describe, in a few paragraphs, the happenings and sensations of some ten days spent en route to, from and in Korea, a country which I had last visited so long ago. My last view of Korea had been from the stern of the Empire Orwell as she pulled, all too slowly, out of Pusan, never dreaming that I would ever have the slightest desire to return. On that previous occasion, I had arrived at the misnamed 'Land of The Morning Calm' in 1951 aged 19 courtesy of King George VI and left, some twelve months later, courtesy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, feeling much older than my 20 years. Somehow I have survived a further 47 years since then without one second of counselling. Could there be something wrong with me? I think that I will avoid the statistics and administrative details and attempt to describe the visit by revealing verbal 'snapshots' of this very emotional and satisfying journey. As I made my lonely way, late at night, heavy-laden and a little apprehensive to the KAL check-in desk at Heathrow, to my delight and surprise, there, next in the queue, I found two comrades in arms from The Regiment, Messrs John Denny and Ray Raynor. These two were not alone, each was supported by a heavy-laden 'bearer', Mesdames Maureen and Audrey, the ladies of the Denny and Raynor tribes. I was then informed that the one-time scourge of my life (and now my bosom comrade) Gillie Gilchrist DCM, RSM of that ilk, would be joining us in Korea with the Australian contingent. 'My cup runneth over' The flights to and fro were masterpieces of comfort and speed and I hardly missed the delights, efficiency and courtesy of my previous journeys. I certainly was not nostalgic for the exotic sights, sounds and scents of four weeks on 'F' deck of a 'trooper'. I did not miss the forced march around the port of Aden before being brought back on board by ferry in order that I could immediately line up to go ashore again for a few hours leave. I did not miss the special dispensation that we were given against skin disease when we were allowed the great privilege of 'blancoing' our webbing on board ship. I did however speculate, as I used the highly scented soap in the aircraft's palatial toilets, 35,000 ft above the People's Democratic Republic of China, about the fate of the sadist who had invented the skin lacerating 'Salt water soap' so beloved of Far East bound British soldiery. Nothing could have prepared me for the transformation of Korea. In 1952 I had left a country based upon a mediaeval survivalist peasant economy, with its towns, villages and countryside devastated by years of war and its people demoralised by repeated invasions and enslaving colonisation. In 1999, I found a thriving, confident and determined people living in a world in which they were very much masters of their own destiny. I was tempted to say masters and mistresses of their own destiny but for good or ill, the stridency of Western feminism appears not to have destructively distorted this apparently well adjusted society. Every way one looks in Seoul and throughout South Korea, there are dramatic signs of progress. From the largest towns to the smallest hamlets, the country has been rebuilt, revitalised and mentally renewed. Everywhere, major civil engineering projects is in progress; bridges, roads, high-rise accommodation and leisure complexes are under construction. Incredibly, amongst all this physical construction, development and change, there appears to have been both the time and the will for parallel human development to occur. Christianity is spreading faster in Korea than in any other country in the world. (It must be so because Jasmine the delightful Korean hostess of bus No 2 told us so again and again and again). Had I not seen them with my own eyes, I would not have believed the number of Christian churches currently under construction and there were other encouraging signs of a mature and moral civilisation. School children of all ages, in both town and countryside were neatly uniformed and travelling between school and home, unaccompanied by adults. Young children were able to play unsupervised in the streets around their homes and I saw no signs of graffiti or of mindless vandalism. Most startling of all, was the normality of the countryside, I remembered a scarred Korea, where every village was abandoned, devastated by explosives or fire-wood hungry squaddies and a potential ambush. Where every valley was a nightmare of mines, laid by our own but more often than not resited by the unsporting Chinese. Where every hilltop was denuded of trees by shell, bomb or napalm and riven by trenches, communication or fighting, girded by layers of double and triple Dannert wire and pierced by Jeep tracks and Jeep heads. Then, roads were rivers of mud or deserts of dust and it was on one of these roads that I saw my first dead man, nationality unrecognisable, squashed into the road like a hedgehog on a British country lane. Now, roads are metalled, villages are modern and secure, the hilltops are covered with trees, shrubs and grass and the dead are decently buried. I am too close to the subject to judge whether or not the progress, physical and moral, that has been achieved by the Korean people over the last 48 years retrospectively justifies the destruction of so many young British and Commonwealth lives. I can however say with conviction that I do not believe that the Korean people have wasted the great opportunity that those sacrifices afforded them. To judge by the reaction of the people that we came into contact with, young and old, all are aware of and grateful for the sacrifices that were made on their behalf. As those that have served with them will know, there is one thing that never changes and that is the ability of the American forces to delude themselves and to model themselves upon the most ridiculous of Hollywood military stereotypes. The average American serviceman/woman is adorned with the number and style of badges that we in the UK are used to seeing on the arm of a ten year old 'veteran' cub scout. Even the youngest of US service men and women have more medal ribbons (on both sides of their chests) than 'Monty' and Goering combined. I suspect that the greatest danger most have ever been exposed to is the possibility that they may be required to wear the actual medals with all the attendant risk of orthopaedic injury that this must entail. The attitude and behaviour of the members of the American unit (I believe that its motto is 'In front of everyone' or some such theatrical title) occupying the UN side at Panmunjon is such that I am amazed that hostilities have not been re-opened long ago. The physical stance adopted by US and ROK troops on guard on the