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far eastern tour

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105768.book Page iii Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
Far Eastern Tour

The Canadian Infantry in Korea,
1950–1953
b r e n t b y ro n wat s o n
McGill-Queen’s University Press

Montreal & Kingston · London · Ithaca
105768.book Page iv Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2002

isbn 0-7735-2372-3
Legal deposit third quarter 2002

Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the
Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds
provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
of Canada.
McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the financial support of

the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry
Development Program (bpidp ) for its publishing activities. We also
acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our
publishing program.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Watson, Brent Byron, 1970–

Far Eastern tour: the Canadian infantry in Korea, 1950–1953 / Brent
Byron Watson.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-7735-2372-3
1. Korean War, 1950–1953 – Participation, Canadian. 2. Canada.
Canadian Army – History – Korean War, 1950–1953. 3. Soldiers –
Canada – History – 20th century. i. Title.
ds919.2.w37 2002 951.904’2 c2002-901520-0
Typeset in Sabon 10.5 /13

by Caractéra inc., Quebec City
105768.book Page v Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
Contents
Abbreviations vii
Preface: Return to Korea ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction: Bums from the Slums 3
1 Slit-Trench Attitude 18
2 A Lot of Good Men Died 32
3 Domain of the Golden Dragon 47
4 Rice Burners and katcom s 62
5 Keeping the Gunners in Good Training 77
6 Pucker Factor 93
7 Butcher’s Bill 108
8 Permanent Souvenirs 125
9 Forgotten People 142
10 Rum and Coke 157
Conclusion: Kap’yong Couldn’t Have Been Much of
a Battle 175
Notes 181
Bibliography 219
Index 229
105768.book Page vi Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
105768.book Page vii Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
Abbreviations
bcib British Commonwealth Infantry Brigade

caort Canadian Army Operational Research Team
casf Canadian Army Special Force
ccf Communist Chinese Forces
ccp Casualty Clearing Post
cib Canadian Infantry Brigade
co commanding officer
dea Department of External Affairs
dgms Directorate General, Medical Services
dgmt Directorate General of Military Training
dhh Directorate of History and Heritage
dnd Department of National Defence
dow died of wounds
drbd Defence Research Board
fds Field Dressing Station
gsw gunshot wound
katcom Korean Augmentation Troops, Commonwealth
katusa Korean Augmentation Troops, U.S. Army
kia killed in action
ksc Korean Service Corps
ldsh Lord Strathcona’s Horse
lmg light machine gun
mlr Main Line of Resistance
mmg medium machine gun
mo medical officer
nco non-commissioned officer
na National Archives of Canada
105768.book Page viii Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
viii Abbreviations
nato North Atlantic Treaty Organization

nsu non-specific urethritis
pow prisoner of war
pro Public Record Office
ppcli Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
qmg quarter-master general
r&r rest and recreation
rap Regimental Aid Post
rcamc Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps
rce Royal Canadian Engineers
rcha Royal Canadian Horse Artillery
rcr Royal Canadian Regiment
rok Republic of Korea
r22er Royal 22e Régiment
saw section automatic weapon
siw self-inflicted wound
smg submachine gun
wd War Diary
wia wounded in action
wo War Office
105768.book Page ix Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
preface
Return to Korea
Five decades after the signing of the ceasefire agreement at Panmun-

jom, the experiences of the Canadian infantry in the Korean War
remain forgotten. Although there are numerous popular accounts
of the Canadian Army in Korea, we still know little about the real-
ities and practical details of the infantry’s wartime experiences. This
is a serious gap in Canadian military historiography. An in-depth
study of soldiers’ experiences expands our understanding of the con-
flict and furnishes the Canadian military with an institutional
memory of its first major United Nations operation. As recent events
have shown, the military ignores history at its peril. Somalia was
not the first time the Canadians ran into difficulties in an unfamiliar
operational environment. Many of the problems experienced by the
Airborne Regiment were encountered by the soldiers of the 25th
Canadian Infantry Brigade in Korea four decades earlier. A study of
these problems provides the military with the analytical perspective
it needs to understand its own recent history.
The Korean War remains the largest Canadian military operation
of the post-1945 era. Although small by First and Second World
War standards, the army’s contribution of the 25th Canadian Infan-
try Brigade Group was by no means insignificant. Only the South
Koreans, Americans, and British fielded larger contingents. The
combat strength of the 25th Brigade lay in its three infantry bat-
talions, drawn from the Royal Canadian Regiment, the Princess
Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, and the Royal 22e Régiment.
Together, these units accounted for approximately two-thirds of the
25th Brigade’s total manpower.
105768.book Page x Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
x Preface
The terrain and limited nature of combat operations in Korea

resulted in the infantry doing almost all the fighting. Tanks were
important early in the war, but by the time the first Canadians took
to the field they were primarily used as mobile artillery platforms.
The static phase of the fighting also saw the artillery and engineers
restricted to combat support missions. Rarely did soldiers from
these arms engage the enemy in close combat. To speak of the 25th
Brigade in the context of the Korean War is, then, to speak of the
men in the three infantry battalions. Korea was the infantry’s war,
and a study of these battalions’ experiences captures the essence of
the larger Canadian involvement.
Some indication of how difficult the infantry’s Far Eastern tours
actually were can be found in the recently declassified Central Reg-
istry files at the National Archives of Canada. Unavailable to earlier
researchers, these files suggest an army that was poorly prepared
for service in Korea. Being official headquarters documents, how-
ever, the Central Registry holdings yield few clues about the reper-
cussions on the common soldier of this unpreparedness. For this, I
was compelled to look elsewhere.
In the summer of 1996 I had the opportunity to attend the
Korean Veterans Association’s conference in Calgary, Alberta.
Through a series of historical questionnaires and interviews, the
personal experiences of Korean veterans were brought to life. To
actually hear these men talk about friends who were killed because
a Sten gun jammed, or who returned to Canada as alcoholics after
their Far Eastern tours, had a profound effect on me. For three
days I listened to their stories, often late into the night. I became
utterly convinced that something had gone terribly wrong in the
ranks of the Canadian infantry in Korea and that these men had
endured a needlessly difficult and uncomfortable ordeal.
With this hypothesis in mind, I travelled to the Republic of Korea
in the fall of 1997. Unlike the soldiers of the 25th Brigade, I arrived
by jumbo jet, not troopship. I had also acquired a reasonable knowl-
edge of the Korean culture, geography, and climate, and could even
speak a few words of the language. More importantly perhaps, I
also had the benefit of proper medical preparations. Nevertheless, I
experienced severe culture shock after my arrival as I adjusted to
the sights, sounds, and smells of this fascinating yet completely for-
eign country. I can only imagine what Canadian soldiers must have
thought as they stumbled down the gangplank into wartorn Pusan
105768.book Page xi Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
Preface xi
without being properly indoctrinated. And despite bed nets and

copious amounts of insect repellent, I still managed to get eaten alive
by aggressive mosquitoes during my first few nights in Korea. But
unlike the soldiers of the 25th Brigade, my physician had prescribed
me an effective malarial suppressant.
My first few days in Korea were spent in Seoul conducting
research at the Eighth U.S. Army Historical Office. Located in the
Yongsan Garrison, the office rarely sees researchers. This is a shame
because it contains some incredibly useful material, especially on
operational research. My time at Yongsan also allowed me to
experience American army hospitality firsthand.
After gorging myself on T-bone steaks, potato salad, and ice-cold
Coca-Colas, all courtesy of the Eighth U.S. Army, I boarded a rickety
train for the Kap’yong River Valley in the rugged Korean interior.
My objective was to visit Hill 677 where the Princess Patricias had
made their famous stand during the battle of the Kap’yong River in
April 1951.
Arriving in the sleepy little town of Kap’yong without a clue of
where the battlefield was, I pulled out my compass and a wrinkled
map photocopied from the Canadian official history and estimated
that it was about seven kilometres to the north. With no public
transportation to be found, I set out on foot but was lucky enough
to be offered a ride in the back of a small farm truck. Reaching the
tiny village of Naech’on, I walked along the Kap’yong River until
I came to a small apple orchard flanked by large rice paddies. Sure
enough, amongst the apple trees, I found the granite monument
commemorating the battle of Kap’yong. In the background stood
Hill 677. There were more trees on the hill than at the time of the
battle, but its distinctive shape was clearly visible. Also visible above
the monument was a massive spider’s web. Veterans had warned
me about the huge spiders, but I never expected them to be that big.
The next day I climbed to the top of Hill 677. Equipped with
only a camera and a large stick given to me by my Korean hosts
to ward off wild pigs, I made the difficult climb in just over two
hours. Being in reasonable shape, I was amazed at the difficulty of
the trek. I counted myself fortunate in not having to carry fifty
pounds of equipment (more than twenty-two kilograms) as the
Patricias had done.
After Kap’yong, I returned to Seoul, where I met the Canadian
Forces attaché, Colonel Keith Eddy. He kindly agreed to escort me
105768.book Page xii Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
xii Preface
to the area along the Imjin River, where the rear echelons of the
25th Brigade had been located. From my earlier research, it was
apparent that life on the banks of the Imjin had not changed all
that much since the war. Most of the civilian population were poor
farmers, and many of the roads just dirt tracks. It was hot, dusty,
and smelly, and as I surveyed the scenes around me I was struck
by a sudden feeling of homesickness. For people accustomed to the
North American lifestyle, this was a very difficult place to spend a
year. In fact, the American army considers nearby Camp Casey, the
operational base of the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division, a “hardship”
posting. Yet I could not help but feel that compared to the combat
soldiers of the 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade, this current gener-
ation of fighting men had it easy. Nevertheless, every American
soldier I spoke with could not wait for the day when his Far Eastern
tour would be over. Moreover, despite being within artillery range
of North Korea, Camp Casey has, among other things, a Burger
King, a Baskin and Robbins, a bowling alley, a huge swimming
pool, baseball diamonds, a large Post Exchange, video rental stores,
a library, a theatre, a bookstore, a golf course, and several canteens.
Canadian infantrymen in Korea could not even count on regular
mail service, let alone a Whopper Burger!
Korea left an indelible imprint on me, as is reflected in the pages
that follow. Having said this, the exhilaration of travelling around
Korea, of interviewing veterans, and of accessing recently declas-
sified documents did not necessarily translate into a painless writ-
ing process. As I went through the chapters, I was troubled by
what seemed at times to be an endless catalogue of criticisms. From
documenting the mind-numbing routine of life in the front line to
lambasting medical authorities for their lack of foresight, I have
very little to say that can be construed as “positive.” This bothered
me, for I have always believed it far easier to criticize than to offer
constructive solutions, especially in today’s politically correct social
milieu. I therefore consoled myself with the notion that the ulti-
mate legacy of the infantry’s experiences in Korea lies in the lessons
they have to offer. This, I believe, is Far Eastern Tour’s most
important contribution.
This year marks the fifty-second anniversary of the outbreak of
the Korean War. Barring any major changes in the international
security scene, the men who fought in Korea will soon be this coun-
try’s largest group of surviving war veterans. The media and general
105768.book Page xiii Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
Preface xiii
public are bound to pick up on this, leading to a profusion of pop-

