Koreans honour New Zealand veterans

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Fifty years ago this week, the first prisoners were crossing no-man's land in the bitterly fought Korean War, a struggle thought to have cost about three million lives.

By week's end, more than 7000 ill and wounded prisoners of war had been exchanged, although it took an armistice on July 27, 1953, to clear the release of a further 78,000 troops and civilians captured during three years of hostilities.

Just two New Zealanders were among them, from a total force of about 4700 Kiwi soldiers and more than 1300 naval troops who served in Korea between 1950 and 1957, when the last of this country's United Nations peacekeepers were pulled out.

The Government's decision to send artillery, drivers, signallers, engineers and frigates rather than infantry troops helped to keep casualties down.

Thirty-three New Zealanders were killed abroad during the war itself, of whom 21 died in action or of wounds.

But on Anzac Day in 1951, the 600 or so gunners of 16 Field Regiment's first contingent were feeling lucky not to have been wiped out after three days of resisting Chinese troops swarming down the Kap'yong Valley northeast of Seoul.

An Anzac commemoration party with Australian and Turkish contingents had to wait for another year as the Kiwis snatched some sorely needed sleep, having played a crucial part in defeating a spring offensive of hundreds of thousands of communist forces.

There is no putting off Anzac commemorations in Kap'yong these days, as Kayforce veterans and their Australian brothers-in-arms trek back each year on April 24 to present scholarships to the valley's school-children.

The date, a day earlier than Anzac Day, marks the most testing part of the Battle of Kap'yong for veterans of 3 Royal Australian Regiment - although the New Zealanders had yet another hard night.

Government historian Ian McGibbon, author of the official history of New Zealand's involvement in the war, says Kap'yong was a key target of the last big Chinese push to drive the United Nations off the Korean Peninsula.

This followed a see-sawing of four attacks and counter-attacks throughout much of the peninsula after North Korean forces swept into the Republic of Korea on June 25, 1950, inviting a swift armed response from the fledgling world body.

China joined in after saying it needed to protect its border from a military juggernaut led by the controversial General Douglas MacArthur, celebrated for cutting the North Korean Army in two but later sacked after advocating a wider anti-communist crusade.

An Associated Press war correspondent declared that the New Zealanders and Australians saved the "whole [United States] Eighth Army" from being split in two, although Kiwi veterans also acknowledge vital roles played by Canadian infantry and American tanks.

This is despite their puzzlement over the absence of US aerial bombardment against the Chinese until late in the battle, when the Australians could have done without an accidental napalm attack by an American aircraft.

Until early on Anzac Day, the gunners had poured artillery fire over a hill in extreme danger of being lost by the Canadians, after covering the retreat of outnumbered Australian troops from a neighbouring peak.

"New Zealand artillerymen, stripped to the waist and sweating over their smoking 25-pounders, fired throughout the day and night," the AP correspondent reported.

The battle claimed 32 Australians, including two Diggers as a result of US napalm atop Hill 504 as they prepared to escape from the Chinese.

Second Lieutenant Dennis Fielden, a former Auckland salesman with the Australians as an artillery forward fire commander, was the only New Zealander killed.

An Army publicity release put enemy casualties at 1000 dead and 3000 wounded.

Across the valley, on Hill 677, it was the Canadians' turn to call for help - to the desperate point of asking the New Zealanders to fire 25-pound shells on top of the defenders' own positions.

Mr McGibbon says the Canadians banked on surviving the firestorm by shrinking into their foxholes as shells burst over their heads, a gamble which paid off through throwing the Chinese into confusion.

Auckland carpenter Phil Ward, Sergeant Major of 161 Battery's four-gun Baker Troop, found himself and his fellow gunners in what threatened to be a similarly tight jam after nightfall on April 23.

The troop, one of six in the three-battery regiment, was ordered to keep firing its guns until almost running out of shells after survivors of a 6000 to 7000-strong South Korean infantry division destroyed by the Chinese surged back down the narrow river valley

Bereft of remaining infantry protection, and with Chinese reported marching down a road six-abreast, Mr Ward told a signaller to run a fuse line behind the guns in case they had to be blown up at the last moment.

Orders had come from regimental headquarters for 12 other New Zealand guns and a British infantry escort to retreat, but for "Peter's Only Son" - battle code for Baker Troop - to stay and fight.

"We were sitting there like bunnies with the Chinese just 10 to 12 minutes away," Mr Ward, 76, recalled this week at his Sandringham home.

"There were just seven rounds left for each gun when the [regimental] adjutant finally radioed for us to come out with our lights on - he didn't want us running off the road."

He remains unclear on how many Chinese were bearing down.

Some of the Kiwis remain miffed at missing out on US presidential citations given to the Australians, Canadians and the US tank unit.

A South Korean citation presented to them in the name of the republic's despotic founding president Syngman Rhee lacked the resonance, but the slight is easily forgotten amid waves of gratitude which returning veterans receive from the people of Kap'yong.

In 1951, their main contact with the populace was the pitiful sight of rivers of refugees heading the opposite way.

As in any war, the brunt was suffered by civilians.

More than two million are believed to have died from disease, malnutrition and wounds.

And while the hustle and bustle of modern-day South Korea, with its high-tech factories and shipyards, never fails to amaze veterans holding memories of devastated landscapes, the ordinary people remain under the shadow of a war which has never formally ended.


Herald Feature: Anzac Day

Highlights of the 2002 Anzac photo exhibition: