Don’t start another Korea Mr Trump. I fought in the one and I still have night

on the other. Lance bombardier Tommy was a mortar gunner attached to the 1st Battalion, the Gloucestershire Regiment – known as the Glorious Glosters – at the western end of the UN line, where attack from the North was most likely.

But the line was stretched, leaving large gaps for thousands of Chinese troops to pour through on the night of April 22, 1951. Tommy says: “We were firing all through the night, the gun barrels glowed red hot.” Men from two other British regiments – the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers and Royal Ulster Rifles – fought their way out but the Glosters had to regroup on Hill 235, now named Gloster Hill.

The next morning an officer handed Tommy a pair of binoculars.

“The Chinese were swarming towards us like ants,” he says. “I thought, ‘we’re in trouble here’. A lad asked, ‘Are there many coming?’. I didn’t want to spread alarm, so I said, ‘There’s quite a few’.”

When a US officer asked over the radio how they were doing, commanding officer Brigadier Thomas Brodie replied that things were “a bit sticky”. Tommy chuckles, adding: “It was the understatement of the year.”

It has actually gone down as one of the greatest understatements in history.

Hours later the Americans realised how dire the situation was and sent an airstrike to drop napalm on the Chinese, incinerating them. Tommy says: “We saw flames and smoke rising from the trees, but it’s the sound and smell that sticks with me. We heard the screams of the Chinese and smelt the burning flesh. Napalm was a terrible weapon.”

Food was in short supply, water was even scarcer, and night raids by the Chinese made it impossible to sleep.

As ammunition ran out Tommy was forced to hand over most of his bullets to the machine gunners and was ordered to pee in a bucket to stop the watercooled guns from overheating.

“We couldn’t really – we were too dehydrated from fighting – but we did our best,” he says. After three days of attacks the Glosters ran out of ammunition and were ordered to retreat.

Before they left Tommy’s sergeant destroyed the mortar gun stop them being used by the Chine

Tommy says: “As he put a gren down the last barrel a sniper got hi saw his head explode. It was terribl

Tommy had just five bullets left was quickly confronted by a Chin soldier, who he shot between the ey

With insufficient ammunition to f through five miles of Chinese troops Glosters were ordered to surren

SEEI

Young Tommy fought with Glosters at the Battle of Imjin River, right

TOUGH STUFF Tommy survived his ordeal