ular commemorations of the war in both film and print. By showing
that Korea was not Canada’s last “good fight,” this book reminds
people that war is a terrible thing. All too often the public views
war through the antiseptic lens of a high-tech gun camera – not
from the perspective of the lowly combat soldier on the ground,
who must actually do the fighting and dying. As the great French
military theorist Ardant du Picq argued, the soldier is the first
weapon of battle; study him, for it is he who brings reality to it.
Whether this book succeeds in bringing reality to the experiences
of the Canadian infantry in Korea, I leave for the reader to decide.
Brent Watson
Vernon, British Columbia
105768.book Page xiv Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
105768.book Page xv Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
Acknowledgments
Many people assisted me in researching and writing this book. My

warmest appreciation goes to the Korean veterans who answered
my lengthy questionnaires and granted me interviews, often at short
notice. Without the benefit of the insights offered by these men,
this book would not have been possible.
Special thanks to Professors David Zimmerman, Patricia Roy, Ian
MacPherson, James Boutilier, David Bercuson, and Chris Madsen.
I would also like to thank Dr Stephen Harris for his unwavering
support over the years. Colonel Keith Eddy and family deserve
special mention for providing a cheery home environment during
my stay in Seoul and for arranging my visit to the dmz.
A big thanks to all my friends and family – you know who you
are. Finally, a very special thanks to my wife Jennifer, to whom this
book is dedicated, for enduring my frequent bouts of grumpiness
and my many long absences.
Research for this book was funded by doctoral fellowships from
the Department of National Defence and the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada.
105768.book Page xvi Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
105768.book Page 1 Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:19 PM
far eastern tour

introduction
Bums from the Slums
On 8 August 1950 a full-page recruiting advertisement in the

nation’s major newspapers announced: “The Canadian Army Wants
Men Now … to meet aggression in accordance with the United
Nations Charter.” Preference would be given to veterans of the
Second World War, and the term of enlistment was for eighteen
months – “longer if required due to an emergency action taken by
Canada pursuant to an International Agreement.”
So began recruitment of the Canadian Army Special Force (casf),
the army’s contribution to the war in Korea. Canada’s navy and
air force had quickly been committed to the fighting following the
outbreak of hostilities on the Korean peninsula six weeks earlier,
but the dilapidated state of Canada’s postwar army precluded an
immediate ground response. In the years following the Second
World War, the Liberal government of Mackenzie King had slashed
the defence budget from its wartime peak of $4.2 billion in 1943
to only $196 million in 1947.1 Cold War tensions and Canada’s
entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (nato) in 1949
saw a slight increase, but most of the money went to the Royal
Canadian Air Force.
The Canadian Army of 1950 was, then, only a shadow of its
Second World War self. In 1945 the Canadian Army had over half
a million men under arms, but by the outbreak of the Korean War
this figure had plummeted to a measly 25,000, less than 7,000 of
whom belonged to the combat trades.2 This skeleton of a force was
responsible for the defence of the entire Canadian land mass and, in
the event of an overseas war, the mobilization of the militia. In other
words, postwar Canadian defence policy was predicated on the
4 Introduction
assumption that any future conflict would be a replay of the last,

with up to a year’s time to recruit, train, equip, and deploy an expe-
ditionary force for overseas – that is, European – service. North
Atlantic men, Canadian politicians and senior defence planners never
seriously considered military intervention outside Europe. That was
where Canadian interests lay and where any threat from the emerg-
ing Communist bloc would have to be contained. The short-sight-
edness of this thinking became painfully apparent on 25 June 1950
when the North Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th parallel into
the Republic of South Korea, precipitating the Korean War.
In response to the invasion, American President Harry Truman
asked for a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
Because the Soviet Union was then boycotting the council over the
U.N.’s refusal to recognize China’s new Communist government,
the United States was able to use its considerable influence to get
easy passage of a resolution calling for the “immediate cessation
of hostilities” and “the withdrawal of the North Korean forces to
the [38th] parallel.”3 When news of the invasion reached Ottawa,
the general reaction was one of astonishment. The secretary of state
for external affairs, Lester B. Pearson, was “caught completely off-
guard by the North Korean aggression and by the United States
response to it.”4
When it became apparent that the North Koreans did not intend
to comply with the 25 June resolution, the Security Council passed
a second resolution calling on member nations to provide “such
assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel
armed attack and to restore peace and security in the area.”5 Cana-
dian Prime Minister Louis St Laurent quickly responded to the UN
resolution by ordering three Tribal-class destroyers from Canada’s
Pacific naval base at Esquimalt to the Far East.
Contemporary media coverage suggests that most Canadians
strongly favoured going to war in Korea.6 Indeed, the editor of the
Globe and Mail suggested that Canada’s initial contribution of
three destroyers was not enough.7 The sense of obligation was
strong. The Winnipeg Free Press commended the prime minister
for answering the United Nations’ call to arms: “There are, it is
obvious, very few who would suggest Canada sell out responsibil-
ities to the U.N., welch on its pledges and seek to let others carry
the burden of preserving peace. That Mr. St. Laurent made clear
Canada would not do. This nation will do its part as an honourable
Introduction 5
member of the U.N.”8 Similarly, the Halifax Chronicle Herald

praised the St Laurent government for taking a stand against Com-
munist aggression and safeguarding “our freedom and freedom
elsewhere.”9 From this perspective, it is necessary to briefly examine
the reasons behind Canada’s decision to go to war.
Perhaps most important was Canada’s firm support for the U.N.
Charter. Canada had played a central role in the creation of the
United Nations in June 1945. Under St Laurent, support for the
international organization became a pillar of Canadian foreign pol-
icy. The prime minister made this very clear in his statement to the
House of Commons on 30 June: “Our responsibility in [Korea] arises
entirely from our membership in the United Nations … Any partic-
ipation by Canada in carrying out the [Security Council] resolution
… would not be participation in war against any state. It would be
our part in collective police action under the control and authority
of the United Nations for the purpose of restoring peace.”10
The other reason for Canadian participation was to counter what
the government perceived to be Soviet expansionism. In the years
after the Second World War, the Soviet Union gradually became the
great adversary of the Western democracies. Indeed, the two sides
almost went to war in 1948 when the Soviet Union – upset by the
British and American amalgamation of occupation zones in Ger-
many into Bizonia and the consequent breakdown of diplomatic
relations – blockaded the Western allies in Berlin. The following
year, as an iron curtain descended over Eastern Europe, Canada,
the United States, and Western European nations formed nato.
The Cold War then began in full force.
Within this bipolar context, Western governments largely viewed
North Korea’s invasion of South Korea as an act of Soviet-sponsored
aggression. In the House of Commons, George Drew blamed the
Soviet Union for the outbreak of war and warned that if the Soviets
were not stopped in Korea, Europe itself would become the Krem-
lin’s next target.11 Many political leaders in the Western democracies
shared Drew’s point of view. The “real target [of the attack] was
seen as nato,” and as a founding member of the alliance, Canada
“felt obliged to respond one way or another.”12
Canada’s press also suspected Soviet complicity. The Vancouver
Sun claimed that “Korea alerted us to what Russia threatened.”13
To the Globe and Mail, it was clearly “Soviet Communist imperi-
alism that [was] waging war on the Republic of South Korea.”14
6 Introduction
And according to the editor of the Montreal Star, “the Russians

[were] merely carrying on a half a century old campaign to lay
[their] hands on the Korean peninsula.”15
On 7 July 1950 the U.N. Security Council passed a third reso-
lution, which called on all contributing members to place their
forces under a unified U.N. command and asked the United States
to choose its commanding general. That same day, Ottawa com-
mitted the Royal Canadian Air Force to the war by ordering the
426th (Transport) Squadron to begin operations as part of the
U.N.’s Korean airlift.
For the next month, the principal question confronting the Cana-
dian government was whether or not to commit ground forces to
the fighting in Korea. During the first two weeks of July, St Laurent
and the Department of National Defence discussed the feasibility
of sending an army contingent to Korea. On 19 July the prime
minister announced that the Liberal Cabinet had decided that the
dispatch of Canadian Army units to the Far East was not warranted
at the time.16
The announcement incensed the press. The Ottawa Evening
Citizen claimed that “a major decision cannot long be postponed
on Korea. Canadian co-operation with American troops … offers
the best prospect of effective Canadian help.17 And the Globe and
Mail stated: “It will be gratifying if the Cabinet at last acknowl-
edges this country’s duty to send ground forces … The Cabinet
should at once … recognize Canada’s obligation and give maximum
support to the U.N.”18
As the editors of Canada’s newspapers waged a war of words
over Korea, Mackenzie King, the former long-time Liberal prime
minister, died. On the train home from King’s funeral in Toronto,
the Cabinet further debated sending Canadian ground forces to
Korea. Although Lester Pearson firmly believed that Canada should
send an expeditionary force immediately, other Cabinet ministers
were decidedly less enthusiastic.19 However, St Laurent apparently
supported Pearson’s position and reconsidered his earlier decision;
on 7 August he announced that Canadian ground troops would go
to Korea.
The decision to commit Canadian ground troops to the fighting in
Korea quickly revealed the pathetic condition of the army and the
inadequacy of Canadian mobilization plans. The need was for
combat-ready troops right now, not twelve months from now.
Introduction 7
Caught on the horns of an increasingly embarrassing dilemma, the

government decided to recruit the all-volunteer casf from the streets.
The core of the Special Force consisted of second battalions of
the three Active Force infantry regiments – the Royal Canadian
Regiment (rcr), the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
(ppcli), and the Royal 22e Régiment (r22er). Rounding out the
order of battle was a squadron of tanks from Lord Strathcona’s
Horse (ldsh), a field regiment from the Royal Canadian Horse
Artillery (rcha), and a squadron of Royal Canadian Engineers
(rce). By mobilizing second battalions (and squadrons) of these
renowned regiments, organization and training time would be min-
imized. It was also hoped that the Active Force units would quickly
instill the requisite regimental ethos in their respective second addi-
tions, an important consideration, given the fact it can take years
for a new unit to develop its own traditions and esprit de corps.
Initial strength of the force was set at 4,960 all ranks, plus a
reinforcement pool of 2,105.
Thus the casf came into being. Command of the force was given
to Brigadier J.M. Rockingham. When the formation of the casf
was announced, Rockingham – “Rocky” to the troops – was a
civilian executive with the British Columbia Electric Company in
Vancouver. He had commanded the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade
during the Second World War and was hand-picked by the minister
of national defence, Brooke Claxton, to lead the Canadians in
Korea. The decision to recall Rockingham from civilian life, rather
than appoint a senior officer from the Active Force, was threefold:
first, Rockingham had proved himself to be an extremely capable
brigade commander in Northwest Europe; second, he was perceived
to have the ability to work well within the American-dominated
U.N. Command; and third, the minister of national defence wanted
to maintain the character of the Special Force by appointing a
commander who was also a veteran from civilian life.20
Similar guidelines were used in the selection of commanding
officers for the Special Force infantry battalions. Command of the
2 ppcli was given to Lieutenant-Colonel James R. Stone. One of
the most capable fighting soldiers in Canadian military history,
Stone had enlisted as a private in the Loyal Edmonton Regiment
in 1939; by 1944, now a lieutenant-colonel, he was in command
of the unit. Command of the r22er was given to Lieutenant-Colonel
J.A. Dextraze. He had commanded the Fusiliers Mont-Royal in
8 Introduction
Northwest Europe and, like Stone, was commissioned from the

