Farewell to an old soldier

Merv Read (right) and fellow Korean War veteran Tom Cottle reminiscing in 2011. Photo / John Stone

One of New Zealand's few remaining Korean War veterans has died.

Merv Read passed away peacefully on Thursday, at the Whangārei rest home where he had been a resident for some months. He was 94.

Merv lived in Whangārei but his family roots were in the Far North, and for many years he unfailingly attended the annual Battle of Britain commemoration at Waipapakauri, where, every year, he contributed a reading of 'High Flight,' the extraordinary poem written by 19-year-old Royal Canadian Air Force pilot John Gillespie Magee, Jnr., shortly before his death in a collision with another aircraft over England in 1941.

He served in Korea as a line signalman, an experience that did much to forge the principles by which he lived the rest of his life but did little to quell his sense of humour. That showed very strongly when he and fellow Korean War veteran Tom Cottle, who he not meet until after the war, sat down to reminisce in the company of Northern Advocate journalist Jodi Fraser in 2011.

The stories that day included New Zealanders greeting their Australian counterparts with 'Gidday ya b*****d, how's it going?'

"The British didn't like that, and told us our foul language must cease, so we changed it to, `I say, how are you my antipodean from across the Tasman, how are you jolly old chap?' and the English didn't like that either,'' he said.

Tom Cottle said his lasting impression of Korea was not the fighting but the children and their eagerness to learn.

"`We'd fire these rock hard biscuits out to them (from our trucks). They were like wild animals... but they were survivors and I believe they are leaders in industry today. Since then those people have proven themselves," he said.

"I look at what those people have done and what we haven't done. In those countries they place education as one of their greatest priorities. Now you compare that to the kids here who are burning down schools and I think it's a sad reflection on our society.''

Merv did not disagree.

He never lost his affection for the Korean people, and in 2014, when he was the secretary of the Far North (Kaitaia) branch of the Korea Veterans' Association (chaired by the late Bob Brown), he took great pleasure in welcoming the Republic of Korea's ambassador to New Zealand, Park Yongkyu, as the guest of honour at a dinner in Kaitaia. That was one of many occasions on which the veterans were told that the people of Korea would always be grateful that they had fought for their country's freedom.

Three years earlier he was one of eight RNZ Artillery 16th Field Regiment veterans in Northland who received Korean Presidential Citations, actually awarded decades earlier but until then not recognised by the New Zealand Army.

Merv's funeral was in Whangārei on Tuesday morning, and he was interred at the Kaitaia Public Cemetery that afternoon. He is survived by children Wendy, Phil, Dianne, Lynette and Allan, 14 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.