Glosters during the Korean War

What they did not know was that the commander of the North Korean People’s Army and the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army, Peng Dehuai, was planning a huge attack with over 300,000 men, having promised to capture Seoul, the South Korean capital, as a present for China’s leader, Mao Zedong.

Around 30,000 of these Chinese infantry were headed straight for 29th Brigade.

When the attack opened up on April 22, it took the UN and South Korean forces by surprise, and while there was fighting all along the front, it was at its most vicious around 29th Brigade’s front and the road to Seoul.

The Chinese attacked several times in overwhelming numbers, and with little regard for their own casualties. The brigade could only make limited use of its tanks, and while the artillery worked very hard with its 25-pounders, heavier guns were needed.

At this relatively early stage in the war, there were also communication difficulties between the allies. In a now-notorious quotation, the brigade’s commanding officer, Thomas Brodie, on being asked by an American officer over the radio how things were, he replied “a bit sticky”.

Any Briton would have immediately realised that this bit of understatement meant things were very serious indeed, but any normal literal-minded American would have translated it as “not too bad”. Brodie was ordered by the American-led corps HQ to keep his brigade in place and not withdraw. The British, in their accustomed role as jun

ior partners to the Americans, were eager to show they were willing partners, and Brodie felt he had to comply with the American order.

The Americans, for their part, did not realise how serious things were until it was too late. Had they known, they would have been able to bring in more support with air strikes and possibly heavy artillery as well.

On and on the Chinese came and the British, unable to plug the gaps between their positions, gradually withdrew. The Ulsters and Northumberlands retreated to positions further back, as did the Belgian/ Luxembourg battalion, which had fought a furious action against the attackers and which was singled out for special praise by the British and Americans alike. In one particularly ghastly episode, two British tanks helping to cover the retreat turned their machine guns on one another because Chinese troops were clambering all over them.

By the evening of April 23, the Glosters had withdrawn to Hill 235 (later renamed Gloster Hill) and faced being cut off from the rest of the army. Efforts to keep the battalion supplied with food, ammunition and the all-important radio batteries by air drops failed.

They were also short of water. One of the more surreal aspects of the fighting on the 24th was that the water-cooled machine guns were overheating, so men were asked to urinate into buckets to reduce the temperature. Having had so little to drink, they found it hard to produce very much ‘coolant’.

Through April 24, they fought off several enemy attacks, but the situation was starting to look hopeless.

The Chinese charges were usually accompanied by bugle calls, which irritated Captain FarrarHockley so much that he asked the battalion drum major, Philip Buss, to borrow a bugle and respond.

Buss stood upright and played every bugle call known to the army, from ‘Reveille’ to ‘Cookhouse’ to ‘Officers Dress for Dinner’ …

Every call, that is, apart from ‘Retreat’.

On the morning of April 25, Brigadier Brodie informed Lt Col James Power Carne, commander of the 1st Battalion of the Glosters, that the brigade artillery was pulling back and could provide no more support. He had already told Carne that he would leave it to his discretion whether he should try to break out or surrender.

Carne told his company commanders to make for the British lines as best they could. Some of them made it, but most did not. Some were so exhausted that they simply lay down where they were, while other groups ran into the Chinese and had to give themselves up.

Farrar-Hockley, leading a large group, ran into heavy fire from Chinese machine guns and gave the order to surrender:

“Feeling as if I was betraying everything that I loved and believed in, I raised my voice and called, ‘Stop!’”

******

The 1st Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment had gone into the Battle of Imjin River with about 800 officers and men. Of these, just 217 mustered on April 27, having managed to get away from Hill 235.

Some 59 men had been killed in action, while 522 now became prisoners-of-war. Of these, about a third were wounded and 34 would die in captivity because of mistreatment or neglect or because their captors simply lacked the medical services with which to treat them.

The Chinese casualties – killed and wounded – are unknown, but the number was certainly much, much larger than the damage they had inflicted. An informed guess would put the figure at 10,000 at least. Three Chinese divisions that had attacked with around 27,000 men had lost more than a third of their strength.

The bigger picture was that despite the loss of most of the battalion and the huge damage inflicted on 29th Brigade, the Chinese push on Seoul had been stopped and the Glosters’ stand had prevented other UN forces from being surrounded and cut off.