ranks.21 Unlike Stone and Dextraze, Lieutenant-Colonel R.A. Keane,
the commanding officer (co) of 2 rcr, was a regular soldier in the
Active Force. He had commanded the Lake Superior Regiment in
Northwest Europe and was with the Directorate of Military Plans
and Operations before his Special Force appointment.22
The orderly appointment of Special Force senior officers was in
sharp contrast to the recruitment of the enlisted men. Despite initial
concerns that the high level of employment would lead to a shortage
of recruits, there was no difficulty finding enough “soldier of for-
tune” types to fill the ranks of the Special Force. In the days fol-
lowing the Canadian government’s call to arms, scores of eager
volunteers descended upon their local personnel depots. Oral
sources reveal that the overwhelming majority of volunteers enlisted
with the sole intention of seeing combat in Korea. For example, a
young soldier from Quebec informed a recruiting officer that while
he had “no ambition for an army career,” he “wanted the experi-
ence of action.”23 Similarly, when asked why he wanted to join the
2 rcr, Kenneth Blampied stated that he wanted “to fulfil his dream
of serving for his country overseas.”24
Recruiters, however, were not prepared for Kenneth Blampied
and the thousands of eager volunteers like him. The confusion that
soon prevailed in the nation’s personnel depots has been capably
described elsewhere and need not be retold here.25 Rather, it is
instructive to explore the experiences of No. 6 Personnel Depot
(Toronto) in some detail. This depot provided more recruits for the
Special Force than any other and was at the centre of the recruiting
fiasco.26 The recruiting problems there reflect those of the casf as
a whole.
On the morning of Tuesday, 8 August, the co of the depot, Major
R.G. Liddell, was shocked to find the lawns of Chorley Park
swarming with hundreds of “male civilians of every description.”27
Apparently, he had not heard the prime minister announce the
formation of the Special Force on the radio the night before, nor
had he seen a morning paper. Moreover, as the previous day had
been a civic holiday, he had not yet received recruiting instructions
for the Special Force in the mail.
When the doors of No. 6 Personnel Depot opened at 0800, the
bemused Major Liddell and his staff were overwhelmed. Normally,
the enlistment process took several days per man, with recruits
Introduction 9
actually lodging in a barracks at the depot. They were required to

fill out myriad forms, pass a series of aptitude tests and interviews,
and have a medical examination. Only after satisfying these require-
ments was a recruit accepted for service and sworn in. Using this
process, No. 6 Personnel Depot provided the Active Force with up
to six new soldiers each day. Obviously, it was totally incapable of
dealing with the hordes of Special Force volunteers, and total chaos
quickly ensued.
As recruiting for the Special Force commenced, No. 6 Personnel
Depot received instructions to provide hourly returns showing the
number of enlistments. The first of these showed only the five
recruits who had passed selection the day before. Meanwhile, seeing
the throngs of men cavorting around the depot, a reporter from
the Toronto Daily Star erroneously announced in the evening paper
that the city had enlisted 600 men in the Special Force. Unable to
reconcile the Star’s enlistment figures with those of his own depart-
ment, Minister of National Defence Brooke Claxton flew to Toronto
to sort things out.
Arriving in the city on 10 August, the minister and his entourage
quickly made their way to No. 6 Personnel Depot. “While medical
officers ‘thumped and listened’ and naked men coughed and
stretched,” Claxton darted from room to room pumping hands and
slapping backs.28 At one point the minister asked a potential recruit
if he had experienced any problems with the enlistment process. The
young man responded that, as he was under twenty-one, he was
ineligible for the army’s marriage allowance. A jovial Claxton
informed him that he would indeed receive the allowance, despite
repeated attempts by the depot’s paymaster to convince the minister
otherwise. The paymaster even went so far as to cite the regulations,
but to no avail. Commenting on this unexpected change in policy, an
officer wrote: “I believe this later caused legal headaches as members
of the Regular Army were not included for some months in this
‘ruling.’ I believe the [depot’s paymaster] carried this ball on the [min-
ister’s] verbal authority and instructions ‘out of the blue’ to ensure
marriage allowance was paid even if recruits were under 21.”29
Claxton’s impromptu change in the regulations governing the
army’s marriage allowance was a boon to public relations but did
nothing to simplify the recruitment of the Special Force. With the
press shadowing his every move, the minister jumped at an oppor-
tunity to pose in a photograph with the first soldier to enlist in the
10 Introduction
Special Force. The photograph later appeared in the national press,

although the soldier in question was subsequently released for not
meeting the minimum-age requirement of nineteen.30
Claxton’s visit to No. 6 Personnel Depot was not just for pub-
licity’s sake. Concerned that recruitment procedures were too elab-
orate and time consuming, the pencil-chewing minister continually
challenged the overworked clerks to justify why so much documen-
tation was required. Their responses confirmed Claxton’s suspi-
cions, and at the end of the visit he retired to the officers’ mess,
where he reportedly imbibed “three doubles” in quick succession.31
The next day, Claxton implemented a number of measures
designed to expedite recruitment of the Special Force: all applica-
tions were to be processed within twenty-four hours, interviews of
prospective recruits were cut from thirty to five minutes, and the
two-and-a-half-hour Educational Survey Test was jettisoned.32
Henceforth, all Special Force recruits were to be attested before
they were processed – meaning that recruits were sworn in as soon
as they entered a personnel depot and were issued with a chit
instructing them to return at a later date for documentation and a
medical examination. In actual practice, few recruits were able to
return as instructed once they reported for training. Instead, they
were documented and medically examined on an ad hoc basis at
their respective regimental training establishments. However,
according to one cynical recruiting officer, the “attest first, process
second” method of recruiting allowed the minister “to publicly
state the enlistment figures he wanted.”33
Not surprisingly, Claxton’s reforms rendered the army’s method
of screening and selecting recruits ineffective. Lieutenant-Colonel
Stone complained, “They were recruiting anybody who could
breathe or walk. Brooke Claxton pushed the enlistment along
because he was a politician at heart and didn’t really give a damn
about what else was happening. He was recruiting an army.”34
As the Special Force inductees commenced training, the conse-
quences of Claxton’s political expediency became painfully appar-
ent. At the rcr training establishment in Petawawa, Lieutenant-
Colonel Bingham, co of 1 rcr, recalled meeting a recruit who was
old enough to have served in the South African War, and another
who had a wooden leg! He also remembered “a milkman who
paraded himself with a request for compassionate leave. He had
Introduction 11
left his milk truck parked outside No. 6 Personnel Depot while he
went in to inquire about the Special Force. He had been swept up
in the stream of recruits, and had emerged at Camp Petawawa,
leaving his milk truck in the hot August sun of Toronto.”35
Other regiments reported similar occurrences. The sudden influx
of recruits into the ppcli training establishment at Calgary
included a large number of what Lieutenant-Colonel Stone classi-
fied as “undesirables.” This euphemism encompassed “dead-beats,
escapists from domestic and other troubles, cripples, neurotics,
alcoholics, and other useless types,” all of whom had to be weeded
out before the battalion was fit for deployment.36 The scores of
recruits arriving without documentation also made it difficult to
determine who had actually been enlisted; at least one civilian is
known to have joined the ppcli on the spur of the moment without
ever setting foot in a personnel depot.37
While chaos reigned at the training establishments, the Chief of
the General Staff, Lieutenant-General Charles Foulkes, reported to
Cabinet on 18 August that the Special Force was up to authorized
strength. However, it was decided that recruitment of reinforcements
would continue for several months to come.
Ironically, as the casf hurriedly prepared for battle, it appeared
as if it might not be needed in Korea after all. On 15 September,
after two months of bitter fighting along the Pusan perimeter, U.N.
forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur cap-
tured the strategic port of Inchon and began an advance up the
Korean peninsula. With the North Koreans on the brink of defeat,
there was talk that the war would be over by Christmas. Conse-
quently, the Canadian government reduced its planned contribution
of the casf and decided to send only one infantry battalion to
“show the flag” and assist with any U.N. occupation duties. At the
same time, the remaining units of the casf moved to Fort Lewis,
Washington, to complete training.
As the Canadians established themselves at Fort Lewis, there was
much uncertainty over what would become of the casf. Many
believed that once training was completed it would be deployed to
Europe as part of nato. Once again, however, events in Korea
intervened. On 24 November, MacArthur launched a general offen-
sive across the U.N. front. As his troops moved northward, they
encountered stiff resistance from Chinese forces, who had crossed
12 Introduction
into North Korea in mid-October. Since then, although they had

been appearing on the battlefield in considerable numbers, the U.N.
Command had been slow to recognize Chinese involvement.38
This time it was different. On 26 November, Communist Chinese
Forces (ccf) descended from their mountain sanctuaries and
launched a massive counteroffensive in the west, followed two days
later by an equally large attack in the east. Division after division
of United Nations and rok forces were either destroyed or forced
to make a hasty retreat in the face of the advancing Chinese jug-
gernaut. Recent scholarship suggests that the Chinese made the
decision to enter the conflict well before the Inchon landing,
although military unpreparedness and North Korean intransigence
delayed intervention.39 In any event, China’s entry sealed the fate
of the casf. With the war now destined to drag on for the fore-
seeable future, the Canadian government reversed its earlier decision
and decided to send the rest of the casf to Korea.
Meanwhile, the situation at the nation’s personnel depots grad-
ually returned to normal. This, however, was small consolation to
the Special Force units left to deal with the results of Claxton’s
hasty recruiting program. The administrative and disciplinary head-
aches caused by these undesirables defies description, although a
review of the Special Force’s predeployment absent-without-leave
(awol) and discharge figures provides some measure of the gravity
of the problem. When recruiting for the Special Force was termi-
nated at the end of March 1951, 10,208 men had been recruited,
2,230 had been discharged or were awaiting discharge, and 1,521
cases of desertion had been processed, including 501 who were still
unaccounted for.40 As the army’s official historian observed, “The
figure for discharges and unapprehended deserters, which is more
than 25 percent of the total numbers enlisted, compares with
7 percent for the first seven months of the First World War and
12 percent for the same period in the Second World War.”41
These decidedly sombre statistics should not allow us to lose sight
of the several thousand keen young men who enlisted in the Special
Force and proceeded overseas with their respective units. Although
they were always in the majority, these men have been overshad-
owed in the literature by the undesirable minority. Consequently,
we currently know very little about the social background of the
Special Force soldiers who actually served in Korea. Viewing the
entire casf through the lens of the initial recruiting fiasco, popular
Introduction 13
historians have characterized these units as comprising poorly edu-

cated, unemployed swashbucklers.42 While this is certainly true of
some of the soldiers who made it to Korea, it is by no means an
accurate depiction of the vast majority of Special Force soldiers. It
is also assumed that most casf soldiers had previous military expe-
rience, either in the Second World War or otherwise. These impres-
sions have never been subjected to rigorous analysis and have
resulted in an exaggerated social distinction between the allegedly
footloose and fancy-free soldiers of the Special Force and the spit
and polish regulars of the Active Force first battalions.43 While
there were differences between the two, some of the generalizations
that have appeared in recent years are completely unfounded.
The exaggerated social distinction between Special Force volun-
teer and Active Force regular is largely the result of reliance on
anecdotal evidence. Regimental histories and archives abound with
apocryphal tales of swashbuckling Special Force soldiers who
learned their trade not on Canadian parade squares but on the
tough battlefields of Europe. Indeed, Special Force soldiers often
referred to themselves as the “bums from the slums.”44 One such
legendary figure was Tommy Prince, a Canadian Native person who
served with the elite Devil’s Brigade during the Second World War.
With little formal education and a severe drinking problem, Prince
found it difficult to adjust to civilian life after the war. Promoted
to sergeant shortly after his re-enlistment in the 2 ppcli, he was
supposedly overheard addressing a group of enlisted men: “You’re
in the Princess Patricia’s now. You are hard! You drink hard! You
play hard! You love hard! You hate hard! You fight hard! You can
decide what you drink, how you play, who you love. We’ll decide
who you hate and who you fight.”45
Legendary figures like Tommy Prince and the myths that have
grown up around him are all too often used to characterize the
entire Special Force. In actuality, casf soldiers were slightly older
than their first battalion counterparts.46 The average age of Special
Force men when they sailed for Korea was 25.2 years, compared
with 23.6 years in the Active Force. The average level of formal
education attained in both formations was grade 8, and the number
of soldiers who were unemployed at the time of their enlistment
was identical at 7 percent.
There also was little difference in their geographical origins. A
full 79 percent of casf and 77 percent of Active Force soldiers
14 Introduction
were born in their regiment’s traditional recruiting areas,47 while