UN side is, to quote an American NCO., 'Very aggressive, it is the first position of Tae Kwon Do'. This position resembles a Gorilla standing with its legs apart, head thrust forward and its knuckles dragging on the floor. It becomes even more ludicrous when the 3 exponents of this 'aggressive stance' adopt it whilst peering around the side of a Nissen Hut at a totally unconcerned North Korean observer approximately 100 yards away. ('This lessens the target area exposed to the enemy' says the same fuzz haired US NCO.) Such threatening behaviour on the part of the US must put their North Korean counterparts in grave danger of expiring from convulsions brought on by uncontrollable paroxysms of hysterical laughter. I certainly felt similarly threatened. God save us from our 'friends' ! I am putting off comment upon our visit to the memorials and cemeteries until last, approaching this paragraph as I approached the cemetery, with considerable trepidation. Throughout the visit, we paid tribute at a number of cemeteries, memorials and battle sites but the visit to The British Commonwealth cemetery in Pusan was the most moving and significant of them all. I have been to many First and Second World War cemeteries and experienced great sadness. Pusan, I correctly anticipated, was for me another dimension of sorrow and emotion entirely. It was something very special. There for the first time, in a military cemetery, I saw the graves of friends I had known and for the first time realised 'there but for the Grace of God lie I'. We paraded ceremonially and considering our ages, in very good order. We took part in the comforting and familiar service of remembrance, saying, as I have said so many times before, 'We will remember them'. This time however this was no ceremony around a symbolic cenotaph, these were no empty tombs, these graves were full and this time in this place, I did remember them. I listened to 'The Last Post and Reveille' with the familiar throat constriction as I struggled to keep a dry eye, as always I failed and whilst blowing my nose, managed surreptitiously (I hoped) to wipe my eyes. I didn't want any one to think that the tears induced by the strong wind were in any way connected with emotion. Then we 'fell out' and looked for 'our graves' - Royal Norfolk Graves. A national flag marked each Commonwealth grave, British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian, there were so many of them. We four 'Norfolks' soon found ours. They lay together, most were 19 years of age but one or two were 'old men' of 23 or 24 and each of us stood with his own thoughts. I stood by the grave of Colin Church. I was also 19 and a Corporal Section Leader when he joined 10 Pl as a replacement on a hill close by. 355 was also the hill on which he died. As I stood looking at all that was left of him, a bronze marker and a patch of beautifully trimmed grass, I thought of all that had happened to me since he had died. I had enjoyed a career and moderate success in the Army and Fire Services. I had married and remain so today 40 years on, I have sons (who in their turn became soldiers jumping out of aeroplanes, serving in Northern Ireland and alternately filling me with fear and pride). I have that ultimate of blessings, granddaughters and a grandson and I had parents who did not suffer the great loss that Colin's parents suffered. I am now, nearly fifty years on from those dark days of 1951 and after many joys and sorrows, successes and failures, comfortably retired with my family. Colin Church had none of those things and I could so easily have been lying in his place. I am truly grateful for what I have had and very much aware of what Colin and so many others of so many nationalities on both sides of this 'forgotten war' were deprived of. Where, I wondered, is the body of the soldier, Chinese or North Korean, that I saw driven into the surface of the road? What happened to the bits of bodies that we disinterred when we were digging reserve positions in the much fought over 'Kansas Line'? Are the truncated enemy bodies that we used, night after night, as markers through the minefields still sticking up like signposts in a nightmare? Where are those we killed buried? Are there beautiful cemeteries in North Korea in which the hundreds of thousands of North Korean and Chinese dead are interred? I suspect not and yet they must have been as young and hopeful as we were and must, as we did, have left families mourning them. Despite the stark reality of 1951-1952 in Korea, I have always been able to weave a romantic idealistic insulating cocoon around the concept of war, until now. As I stood before Colin Church's grave, It came home to me that soldiers do not 'give their lives' in causes just or otherwise. Except for those occasions when a soldier risks his life for another, most soldiers who are killed in action or die of wounds later, do not give their lives away, they are snatched unwillingly from them, without romance, ceremony or dignity. Those whose lives were taken from them in the Korean War were almost exclusively very young, they were mostly National service conscripts and most lost their lives in the obscurity of what has become not the forgotten war but the deliberately ignored war. I suppose that we who survived, should be grateful for we now have a national monument to our dead. We should not be bitter that it was only established after a memorial was erected to the dead of the Falklands conflict and then only after an outcry from the Korean Veteran's Association. Of one thing we can be sure, the Korean people have not forgotten us and if ever they do, there will be a permanent memorial enshrined in the well being of the Korean people and the future that South Korean children can now look forward to. The thought of the plight of the civilian population of North Korea, divided from the South by an arbitrary line on a map and the megalomania of a discredited regime, is too horrible to contemplate. Horrible or not, contemplation of those differences helps to put into perspective why those young lives were taken from our friends so long ago. I am now home again, Colin Church and all our dead comrades remain where they have been for the last fifty years. When I stand at my village cenotaph on this Remembrance Sunday and in future years, 'We will remember them' will have even greater significance and focus for me than ever before. I struggle, for God knows what reason, to avoid any show of sentimentality and I have always resisted the 'sentimental' description of such trips as this as 'Pilgrimages' (Journeys to sacred places or shrines) I no longer have that inhibition. I have made a pilgrimage, 'to a sacred place' and I am stronger for it. |
