'Forgotten' conflict remembered

A handful of New Zealand veterans of "The Forgotten Conflict" have returned to Seoul to mark the 60th anniversary today of the outbreak of the Korean War amid the highest tensions on the peninsula in more than a decade.

The former servicemen paid their respects at the memorial at the National Cemetery in Seoul on Wednesday morning, passing between an honour guard of South Korean Marines before the senior officers of the Commonwealth and United States contingents laid a wreath at the war monument and lit incense sticks.

Representatives of nine countries that contributed troops to the United Nations forces, including a large group of Ethiopian soldiers, are in South Korea to mark the anniversary of the North Korean invasion on June 25, 1951.

Les Pye, 79, served with the 16th Field Regiment of artillery for nine months from March 1953, with part of that time spend with the 1st Royal Tank Regiment, and said his memories of the war were mixed.

"We had a task to accomplish and we went out to be as effective in achieving that task as we could be," he said.

Of all his encounters on the battlefield, the fighting on the night of July 24-25, 1953 was the most memorable as his tank unit was tasked with recovering casualties from "The Hook" feature of the front line.

"My crew brought out six US Marines and two Australians and I later read reports that there were 4000 incoming rounds of ammunition against us," he said.

Yet the sacrifices made in Korea deserve to be remembered better than they are by the majority of people, he said.

"It will always be 'The Forgotten War', no matter how many times they tell us we were not forgotten," he said.

After serving in Vietnam and retiring as a major to Blenheim, he made his first return trip to Korea in 1995.

"I was flabbergasted at the changes that have taken place here since the war and I'm even more stunned now," he said.

The same cannot be said for the North, he added.

"The South Korean government has bent over backwards to try to get families divided by the war back together again, for example, but that's not being reciprocated."

South Korea on Monday played down fears that high readings of radioactive xenon detected in May were the result of a new nuclear test by North Korea, while Pyongyang has threatened "merciless blows" against South Korea if the UN Security Council imposes sanctions or other punitive measures against it over the sinking of South Korean warship the Cheonan on March 26.