84 and 80 percent, respectively, resided in these areas at the time
of their enlistment. Religious affiliation in the casf and the Active
Force was almost identical, with just over half (51 and 52 percent)
adhering to the Roman Catholic faith – a reflection, no doubt, of
the r22er presence. The rest of the men in both formations
belonged to a variety of predominantly Protestant denominations,
of which the Anglican Church was the largest.
Family status also was similar. Contrary to popular belief, casf
soldiers were slightly less likely to be single than first battalion
soldiers, although of the married men, those in the Active Force
were more likely to have a family. However, the difference between
the two (69 and 62 percent respectively) was minor.
In terms of previous military service, casf soldiers had a wealth
of experience: a full 75 percent of them had served in the military
(cadets, militia, or Second World War) before their Special Force
enlistment. Significantly, the first battalions also contained a sur-
prisingly large number of men with previous military experience.
Nearly half of them (44 percent) had served in the military before
their initial Active Force engagement. Thus, in terms of age and
military experience as well as social background, the exaggerated
distinctions between Active Force regular and Special Force volunteer
are tenuous at best.
The debacle of casf recruitment was, alas, only the first in a
series of blunders and oversights that ultimately shaped the Cana-
dian infantry’s Korean experience. Some were the result of the
army’s total unpreparedness for war in Korea, while others
stemmed from a seemingly indifferent Canadian high command.
Either way, the consequences for individual foot soldiers were noth-
ing short of horrendous, making their Far Eastern tours far more
difficult and dangerous than they need have been.
From the outset, Canadian soldiers were not suitably prepared
for combat in Korea. Their training was more appropriate for
European-style warfare. Equipment was also a problem. Although
they had first-rate support weapons, the Canadians were forced to
rely on outmoded personal weapons and equipment. In the close-
quarter patrol clashes that were such a feature of the fighting in
Korea, Canadian soldiers were at a distinct disadvantage. Their
Chinese adversaries, armed with the latest Communist bloc auto-
matic weapons, routinely brought superior firepower to bear and
Introduction 15
won the firefight. Inadequate weaponry and the Canadians’ obvious

training deficiencies combined to undermine battlefield perfor-
mance and shape the image of the Chinese soldier as superman.
Combat motivation and the willingness to engage the enemy in
active combat, as evidenced by the Canadians’ increased reliance
on support weapons, suffered accordingly.
The infantry’s problems extended into other areas. Insufficient
indoctrination left soldiers poorly prepared for the non-combat
aspects of service in the Far East, leading some to question the
purpose of Canadian involvement in Korea. The lack of indoctri-
nation also shaped Canadian impressions of, and relations with,
the people of the country they were sent to defend. Soldiers were
shocked by the primitive conditions they encountered, and some
allowed their Western prejudices to develop into open contempt for
the Korean people.
On the battlefield, relations with Koreans were influenced by more
pragmatic concerns. The porters and labourers of the Korean Service
Corps – who kept the forward positions supplied with food, water,
and ammunition, and who dug trenches and evacuated the wounded
– were held in high esteem by the Canadians. The Korean Augmen-
tation Troops, Commonwealth, or katcoms, on the other hand,
were generally despised. Poorly trained and seldom fluent in either
English or French, the katcoms were integrated into front-line
Canadian infantry units during the last few months of the war. This
unprecedented move demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding
on the part of certain Canadian commanders of the importance of
group cohesion to combat soldiers. The results were disastrous.
The Korean War also witnessed the battlefield debut of two med-
ical/technical innovations: the armoured fragmentation vest and the
medevac helicopter. Unfortunately, the limited availability of these
American-designed and -manufactured items prevented their having
a major impact on the Canadian casualty experience in Korea. Only
during the last three months of the war were sufficient numbers of
vests available to outfit most Canadian fighting men. Helicopters
were also in short supply and, as a consequence, all Canadian requests
for evacuation had to be approved by American medical authorities.
Thus, only the grievously wounded could expect a helicopter mede-
vac. Moreover, ground fire and inclement weather often resulted in
men with life-threatening injuries making the uncomfortable journey
to the casualty clearing post by jeep ambulance instead.
16 Introduction
Although Canadian soldiers enjoyed a reasonable standard of

medical care in Korea, they were susceptible to a variety of infec-
tious diseases with which Canadian medical officers had little expe-
rience. Hepatitis, malaria, Japanese encephalitis, and the horror-
movie-calibre haemorrhagic fever all posed serious threats to the
health of Canadian soldiers in Korea. Far more prevalent, however,
was venereal disease. Unpreparedness and the failure of defence
planners to institute the appropriate preventive measures resulted
in a vd rate that surpassed not only those of the other Western
allies in Korea but also that of the Canadian Army in the world
wars and also Canada’s nato brigade in Germany.
Contributing to the Canadians’ staggering vd rate was the general
lack of concern for the soldiers’ welfare. In the combat zone, they
lived like beggars without even the most basic comforts and amen-
ities. The Canadian Army postal service compared unfavourably
with its British and American counterparts, and it was only during
the final year of the war that a frugal Department of National
Defence agreed to send civilian concert parties to the Far East to
entertain the troops. Reading and writing material was practically
non-existent in the forward areas, nor were there enough blankets
or stoves to go round.
One item that was abundant was beer. The austere conditions in
Korea, coupled with the failure of the Canadian rotation and rest
and recreation policies to sustain morale, encouraged heavy drink-
ing amongst front-line troops. Issued on an almost daily basis and
easily obtainable from regimental canteens just behind the front
line, beer was the pillar buttressing Canadian morale in Korea. This
wholesale dependence on alcohol often undermined operational
performance and created disciplinary problems. But perhaps the
greatest tragedy was the number of men whose alcohol dependency
did not end with Korea.
Not that the Canadian public did anything to assist returned
men. Korean veterans returned to a prosperous country that cared
little for the war in Korea and even less for the men who had served
there. Many felt marginalized by such veterans’ groups as the Royal
Canadian Legion, finding solace with their comrades in the Korean
Veterans Association. Only recently have plaques bearing the
inscription “Korea, 1950–53,” been added to war memorials across
the country, and it was not until 1992 that the government approved
issue of the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal for Korea.
Introduction 17
For too long, public and governmental apathy have obfuscated

the experiences of the Canadian infantry during the Korean War.
In Korea, the Canadians encountered a land, a climate, a people,
and an enemy that were more unfamiliar and unforgiving than
anything Canadian soldiers had ever faced before. Yet the impres-
sion remains that Korea was a “conflict” or “police action,” or
even a “peacekeeping” operation. For the men who spilled their
blood on those anonymous Korean hills it was nothing of the sort.
Their Far Eastern tours were twelve-month journeys through hell
from which some never returned. Korea was most certainly a war,
and it is high time the public acknowledged this fact. Canadian
infantrymen fought and suffered in that far-off Asian land because
we, through the medium of the Canadian government, asked them
to. As the benefactors of their sacrifice, can we justifiably ignore
the ordeal of Canadian combat soldiers in Korea any longer?
chapter one
Slit-Trench Attitude
Military training prepares soldiers to fulfil their duties in an oper-

ational context as part of a fighting unit. As Richard Holmes
observed, “A great part of a man’s behaviour on the battlefield,
and hence of the fighting effectiveness of the army to which he
belongs, depends upon training.”1 In order to be truly effective,
then, training should be tailored to the theatre of operations in
question. Paradoxically, the theatre that exerted the most influence
on the direction and substance of Canadian infantry training during
the Korean War was Northwest Europe. With few exceptions, the
training Canadian soldiers received was predicated on the assump-
tion that they would be participating in combined-arms operations
across the open expanses of Northwest Europe, not small-unit con-
flict in the mountains of Korea. As a result, the Canadians found
themselves unprepared for the exigencies of the Korean battlefield
in three important areas: individual weapons handling, patrolling,
and, as the war progressed, the construction and maintenance of
defensive positions. In Korea, these constituted the combat soldier’s
holy triad of battlefield skills – skills that were given short shrift
during the Canadians’ preparation for battle.
Because of the confusion that arose in Canada when so many
soldiers of the Special Force poured into the regimental training
establishments, it was not possible to begin training in earnest until
the middle of August. The experiences of the ppcli during this
tumultuous period are particularly well documented and generally
reflect those of the casf as a whole. In the days following the
Canadian government’s call to arms, the 1 ppcli commenced draft-
ing and setting up a training program for its second addition.
Slit-Trench Attitude 19
However, there was not enough time to prepare fully for the flood
of new recruits. Despite 1 ppcli’s best efforts to maintain some
semblance of military order, the regiment’s base at Currie Barracks,
Calgary, was overwhelmed. In retrospect, it is a wonder that the
base’s administrative and logistical framework did not crumble
under the sheer weight of numbers. The kitchen, for example, oper-
ated at nearly twice its normal capacity until 20 August, while the
Regimental Quartermaster’s Stores ran for nearly a month on a
23-hour-a-day schedule.2
As already noted, a training cadre from the 1st Battalion was
responsible for training and administering the 2nd Battalion until it
was ready to function on its own. To this end the sixteen officers
and fifty-two other ranks of the 1 ppcli training cadre divided them-
selves into schools of instruction, through which recruits progressed
until they were basically trained and ready for advanced training.3
This system maximized precious training time by making provisions
for recruits with previous military service. Thus, when 2 ppcli
began to train in earnest on 14 August, twenty-six recruits who had
previous military experience started advanced training at neighbour-
ing Camp Sarcee. Upon completing advanced training, these veter-
ans became the 2 ppcli’s first section leaders. As such, they formed
the foundation on which the battalion command structure would
be built.
As the enlisted men of the battalion trained at Currie Barracks,
their officers, all of whom were either veterans of the Second World
War or serving members in the militia or the Active Force, were
undergoing a refresher course at Calgary. The co of the battalion,
Lieutenant-Colonel Stone, supervised the course and ensured that
it kept up with recruit training.4
At the beginning of September, the Advanced Wing from Camp
Sarcee, consisting of 7 officers and 208 other ranks, together with
the 1 ppcli training cadre, moved to Camp Wainwright, Alberta.
Wainwright today, with its sprawling barrack blocks and computer-
controlled firing range, bears scant resemblance to the camp the
soldiers of Advanced Training Wing encountered five decades ago.
To the chagrin of the troops, the camp was situated in a sparsely
populated region some 125 miles east of Edmonton, and access was
limited to a rail line and dirt road.5 As a further complement to their
austere surroundings, the troops were billeted in the same prefabri-
cated, tar-papered h huts that had quartered German soldiers when
20 Slit-Trench Attitude
Wainwright was a prisoner-of-war camp. But the officers of