******

The prisoners were marched northwards to camps where they quickly learned that however bad things were as prisoners of the Chinese, they would be far worse off in North Korean hands. There is no shortage of accounts of the systematic brutality of North Koreans towards captives, and British, Commonwealth and American prisoners would find themselves grateful for the protection that the Chinese gave them against the locals.

For most Brits, being captured had, at first, horrifying undertones of the savagery of the Japanese treatment of Allied prisoners just a few years beforehand. But it was not the same; unlike the Japanese in World War Two, the Chinese did not hold their prisoners in complete contempt.

This did not mean, however, that their captivity was easy. It was nothing of the sort. Food was in short supply, and the diet was usually just a small portion of boiled sorghum and/or rice, but for much of the time it appeared that this was only a little worse than the rations the Chinese themselves were having. American prisoners often refused to eat it, while the British were more pragmatic. Applying the time-honoured coarseness of the British soldier, one of them advised: “If you don’t eat, you don’t shit, and if you don’t shit, you die.”

It was quite noticeable that a much higher proportion of Americans died than British and Commonwealth prisoners. This was partly because they were particularly hated by the North Koreans, but also because they couldn’t handle the poor diet. Many Brits were also of the view that Americans, coming from a culture of individualism and unfettered capitalism, tended to try to “look after number one” and acted selfishly, whereas the British were better at looking after one another. Many remarked that this had a lot to do with regimental spirit.

In the bitterly cold winters that

Lt Terry Waters of Bristol refused to co-operate with his captors, but ordered his men to do so. His courage cost him his life. A blue plaque was unveiled at his childhood home in Stoke Bishop a few years ago. Watercolour painted by N. Lovett, c. 1970 (Picture courtesy of The Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum)

learn the trust through study, and correct your mistakes.”

To the Chinese, the most valuable prisoners were those who would appear in photos being welltreated, or speak out on the radio or newsreels denouncing the American (and British) imperialists and declaring their support for the righteous cause of world communism.

It was refusal to be a propaganda tool that led to the death (and a posthumous George Cross) for Lt Terry Waters of the Glosters. Wounded in the head and arm, he was marched to a camp where he and the others were offered better food and accommodation if they would become ‘Peace Fighters’ and condemn the war and talk of how well they were being treated.

The men refused to be stooges for the communist propaganda, but Waters ordered them to cooperate: “I have thought this business over and have decided that you must go over to the PeaceFighters’ Camp. Most of you will die if you stay here. Go over, do as little as you can; and remember always that you are British soldiers.”

Waters himself refused to take part, and several times refused a North Korean officer’s offers of medical attention and better food. He died not long afterwards.

The treatment of the commanding officer, Lt Col Carne, was brutal, too. He spent long periods in solitary confinement and was fre

quently beaten and was drugged as part of a communist ploy to ‘brainwash’ him.

During his captivity he used a nail to carve a small Celtic cross in stone which was used by Padre Sam Davies in church services. It is now on display in Gloucester Cathedral. Lt Col Carne was later awarded the Victoria Cross for “showing powers of leadership which can seldom have been surpassed in the history of the Army”.

Most of the men would sit through endless lessons in communist doctrine and the crimes of the imperialists, simply because life was slightly easier if they did. But none of the Glosters ever became a poster boy for communism.

They also eagerly shared weeksold copies of the British communist newspaper The Daily Worker, which they were occasionally given. The Chinese were gratified to see how much they liked this English socialist newspaper. They probably never realised it was nothing to do with the political reporting. The soldiers only wanted the sports pages.

Aside from the cold, the lack of decent food and mistreatment, there were other hazards; many men caught dysentery. Of the 522 Glosters taken prisoner, 34 died – though most of these succumbed to wounds sustained in the battle.

There was boredom, and also what became known as the disease

Chinese troops attack across the Imjin. They suffered huge casualties for no real gain.

of “give-up-itis”, a sense of despair and powerlessness. There were frequent rumours that the Americans were about to use atomic weapons on China and/or North Korea and that the prisoners would be killed by an A-bomb.

Some took comfort in religion (much to the disapproval of their communist gaolers), pooling the large cigarette papers the Chinese occasionally handed out so that they could be used to make handwritten hymn-books. Others busied themselves by trying to do something to help their fellow men each day; one man even volunteered to wash the filthy clothes of men suffering from dysentery because however unpleasant, it made him feel like he was being useful.

