A rchive Date
[ 04-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Remembering the 'forgotten war'
A vivid, unofficial history of the Princess Pats in that 'strange battleground' of Korea
By PETER WORTHINGTON
Toronto Sun
April 29, 2000
On a warm June day in 1950, almost half a century ago, soldiers from Communist North Korea poured over the 38th parallel into South Korea and the war was on.
Three years later, in July, 1953, the guns stopped firing - not peace, but a ceasefire or truce that has more or less lasted to this day. Technically, the war goes on. No "peace" treaty has ever been signed. The charade of negotiations continue at Panmunjon.
Korea has been called the forgotten war.
Officially, its referred to as a "conflict" or UN "police action" as if that somehow reduces its significance compared to, say, the Vietnam "war."
In fact, the Korean war was more intense and lethal than Vietnam. In the three years of fighting in Korea, some 60,000 U.S. soldiers were killed - roughly the same number of Americans who died in Vietnam in a dozen years of war.
A difference was that Vietnam came into living rooms via TV. Korea was relegated to occasional newsreel reports and the back pages of newspapers.
I was one of those who went to Korea - not early on, but in the latter trench warfare phase. When the ceasefire went into effect I was attached to the U.S. Air Force, flying in Harvard aircraft and marking enemy targets with coloured smoke for jet bombers to hit with high explosives or napalm.
Prior to that I was a platoon commander on a lethal feature ominously called "the Hook" which was within shouting distance of the Chinese. Later I was a battalion intelligence officer, ostensibly in charge of snipers headed by the legendary Sgt. Tommy Prince, the highly decorated Cree who later died in poverty and for whom a park in Winnipeg was named and a commemorative coin struck.
Unlike many Korean vets, I've never been back. Korea is not something I think much about - though serving in that war was once given as a reason by the Chinese for not allowing me to open a news bureau in Beijing.
What brings Korea to mind at the moment is both this landmark anniversary and a new book about Korea by one who was there and, coincidentally, was in the same battalion as I. Vince Courtenay was in "C" company, I was with "D" Company of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI). His book is a personalized story of our regiment: Patricias in the Korean War.
Courtenay says his vivid book took 48 years to write. He served on the Hook, which he says he has thought about "every day for more than 40 years." The Hook had that effect on people.
Auspicious anniversary
Courtenay and some 20 vets are heading back to Korea on this auspicious anniversary. Talking to him, I found myself suddenly interested in returning to that "strange battleground" (as our former commanding officer, Lt.-Col. Herb Wood called it in his official history of that war).
Some 26,000 Canadians served in Korea, most in the army, some in the navy and air force. As wars go, it was relatively safe for Canadians - some 1,600 casualties, 500 of them fatal. But big action or small, when you're being shot at or shelled, it is a life-death situation.
Much of Courtenay's 560-page book is devoted to the Hook - the first action 3 PPCLI fought in 1952, when the Black Watch were overrun by Chinese, but still held firm. So mauled were the Black Watch that "C" Company of the Pats was temporarily loaned to them, pending the PPCLI taking over the whole Hook position.
In the trench warfare phase of the Korean war, the Commonwealth Division lost no ground, which the Americans and South Koreans did. At the end of the war, only the Canadian/Commonwealth portion of the 38th parallel defence line remained unchanged.
While in no way an official history (too graphic, judgmental and colourful for conventional historians), Courtenay's book is an unusual blending of anecdotes, soul-searching, anger, nostalgia, wistfulness. Although primarily about the three PPCLI battalions, it's also about all the Canadian units that participated.
For Canadians, Korea was a war of small actions, patrol skirmishes, being attacked and/or shelled and mortared and holding firm. Unlike today's six-month peacekeeping tours, Korea was 12 months - with extra time if you contracted VD.
Korea started out with World War II-style mobility and ended in World War I-style trench warfare. The most renowned Canadian battle was Kapyong, in April, 1951, when some 600 of the Second Patricias held off 6,000 Chinese for two days and enabled the British 27 Brigade to withdraw and regroup. The Pats were awarded a U.S. Presidential Citation.
At the same time, down the line, Britain's Gloucester Regiment was mostly taken prisoner in a defence of the Imjin River that was a sorry contrast to the Canadians' mastery at Kapyong. A month later, the Chinese were driven back across the 38th parallel.
For those interested, Courtenay's book is available through Heritage Books, 2429 Highland, Windsor, ON N8X 3S5 - $36.95 softcover, $44.50 hardcover.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com Worthington appears Tuesdays, Thursdays
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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