Advanced Wing welcomed the isolation of Wainwright; here, train-
ing could proceed unfettered by the remaining vestiges of the enlisted
men’s civilian lives.6 The 2 ppcli was beginning to take shape.
So were the other infantry units of the Special Force. In Valcartier,
the r22er adopted a similar approach to training and by late
August had begun to train its Special Force recruits in earnest. In
Petawawa, meanwhile, the now up to strength 2 rcr organized its
surplus manpower into an ad hoc reinforcement company.7 By early
November, all of the first battalion training programs had come to
an end, and 2 ppcli, 2 r22er, and 2 rcr were officially recognized
as independent units.8
It is instructive to outline the organization of a Canadian infantry
battalion. At the time of the Korean War, a full-strength battalion
comprised approximately 1,000 men all ranks. At the top of the
battalion hierarchy was Battalion Headquarters, consisting of 5
officers (including the battalion commander) and 45 other ranks.
The backbone of the battalion was the four rifle companies – Able,
Baker, Charlie, and Dog companies – each with 5 officers and 122
other ranks. The rifle company was subdivided into three platoons,
each consisting of one officer and 36 other ranks. Within the bat-
talion, platoons were numbered one through twelve, beginning with
those from Able Company. Thus, 1, 2, and 3 platoons would be
from Able Company, 4, 5, and 6 platoons from Baker Company,
7, 8, and 9 platoons from Charlie Company, and 10, 11, and
12 platoons from Dog Company. The platoon in turn was further
subdivided into three sections, each with two non-commissioned
officers (ncos), and eight enlisted men. Rounding out the battalion
was a Headquarters (hq) Company (4 officers and 91 other ranks),
and a Support Company (7 officers and 185 other ranks). Support
Company was subdivided into four platoons – Mortar, Carrier
(machine-gun), Antitank, and Pioneer platoons – which provided
the battalion with close battlefield support.
It will be recalled from the previous chapter that in the aftermath
of General MacArthur’s capture of Inchon in September 1950, the
Canadian government reduced its planned contribution of the Spe-
cial Force and decided to send only one battalion of infantry to
Korea, the 2 ppcli, to assist with any U.N. occupation duties. With
the departure of the 2 ppcli to Korea in late November, the remain-
ing units of the Special Force (now known as the 25th Canadian
Infantry Brigade Group) concentrated at Fort Lewis, Washington,

to complete training. Fort Lewis was selected for its mild climate
and large training area; in peacetime it was the home station of the
2nd U.S. Infantry Division. At this time the 25th Canadian Infantry
Brigade (25th cib) was left with a large pool of first-line reinforce-
ments who had been enlisted during the August recruiting drive.
At the beginning of December, these reinforcements were organized
into three understrength training battalions.9 The new units were
designated third battalions of the rcr, r22er, and ppcli.10
All Canadian soldiers who served in Korea, whether in the Spe-
cial Force or the Active Force, began their military service with
individual training. “Individual training,” as defined by the 1950
Canadian Army training pamphlet Training for War, is “a compre-
hensive term which embraces instruction at a staff college or senior
officers’ school as well as the most elementary instruction in the
use of arms, and implies that the student is being trained as an
individual rather than as a member of a team.”11
For enlisted personnel, individual training had two distinct phases.
The first, commonly referred to as recruit training, was six weeks
in duration and endeavoured to break recruits and then remold
them in the military ethos. This was achieved by subjecting them
to extreme mental and physical privations. These included excessive
drill, sleep deprivation, relentless physical training, harassment, and
draconian group punishment for individual transgressions.12 Para-
doxically, the first phase of individual training also cemented small-
unit cohesion. Under such conditions of shared hardship, the indi-
vidual recruit’s civilian values and identity were expunged and
replaced by those of the group.13 As Richard Holmes has shown, the
harshness of basic training has a direct impact on the cohesiveness
of the unit that undergoes it.14
For most recruits, the first few weeks of recruit training were
almost unbearable. The seemingly egalitarian atmosphere of the
personnel depot was replaced by an entrenched hierarchical rank
structure, in which the raw recruit clung precariously to the bottom
rung. All vestiges of his civilian past, including his hair, were
stripped away, and he was no longer permitted to wear civilian
clothes. He seldom heard his first name and had minimal contact
with the outside world. He quickly learned that his well-being was
inextricably bound to that of his fellow recruits, and that even the
slightest infraction would be rewarded with a series of expletive-laced
insults from the training staff. A recruit whose turnout or perfor-

mance was judged to be below standard was harassed and assigned
extra duties. At the time of the Korean War, he could even be
punched by an instructor. Private Stanley Carmichael recalled that
his “instructors were real hardasses”: “I thought they would have
been a little easier since most of them were not much older than me,
but boy was I wrong.”15 And according to Private Bill Nasby, “The
instructors were really strict and didn’t have time for any whiny
bullshit. I remember on one occasion a guy in my unit made the
mistake of showing how well he could twirl his rifle when he should
have been cleaning it. It worked out well for the rest of us because
the sergeant had him clean all our rifles for the remainder of the
week. It was the last time he showed off in front of the guys.”16
A recruit who persistently fell below the required standard also
faced the wrath of his peers. A soldier in the 1 r22er remembered
“a way within the unit to keep the guys in line, because if one guy
messed up, the whole section was in trouble.”17 In actuality, there
were several ways, but the most common was the nocturnal blanket
party. The offender was pinned in his bunk under a taut banket,
and systematically beaten by his peers. One blanket party was
usually sufficient incentive for the offender to clean up his act.
Recruits were also subjected to more official forms of military
socialization. Lectures on regimental history were given frequently,
and visits to the regimental museum were de rigueur.18 They also
learned the motto and traditions of their regiment, which they
would be expected to uphold once they completed training. In the
rcr, for example, recruits learned the meaning of the regimental
motto, Pro patria, and discovered that on 27 February the regiment
commemorated the Battle of Paardeberg.19
To civilians, instruction in the minutiae of regimental life might
seem picayune; however, it did perform an important function. On
the one hand, immersion in regimental lore reinforced the recruit’s
sense that he was now part of an organization whose ultimate
purpose was to wage war.20 On the other, it solidified his new
identity as a member of the regimental family. Lance-Corporal John
Murray reminisced, “I knew as part of the Patricias, I was expected
to maintain a strong sense of pride and loyalty. That was something
that was drilled into our heads constantly.”21
Military socialization was the first objective of recruit training,
but it was not the only one. The latter stages also included instruction
in basic military skills, such as first aid, weapons handling, elemen-

tary fieldcraft, and an introduction to small-unit tactics.22 Many
veterans found this stage of recruit training to be a rehash of their
earlier experiences. While Lance-Corporal William Powell rated the
training by his ncos as “fair,” he felt that when they were training
him, “they were still thinking about the Second World War.”23
Similarly, Private Kenneth Blampied, a veteran of the Second World
War, found that many of the things he had learned five years earlier
“were still the same.”24
After receiving a grounding in the basic military skills, the soldier
progressed to advanced infantry training. This six-week course
prepared the soldier for the individual duties he would carry out
as a member of an infantry battalion. For example, if posted to a
rifle company, he received further instruction in small-unit tactics,
weapons handling, fieldcraft, field fortifications, map using, and
battle drill.25
There is a substantial body of evidence which suggests that the
Canadian Army’s Advanced Training Program failed to produce
what Captain W.R. Chamberlain of the Royal Canadian Dragoons
called a “functional rifleman.”26 By this, he meant a combat soldier
who was aggressive and willing to engage and destroy the enemy
at close range.27 Heavily influenced by S.L.A. Marshall, and citing
Canadian Army Operational Research Team reports from the
Second World War, Chamberlain argued that 75–85 percent of the
men in the rifle platoons did not fire their weapons at the enemy.28
Chamberlain (like Marshall) held that this reluctance to fire was
attributal to the soldiers’ pre-enlistment civilian values and inad-
equate training. In a Canadian Army Journal article that appeared
one month before the first Canadians were committed to battle in
Korea, he wrote: “The civilian enters his military training with
this reluctance to kill firmly implanted in his mind. Nor does he
at any period during his training receive any purposeful indoctri-
nation that will motivate him in such a way that he is prepared
to shoot his enemy on sight without having first received a direct
order to do so.”29
Insofar as training was concerned, Chamberlain suggested that
the Canadian infantryman’s reluctance to fire – the “slit-trench atti-
tude,” as he called it – was the result of the army’s emphasis on the
mechanical and physical aspects of weapons handling.30 He argued
that most weapons training was dull and boring, and primarily
concerned with teaching recruits the parts and characteristics of

their weapons and how to strip and clean them.31
The Canadian infantry may not have received adequate instruc-
tion in even these basic skills. The 3 rcr’s Lieutenant-Colonel
Campbell complained that his men’s “great fault (and it is the fault
of the whole army) is that they have no proper regard for their
equipment, weapons, [and] ammunition.”32 The 2 ppcli’s Major
R.K. Swinton reported a similar problem in his battalion.33
The drill-hall approach to weapons training was replicated on
the firing range. Troops marched out, by day, to a level field, where
they were lined up and instructed to lie down in the prone position.
On command, they commenced firing at a two-dimensional black-
and-white target that was always posted at hundred-yard intervals
to correspond with the graduations on their rifle sights.34 Firing
was by the book, and woe betide any soldier who displayed initia-
tive in either his firing position or his choice of target. As Cham-
berlain correctly pointed out, this method of weapons training had
little in common with actual battlefield conditions. In combat, the
soldier was rarely presented with an unobstructed field of view and
level firing surface.35 Moreover, the target was rarely stationary,
almost never at a fixed range, and he usually fired back.
To overcome the Canadian rifleman’s slit-trench attitude,
Chamberlain recommended that recruits be subjected to constant
indoctrination to foment aggressiveness. “It is not a question of
engendering hatred for the enemy in the recruit’s mind,” he wrote,
“but of impressing upon him that his sole function is to kill the
enemy, and if he does not perform that function when the oppor-
tunity presents itself, he is useless.”36 The available evidence sug-
gests that the Canadian Army did not take Chamberlain’s
recommendation to heart: in a report published in June 1953,
Major Harry Pope identified a strong reluctance to close with the
enemy on the part of Canadian troops in Korea.37
Chamberlain advocated a more realistic weapons training pro-
gram that would make use of three-dimensional targets, encourage
initiative, and teach soldiers to fire the instant they encountered
enemy action.38 This was easier said than done, for the process of
familiarizing recruits with the audio and visual characteristics of
the battlefield was fraught with insurmountable bureaucratic hur-
dles during the Korean War. Known as “battle inoculation,” this
type of training called for the use of live fire and pyrotechnic devices
in a manner not normally deemed safe in peacetime. Battle inocu-