Warrant Officer Frederick George ‘Muscles’ Strong, a WW2 veteran who had already carried out several acts of bravery at Imjin River, organized PT sessions for the men,

though these were often cancelled. Strong was a constant irritant to his captors, suffering several stints locked underground in a 6ft by 6ft hole, with no light, no visitors and only one daily meal.

There was humour, too. One anecdote has dozens of men digging a hole in the middle of their compound one morning and then ostentatiously placing a small piece of paper in it before filling it in once more. The Chinese, understandably curious, dug up the piece of paper on which was simply written: “Mind your own business”.

On other occasions they relieved the boredom by running around pretending to be helicopters or aeroplanes, or would show up for morning roll-call in the most casual and slovenly manner, then the next day parading as sharply as though they were about to be inspected by royalty.

The survivors would happily admit that it was childish and silly,

but no more so than the Chinese attempts to turn them into communists.

Padre Davies later said he vowed to himself that “when I get out of here I shall never again moan about having to wait for a bus in the rain”.

Back at home, it took a long time for the families to find out what had happened to their men. Just a handful of letters from Korea got through, and many men had been posted as missing in action. One Gloucestershire mother had no word of her son, but was convinced that his was one of the blurred faces in a photo in Picture Post. Happily, she was correct, and a year later he arrived home again – much thinner than she remembered him, but alive and in one piece.

The prisoners were finally freed after the ceasefire was signed in 1953, returning home to a heroes’ welcome.

The battalion racked up an impressive tally of medals. Aside from Lt Col Carne’s VC, and Bristolian Terry Waters’ George Cross, Lt Philip Curtis was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his lone attack on enemy machine guns in the battle. There were Distinguished Service Orders for FarrarHockley and for Major Edgar Harding, commander of the Battalion’s B Company.

Aside from these and other medals, the Glosters and the Belgian/ Luxembourg battalion were also awarded the US Presidential Unit Citation for their part in the battle, which one American commander described as “the most outstanding example of unit bravery in modern war”.

Our local regiment’s 1st Battalion had lost a battle and through much of it had been captured, but there was no question in anyone’s mind that it had conducted itself with exceptional courage and endurance through teamwork, professionalism and sheer bloody-mindedness.

It was their brigade commander, Brigadier Brodie, who was supposed to have been the first to refer to them as “The Glorious Glosters”. The name stuck.

» Gloucester Cathedral will be holding a special service this Sunday, April 25, at 1pm, which will also be live-streamed online. The Bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek, will lead a short private service in the Memorial Chapel to commemorate the lives of the men who were killed in the Korean War, and the service is the first in a series of events across the summer that will commemorate the battle. The link is tinyurl.com/ vefpjht8

» You can find out more about the Glosters in Korea at the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum when it re-opens. For updates, see soldiersofglos.com

THE Korean conflict gave the world a new concept and a new word: ‘Brainwashing’.

The term was first used in the war as a translation of a Chinese term used to describe the persuasion that the new communist system was better than ‘reactionary’ capitalism and imperialism.

To the Chinese, the term simply meant education in communist doctrine, the endless lessons which prisoners-of-war sat through, most of them paying little or no attention. They had used the same ‘thought reform’ techniques on their own population.

In the paranoid atmosphere of the Cold War, though, it took on a much more sinister meaning, culminating in the 1959 Richard Condon novel The Manchurian Candidate and the subsequent 1962 movie of the same name starring Laurence Harvey and Frank Sinatra (and a 2004 remake with Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep.)

The belief was that communist China and/or Russia had developed sophisticated techniques of mind-control. While it was found that a handful of American prisoners had voiced sympathies for the communist cause, a study of returning PoWs found that their worldview reverted to ‘normal’ not long after their return home.

One of the most curious examples, though, remains that of LtCol Carne. When he was released in the autumn of 1953 he told the British ambassador in Tokyo that during 18 months of solitary confinement he had been given drugs which made his mind “capable of receiving any kind of information put into it”.

Carne’s revelation was kept secret at the time, and it was thought that the Chinese were possibly seeking to influence him, as the most senior British officer, to support a peace deal, and possibly also some sort of deal between Britain and China.

The ambassador was of the view that Carne was not the sort of man to have imagined or made up a story like this. In any event, whatever the Chinese had done to him had no long term illeffect, and he died in 1986 at the age of 80.

In 2015, the South Korean government marked the 65th anniversary of the start of the war with an issue of commemorative postage stamps. Carne’s portrait featured on one of them.