lation exercises during the Second World War, for example, had
often used Vickers machine guns mounted on tripods to fire live
rounds five degrees to the flank of soldiers negotiating assault
courses.39 In 1950, however, peacetime rules governing the use of
live fire in training were still in effect. Thus, when it was decided
that Canadian ground troops would take part in U.N. operations
in Korea, there were severe restrictions on the use of live fire in
training schemes. Astonishingly, the Department of National
Defence refused to relax the peacetime restrictions, and no Canadian
soldier to serve in Korea took part in live-fire battle inoculation
exercises during individual training in Canada.40
The inadequacy of Canadian weapons training was brought to
the attention of the Vice-Chief of the General Staff, Major-General
H.A. Sparling, in November 1952 when he visited Canadian units
in Korea. He was informed that the level of individual weapons
handling under battlefield conditions was depressingly low.41 On
his return to Canada, Sparling instructed the Directorate General
of Military Training (dgmt) to determine how individual weapons
training could be improved.42 The dgmt duly investigated the mat-
ter, but no instructions for an amended individual training program
appear to have been issued before the soldiers of the third battal-
ions, the last Canadian troops to see combat in Korea, embarked
for the Far East. Indeed, in summarizing his battalion’s experiences
after the war, Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell reported that it was
always necessary to run weapons-handling courses in Korea.43
A possible explanation for the general inadequacy of Canadian
weapons training is that it simply reflected the doctrinal belief that
individual rifle fire meant very little to the overall conduct of oper-
ations. Certainly, on the European battlefield, masses of armour
and artillery were expected to decide the outcome of any conven-
tional engagement. In such a scenario, rifle fire was relegated to a
marginal role, reinforcing the popular dictum that armour and
artillery conquer, and infantry occupies. In the mountains of Korea,
however, where the roles were largely reversed and a high standard
of individual weapons handling was absolutely essential, the results
of inadequate weapons training quickly became evident.
Another oversight that reflected this European focus was the lack
of instruction in the maintenance and construction of defensive
works. As has been seen, the latter stages of advanced training
included instruction in fieldcraft and field fortifications. It was at

this time that recruits were introduced to the infantryman’s second-
best friend: the spade. Most soldiers despise digging, and the train-
ing Canadian recruits received during the Korean War certainly did
nothing to correct this. Aside from the occasional hastily dug fox-
hole or shell-scrape (a trench with overhead protection), recruits
did comparatively little digging of the kind that was called for in
Korea.44 With the shift to static warfare in late 1951, the inade-
quacy of Canadian training in the construction and maintenance
of defensive positions gradually became apparent. According to a
bulletin entitled Training Hints for a Battalion Destined for Korea,
issued by the dgmt in late 1952, Canadian troops required more
training in laying barbed wire, constructing and maintaining fighting
trenches and bunkers, and filling and laying sandbags.45
The available evidence suggests that the soldiers of the 3 rcr
and 3 r22er were given extra instruction in these areas before they
embarked for Korea in the spring of 1953. At Valcartier, for exam-
ple, the soldiers of 3 r22er built a Korean-style defensive position
on a small hill in the centre of the camp just before their deploy-
ment.46 While this was undoubtedly a step in the right direction,
it was, in hindsight, too little, too late. Training Hints was issued
too late to be of any use to the soldiers of 3 ppcli who embarked
for the Far East in October 1952, and as Lieutenant-Colonel Camp-
bell explained, it was “not possible to do effective field training
after the summer of 1952.”47 Thus, although he considered his men
to be better trained than those in the second or first battalions when
they embarked for Korea, Campbell still found himself confronting
a serious shortcoming in the individual training of his men.48
On completion of advanced training, the individual infantryman
was ready to take his place in the order of battle, but he still had
to be trained to function as part of sub-unit within the infantry
battalion. This was the object of collective training. According to
the 1950 Canadian Army training manual Training for War, “Col-
lective training means exercises and manoeuvres, the keynote of
both being realism.”49 Collective training, like individual training,
may be divided into two distinct categories. The first, sub-unit
training, is progressive, starting with the smallest sub-unit, the
infantry section, and continuing upwards to the company level. On
completing sub-unit training, companies undergo formation training
at the battalion, or unit, level. Unit training, therefore, is synonymous
with battalion training and is the final stage of training before an

infantry soldier is ready for battle.
With the exception of 2 ppcli, all Canadian infantrymen under-
went collective training at North American camps. When 2 ppcli
embarked for Korea, the soldiers of the battalion had not yet
started collective training. Few were troubled by this, because it
was believed that the Patricias would not be taking part in active
operations. However, the changed tactical context that greeted the
soldiers of 2 ppcli on their arrival in Korea made it absolutely
imperative that they complete collective training as soon as possi-
ble. To this end, the Patricias moved to a training camp at Miryang,
fifty miles north of Pusan. As it turned out, the necessity of having
to complete collective training in the rugged hills above Miryang
was a blessing. From the outset, the Patricias learned how to survive
and manœuvre over the type of terrain they would be fighting over.
Their close proximity to the front also ensured that their training
program incorporated the tactical lessons that were being learned
by U.N. forces already engaged in active operations.50 Mastery of
these tactical lessons was one of the contributing factors to the
battalion’s successful defence of Hill 677 during the battle of
Kap’yong in April 1951. But while the Patricias’ tailor-made train-
ing program proved beneficial in the short term, it shared an impor-
tant deficiency with the collective programs of the other Canadian
units to serve in Korea – a lack of emphasis on patrolling.
Patrolling is an inseparable part of field operations to the extent
that an army that does not patrol vigorously and effectively quickly
surrenders the tactical initiative to the enemy. This was particularly
the case in Korea, where the mountainous terrain placed a premium
on small-unit patrol skills. Moreover, with the occupation of static
lines of defence in late 1951, it became essential to control the
approaches leading from the valley floors, or “no man’s land,” to
the hilltop defensive positions. Failure to dominate this vital ground
gave an attacking enemy the element of surprise and the ability to
harass or ambush one’s own patrols.
The Canadian infantry used four different types of patrols in
Korea.51 The first and most common was the standing patrol, which
varied in size from three or four men to a complete section. Stand-
ing patrols went out regardless of the weather, usually at last light,
and occupied a stationary position to the Canadians’ front. Their
purpose was to observe and report enemy movement and to call
down artillery fire on any troop concentrations in the area. The

second type was the reconaissance, or “recce,” patrol, which seldom
numbered more than three men; its purpose was to provide field
commanders with intelligence on enemy dispositions. Recces would
often “lie up” in no man’s land for several days, placing an enor-
mous physical and emotional strain on the men in the patrol. Third
were the nuisance, or roving, patrols, containing up to twenty men,
whose job it was to harass the enemy in no man’s land or on the
approaches to their own positions. Finally, there were fighting
patrols. These varied in strength, but could at times involve an
entire company; their purpose was to seek out and destroy the
enemy through one of two means: an ambush or a raid. Ambushes
usually required fewer men than a raid and were set along routes
or paths thought to be travelled by the enemy. Raids, on the other
hand, were launched against enemy positions to destroy field for-
tifications and capture prisoners. With the renewal of peace talks
at Panmunjom in the fall of 1951 and the U.N. Command’s con-
comitant policy of “active defence,” ambushes and raids became the
primary means through which the enemy was brought to battle.52
Patrolling in Korea was therefore an art.53 Success was dependent
on sound collective training, particularly at the section and platoon
levels. According to the Canadian Army training pamphlet, The
Infantry Battalion in Battle, “The successful collective training of
an infantry battalion depends above all on … a high standard of
rifle and specialist platoon training. Each platoon must be thor-
oughly trained as a team in the various phases of battle and every
rifle platoon must be capable of carrying out the role of a fighting
patrol.”54 However, patrol reports and training bulletins from the
Korean War indicate that the Canadians did not meet the standard
outlined in the official doctrine. The first indication that Canadian
soldiers were not adequately trained in patrol techniques came
shortly after the 2 ppcli was committed to battle. A training bul-
letin prepared for Army Headquarters in Ottawa reported:
Conduct of foot patrols by day and night has not been up to required
standards. Patrols have failed to penetrate to depths required to gain
contact and locate forming-up areas; they have failed to observe the area
they were to patrol prior to departing, to select alternate routes, to obtain
the information required by their missions, and to return by previously
designated routes. Often they have been incapable of reporting what they
have seen. Our training must cover more thoroughly these basic subjects
and place more emphasis on night patrolling.55
Most other Canadian infantry units to serve in Korea appear to

have experienced the same problems as the Patricias.56 So pro-
nounced was the 25th Brigade’s inability to patrol vigorously and
effectively that in May 1953 Brigadier Jean-Victor Allard 57
instructed one of his most capable staff officers, Major Harry Pope,
to look into the matter. Pope published his findings on 2 June 1953
in a paper entitled “Infantry Patrolling in Korea.” He argued force-
fully that the enemy had held the tactical initiative since the begin-
ning of 1952.58 Reiterating many of the shortcomings in Canadian
patrol techniques cited above, Pope averred that with very few
exceptions, the Canadians had not conducted a successful patrol in
no man’s land.59 The 25th Brigade had simply been outclassed by
a skilful and determined opponent, who used specially trained
troops to raid and ambush Canadian patrols “at will.” Pope was
not solely concerned with the training implications of the 25th
Brigade’s inability to patrol effectively; his paper raised a number
of related issues, which will be discussed in a subsequent chapter.
Nevertheless, his findings did expose the extent to which Canadian
infantry units had neglected patrolling in their predeployment
collective training programs.
Predictably, not all Canadian battalion commanders were
impressed with Pope’s findings. Chief among them was Lieutenant-
Colonel H.F. Wood, the Canadian official historian and command-
ing officer of 3 ppcli in Korea. In Strange Battleground, Wood
summarized some of Pope’s more salient findings at length and then
attempted to discount them in a decidedly condescending footnote
that questioned Pope’s battlefield credentials.60 In actuality, Major
Pope was a highly experienced field officer, having served with
distinction in the Italian campaign and in Northwest Europe, as well
as in two tours in Korea with the r22er before his appointment
to Brigadier Allard’s staff.61 Perhaps Pope’s resignation from the
army in 1959 over nato nuclear policy and his subsequent affili-
ation with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation62 afforded
Wood some leeway in attacking him in an official Department of
National Defence publication. Moreover, contrary to what the offi-
cial historian claimed, there is evidence supporting Pope’s conclu-
sions and his thesis that Canadian infantry units did not place
enough emphasis on patrolling during their collective training pro-

grams – evidence that Wood either did not see or chose to ignore.
During his visit to Korea in late November 1952 (by which time
Lieutenant-Colonel Wood’s battalion had been in Korea for a
month), Major-General Sparling had also been informed that Cana-
dian collective training programs needed to place more emphasis
on patrolling.63 Training Hints, which appeared towards the end of
1952, made a similar appeal.64 However, patrolling was supposed
to be an integral part of any collective training program, regardless
of the operational situation in Korea or elsewhere. Why, then,
did the Canadians find themselves inadequately trained for patrol
operations in Korea?
With the obvious exception of 2 ppcli, whose collective training
program was largely devoted to the tactics of hilltop defence,65 the
training of Canadian infantry battalions ws not geared to the Korean
situation. As David Bercuson has observed, the Canadian Army of
the early 1950s was “structured, equipped, trained, and located to
fight a major all-arms battle alongside Canada’s nato allies against
the Soviet army.”66 Even the units of the Special Force who com-
pleted collective training at Fort Lewis focused on combined-arms
operations rather than small-unit patrols, though it must be admit-
ted that at this time the war in Korea had not yet become static.67
To make matters worse, it was subsequently discovered that the
camp’s climate and terrain was not entirely appropriate for troops
training for battle in Korea.68
The infantry battalions who subsequently prepared for battle on
the open expanses of Canadian training areas seem to have adopted
a similar focus. Commenting on the collective training he received
at Wainwright, Alberta, Private Stanley Carmichael of 1 ppcli
stated: “I was shipped out to Currie Barracks … and then up to
Wainwright where we really learned most of our training. Looking
back on my Korean experience, I realize [we] were not prepared
for the Korean terrain … Most of the area we would occupy in
Korea was pretty mountainous and deep terrain, yet at Wainwright
we practised a lot of open exercises which at the time seemed to
make sense to me.”69
The focus on European-style mobile warfare was also in evidence
at training camps in the East. Corporal James Wilson of 1 rcr
averred that during training at Camp Petawawa, “the young snot-
nosed officers” were constantly “trying to establish a battlefront
like Germany as opposed to the realities of Korea.”70 And accord-

ing to Lieutenant-Colonel L.F. Trudeau, co of 1 r22er, “When
faced with training men for [Korea], [I] knew there would be dif-
ficulties, given that most training had prepared [me] and others for
the European landscape, and not the Korean terrain.”71
As has been seen, the third battalions made an attempt to orient
their training to Korean conditions.72 For example, during training
at Camp Wainwright in the summer of 1952, provision was made
for the third battalion rifle companies to attend the Canadian Army
Mountain Warfare Course at Jasper, Alberta. Although this was a
step in the right direction, these exercises were the exception to the
rule: collective training continued to be devoted primarily to cross-
country combined-arms exercises at the battalion and brigade lev-
els.73 Moreover, as was the case with individual training, the dgmt
bulletins that appeared towards the end of 1952 calling for an
increased emphasis on patrolling in Canadian collective training
programs appeared too late to be of any significant use to the
3 rcr and 3 r22er.
The end result of the 25th Brigade’s insufficient patrol training was
that Canadian infantry units deployed to Korea were ill prepared for
the operations they would subsequently be called on to carry out.
Several battalion commanders in Korea attempted to compensate for
their men’s lack of training by conducting patrol courses when their
units were in reserve. However, it was not until May 1953 that the
25th Brigade finally opened a patrol school in Korea. As the official
historian himself conceded, this was too little, too late.74
Canadian infantry training during the Korean War thus con-
tained serious deficiencies at both the individual and collective
levels. Weapons training was not entirely suited to combat condi-
tions, and there was a general disregard for training in the con-
struction and maintenance of fieldworks. At the collective level,
there was a lack of emphasis on patrolling, since training was
largely geared towards preparing soldiers for European-style com-
bined-arms operations. Deficiencies in these areas meant that, with
few exceptions, the Canadian infantry took to the field largely
unprepared for the combat conditions encountered in Korea.
Although efforts were made to improve the standard of individual
and collective training in the 25th Brigade, these usually came too
late to offer any practical benefit. A similar pattern emerges in
regard to the infantry’s small arms and personal equipment.
chapter two
A Lot of Good Men Died
One of the key factors in soldiers’ combat performance is the qual-

ity of their equipment. During the two world wars, this had been
based on British designs to the extent that it was often difficult to
differentiate Canadian infantry units from their Commonwealth
counterparts. In Korea, however, 25th Brigade fighting men were
outfitted with a mixture of Canadian, British, and American equip-
ment.1 Like their predecessors, they carried British-pattern small
arms, but this was the first time Canadian troops had used Cana-
dian kit or relied on American support weapons. Thus, the Korean
War may be considered a watershed in the technological evolution
of the Canadian infantry. Yet, with the exception of the support
weapons, this evolution was not to Canadian soldiers’ advantage.
As the war in Korea progressed, they found themselves increasingly
ill equipped to meet the operational exigencies of static warfare.
When the Korean War broke out, the Canadian Army was still
largely equipped with Second World War, British-pattern equip-
ment. As World War gave way to Cold War, plans to re-equip the
Active Force with the latest in American military hardware were
countenanced.2 Due to many factors, including U.S. export laws
and Canada’s shortage of American dollars, little new equipment
had reached Active Force units by June 1950.
The Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant-General Charles
Foulkes, discussed the state of Canadian infantry equipment with
Prime Minister Louis St Laurent in July 1950, when they met to
examine the feasibility of sending a Canadian expeditionary force
to Korea.3 Foulkes recommended that Canada raise an infantry
brigade to operate within a yet to be formed Commonwealth division.
A Lot of Good Men Died 33
Fighting as part of a Commonwealth division would allow Cana-

dian field forces to use British supply lines and hence would reduce
costs. Moreover, Canadian field commanders were used to British
methods of command, control, and communications, since all of
their training and indoctrination had been done on British lines.
Finally, it was alleged that the enlisted ranks of the Canadian expe-
ditionary force would likely contain a large number of veterans,
who were accustomed to British traditions, small arms, training,
and tactical doctrine.
Following the government’s decision to commit Canadian ground
troops to Korea, Cabinet formally decided that the 25th cib would
be equipped with British-pattern small arms. However, as the 25th
cib began to take shape, it became obvious that operational capa-
bilities demanded that some of the infantry’s equipment be replaced
immediately. A review of existing stocks of kit and equipment
concluded that the Canadian Army’s berets, greatcoats, boots, put-
ties, socks, mitts, groundsheets, blankets, underwear, undervests,
steel helmets, entrenching tools, and tents were unsuitable for issue
to the 25th Brigade.4 The standard-issue Canadian battledress uni-
form was also considered unsuited to Korea’s extreme climatic
conditions.5 The quarter-master general (qmg), Major-General
N.E. Rodger, was instructed to procure suitable replacements,
including new winter combat suits, ponchos, and peaked caps.6
The Canadian infantry’s British-designed 2 and 3 in. mortars and
2.36 in. “bazooka” rocket launcher were also deemed unsuited to
operations in Korea, because of their limited range. Situation
reports from the 27th British Commonwealth Infantry Brigade
(27th bcib), which by September 1950 had already been fighting
in Korea for a month, described actions during which North
Korean mortars outranged the 27th bcib’s 3 in. mortars by as
much as 2,000 yards.7 During such engagements, the need for fire
support placed an even greater strain on field artillery regiments.
Similarly, reports from the front during the first crucial weeks of
the war described infantry-armour engagements in which the 2.36
in. rocket projectile bounced off the armour of North Korean tanks
at ranges of only thirty yards.8
In view of these shortcomings, Foulkes asked his American coun-
terpart for assistance. After a series of lengthy discussions, the
Americans agreed to provide the Canadians with their latest infan-
try-support weapons.9 Meanwhile, as expected, the British agreed
34 A Lot of Good Men Died
to allow the Canadians to use their lines of supply in Korea, to

maintain the 25th Brigade’s British-type small arms, and to supply
ammunition for British-type weapons. The Canadians themselves
were responsible for providing non-common-user items, such as
combat clothing and personal kit.10 Thus, for the first time in
Canadian military history, Canadian soldiers would go into battle
outfitted with weapons and equipment from three different national
sources. As will be seen, this ad hoc mixture was not entirely suited
to combat conditions in Korea. Nowhere was this more apparent
than in the 25th Brigade’s kit and clothing.
In battle, the individual infantryman must be self-sufficient to a
certain point. Extra ammunition, clothing, rations, water, rain gear,
and emergency medical supplies must be carried if the soldier
intends to survive on the battlefield for any amount of time. The
web equipment used by the soldiers of the 25th Brigade during the
Korean War was the Canadian version of the British 1937-pattern
webbing. The British had themselves discarded the despised 37-
pattern shortly after the Second World War, in favour of their
superior 44-pattern.
In any event, the Canadians’ 37-pattern webbing was completely
unsuited to battle conditions in Korea.11 Assembling and adjusting
the webbing’s numerous straps was inconvenient, the small pack
lacked space, and miscellaneous items of equipment could not be
clipped onto the belt.12 The pouches were too short to carry Sten
magazines, leaving soldiers to stuff them into their pockets, where
they rattled around and were damaged.13 More ominously, there
was no provision for carrying hand grenades on the 37-pattern web-
bing. These too were jammed into pockets, where they bounced
around with a metallic clang. Even worse, some soldiers hooked
them through their belts, sometimes with tragic results. Lieutenant
Brian Munro recalled, “Everybody was issued two grenades; we
carried them on our belts. One time we were moving by vehicle; one
of the soldiers was sitting at the back of the truck, near the tailgate.
One grenade shook loose of his webbing and fell out the back of
the truck. It landed on the road, the pin fell out and it exploded.”14
Several salient items of Canadian combat clothing were equally
unsuited to the operational conditions encountered in Korea. In
1950 the Canadian infantry’s standard combat headdress was still
the wide-brimmed 1914-pattern Mark ii steel helmet. Originally
designed to protect soldiers in the trenches of the First World War
Another random document with
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“Can it wound Achilles to receive the affirmation of his quality?” said
the old man, whose voice was like a knell.
Dodson’s veins felt a sharper chill.
“They are both mad,” he muttered, “hopelessly mad!”
The old man took Dodson’s arm in a grip of which none could have
suspected him to be capable; and his pale and wasted features had
now become as imperious as those of the sightless poet.
“You must tell him the truth,” said the white-haired man, whose
countenance was so strangely transfigured, “you must deny nothing
to one who is consumed by the divine hunger for recognition. It is
meet that the creator should be told that his work is good. It is the
crown of his superhuman labours that they should receive the
sanction of those for whom they have wrought.”
“You do not speak to me,” said the poet, in a voice that was rare and
strange. “Is it, friend, that you are no longer——? No, I will not
doubt one whom I love.”
“Speak,” said the old man in the voice of a raven. “The days of
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he needs.”
Dodson felt his own silence to be destroying him.
“I will speak,” he said in terror and despair. “I—I am no scholar, old
boy, as you know. I don’t understand Greek; I know hardly a word
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—there is nothing in the whole of the world——”
The dying poet, whose eyes were sightless, quivered like a stricken
bird.
“Courage, Achilles!” he muttered faintly, pressing his frail hands to
his heart. Then, stretching them forth, he turned his gaunt and grey
face upon his friend. “Give to me those honest hands which I know
to be trembling violently,” he said.
Dodson yielded his hands to those of the blind poet.
“How they tremble, how they tremble!” said the poet. “They have a
rarer eloquence than your lips, my friend. Let them embrace me; let
them embrace me.”
As the unhappy Dodson clasped the frail broken form in his strong
arms, he seemed to learn quite suddenly why those once so lustrous
eyes had the hard glare of stone.
“Oh, Luney, Luney!” he cried in a kind of wail as the truth revealed
itself, “do not tell me that you have been blind all these days and
that I have not known it!”
“A man’s blindness is no affliction,” said the dying poet, “if only he
be secure in his friends. The sight of his eyes is as nothing in
comparison with that which is given to his right hand. My great
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happy, O my friend, and it is in this: the gentle and beneficent Earth,
my mother, who has smitten her son with her caresses, bids me
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and unlearned in the ways of men—therefore, I confide to your care
this which I have wrought. I ask you to take it away and print it
immediately, and spread it broadcast among all the streets of the
great city; and when all the street-persons have looked on what a
lost soul in Hades has fashioned out of blood and tears, in order that
they may find new sustenance, this weak and frail implement which
has revealed the will of the Most High, shall return again to Earth,
his mother, and weary with his great labours, she shall take him
gently upon her breasts.”
The blind poet uttered these strange words with a noble simplicity
which yet filled his friend with dismay. As the great bulk of writing
was committed by the poet into the care of the unhappy Dodson,
the young man, powerful and materialistic as he was, seemed
almost to faint under their intolerable burden.
“Take it, friend,” said the dying poet. “Keep it jealously; it is a thing
without price. And remember that I now count my days. And further
remember my task is not accomplished until your own is fulfilled.
Take this treatise straightway to that great house of publishers,
which is the first of this country, wherein I, a slave, spent seven
years of my existence upon the earth; and see that it is printed and
bound with all the haste possible, and further that it is spread
broadcast among all the persons in the streets of the great city,
because until that is done, I cannot lie at peace.”
The unhappy Dodson stood as one all broken with pain.
“Y-yes,” he said feebly, “I will take them to the office to-morrow—
and—and, old boy, I will tell them to set it up at once. I—I will tell
them that the author is impatient—that he has not much time—that
—that his time is nearly up—and—and that he wants to know that
others know what he has done for them before he goes.”
With a sinking heart the unhappy Dodson made the great pile of
manuscript into a parcel with the aid of brown paper and string, in
precisely the fashion that in former days he had instructed his
protégé. As suddenly he recalled his demeanour towards one who
had now acquired a transcendent sanctity, his own eyes grew blind
with their tears. Yet over and above his intolerable emotion, that
which dominated his thoughts, was the knowledge that the mission
to which he was pledged was foredoomed to fail.
“I don’t know much about literature—don’t pretend to,” said the
unhappy young man, as he slipped the string round the parcel in a
kind of dull anguish, “but it wouldn’t surprise me at all, old boy, if
this doesn’t turn out to be the longest poem in the English
language.”
“I believe it is a little less than three times the length of the Paradise
Lost,” said the poet, with absolute composure, yet touched by that
curious irony that his friend had never understood. “And I am
reminded that I would have them print it with great clearness in
three honest tomes. Each volume should coincide with a phase of
the poem; you will observe that there are three phases to our little
treatise, which correspond with those of human life—three phases
through which the soul of man must pass in its terrestrial
journeyings. On the first page, only the name of the poem must be
set forth; the name of the poet must not appear. And further, good
friend, I urge you to observe the profoundest secrecy as to the
authorship of this treatise upon human life. The identity of the
author must never be disclosed.”
“Why must the identity of the author never be disclosed, old boy?”
asked Jimmy Dodson, whose bewilderment and consternation were
ever increasing.
“I am fearful,” said the dying poet, with that curious smile that was
at once proud, gaunt, and melancholy. “I am fearful lest my
countrymen should incur the mockery of future ages by seeking to
re-embody the life of the first among their authors.”
L
Days passed ere Jimmy Dodson returned again to the little room.
They were fraught with dire anxiety for the blind poet and the aged
man, his father. In his heart the old man was filled with despair, and
he knew not how to obtain the strength wholly to conceal his fears.
What if he to whom they had entrusted their priceless treasure
should never return to them again! He had neither the devotion nor
the blind faith of the dying man.
“They are printing it, they are printing it!” the poet would exclaim
many times in the day as he kept the chair beside the hearth.
“What if that strange street-person were never to return to us?” the
old man was moved to ask in his despair on the evening of the sixth
day.
“Ah, thou dost not know that brave and faithful one, my father,” said
the dying poet. “He will overcome fire and the sword rather than his
ministry should fail in these last hours of our necessity.”
And on the evening of the seventh day there came a gentle tapping
upon the shutters of the shop. With a cry of eagerness the old man
opened the door in response, and the forlorn figure of Dodson was
seen upon the threshold, his face all drawn with suffering.
“Welcome, welcome,” cried the old man in tones that were thin and
overwrought. “Have you brought back the printed book?”
Dodson recoiled from the old man in a kind of harsh rage. He laid
one hand upon his coat, and said in a morose whisper, “You will
have to know the truth!”
“The truth,” said the old man, with an unsuspectingness which
seemed to exasperate the man from the street. “The truth! Why fear
to tell it?”
“The truth is this,” said Dodson. “There is not a publisher in London
who would print poor Luney’s poem.”
The old man fell back against the door of the shop with a little cry.
“But—but the first mind of the age lies at the point of dissolution!”
he exclaimed. “They owe it to themselves that they cherish its fruits.
Do they not know that death itself respects his labours, and awaits
some token of homage from those for whom he wrought?”
“Yes, yes,” said Jimmy Dodson mournfully. “I know all that, my good
old man; I have heard it all before; but you and I must not be high-
flown. We must look the facts in the face. We must deal with things
as they are. A week ago I carried it to Octavius—Octavius, you
know, is the head of our firm, which is the chief, in fact the only
publishing house in London, and therefore, you know, in the world.
Well, as soon as Octavius saw the first page he said, ‘I am afraid, Mr.
Dodson, this will never do,’ I am giving you the precise words he
used; it is no use for you and me to deceive ourselves, is it?”
“Oh, oh,” said the old man incredulously. “But that is the verdict of
only one man, a single street-person, an ignorant man who is
neither gentle nor simple.”
“You may be right,” said Dodson, “and yet again you may be wrong.
But I must tell you, old man, that the house of Crumpett and
Hawker has nothing to learn. What they think to-day, the trade
thinks to-morrow. What they don’t know is not business. And you
must understand that I did not rest content with the opinion of
Octavius. I took it down-stairs and showed it to W. P. Walkinshaw, a
highly cultivated man. And although he does sit down-stairs, he has
had a large and varied experience. And as soon as I had told him
what it was, he said, ‘Really, Dodson, one has no need to look. A
poem in blank verse, three times the length of Paradise Lost—why,
really, my good fellow, there is not a publishing house in this country
who would take the string off the parcel.’”
“No, no, no,” said the old man, beating his fingers upon the counter
of the shop. “These unbelievers must not be permitted to speak in
ignorance. Is it possible that the human soul can remain insensible
to the nobility of its god-like power?”
“Well, as it happens,” said Dodson mournfully, “I did ask Pa to be
kind enough to pay particular attention to it. But as soon as Pa cast
his eyes over it, he used the identical words that were used by
Octavius. ‘I am afraid, Dodson,’ he said, ‘this will never do.’”
“Can it be possible,” cried the old man, “the noblest achievement of
the modern world to be thus discarded!”
“And I didn’t stop at Octavius, and I didn’t stop at Pa,” said the
mournful emissary. “I went up-stairs again to Robert Brigstock, who
gives Octavius a hand with the belles lettres, and who is on the staff
of the Journal of Literature. And as soon as Robert Brigstock read
that accursed first page, he said, ‘May I ask, Mr. Dodson, has the
writer of this an established reputation?’ ‘Oh, no,’ I had to confess,
‘he is quite a young chap who has never published anything at all.’
‘Well, then, Mr. Dodson,’ said Robert Brigstock, who as I say is on
the staff of the Journal of Literature, ‘no one deprecates more firmly
than I do the amazing presumption that is here revealed. The writer
sets out to write a treatise on human life—a somewhat timeworn
theme, Mr. Dodson—which is three times the length of Paradise
Lost’—I am telling you word for word what Robert Brigstock said
—‘and he does this in a metre which Homer and Virgil would
certainly not have used had they had to deal with the English
language. Can anything be more presumptuous, than that an
unknown writer—who surely has been to neither of our universities,
or most certainly he would never have proposed to perpetrate such
a gratuitous piece of effrontery—that a man who has not received a
regular education should attempt that which would give pause to all
the foremost of our English poets, from Chaucer to the Poet
Laureate, poets, Mr. Dodson, whose reputations have long been
established beyond the range of controversy?’ And if you had seen
Robert Brigstock, who as a rule is the mildest and most amiable and
most polite of all fellows imaginable, who is a bit of a poet himself,
begin to work himself up into a kind of frenzy over that first page,
you would have understood, old man, far more clearly than I can
hope to make you understand, how hopeless it is to get any
publisher—I don’t care who—to undertake poor Luney’s effort on his
own responsibility.”
The aged father of the dying poet gave a groan of despair. He lifted
up his feeble arms, which seemed to be smitten with palsy, and
uttered a high quavering cry of imprecation.
“Are these the tidings we must bear to the dying Achilles!” he cried.
“Must we thus affront that mighty warrior who lies all spent and
broken from his great labours!”
“Well, old man,” said Dodson, who could not forbear to pity such a
distress as this, yet whose robust common-sense in the crisis they
had reached had never been so valiant, “well, old man, there is only
one thing we can do if we are to bring poor Luney’s poem to the
public notice. We must print it and publish it at our own expense.”
“Yes, yes,” said the old man eagerly, “of course we must do that.
And we must do it immediately because the sands of life are running
out.”
“Yes, I have thought of all that,” said Dodson, “and I have made
some inquiries of the firm. But of course it is going to cost money.”
“Money!” said the old man.
“A lot of money. I have talked to Octavius about it. I am on very
good terms with Octavius, and as a sort of special favour to me,
Octavius says Crumpett and Hawker will break through their
invariable rule of not publishing on commission; and they are
prepared to place their imprint—their very valuable imprint—on poor
Luney’s poem, providing it is written grammatically—you know
Crumpett and Hawker would not publish the Laureate himself if he
failed to write grammatically—and also, providing that its tendency is
not too agnostic, that is to say, agnosticism impinging on paganism,
that is to say that it contains a definite idea of God—these are
Octavius’s own words I am using—and further that it is not open to
the charge of immorality in any shape or form, in other words, as
Octavius says, that it is the kind of thing that any young girl may
place in the hands of her grandmother. Well, now, everything being
all right, Crumpett and Hawker are prepared to put it in hand at
once, and to print two hundred and fifty copies—they won’t do less
—and to issue the poem in three volumes at one guinea net. The
cost, however, will be two hundred pounds, which must be borne by
the author. For this sum they will use good paper, clear type, and
they will bind it in superior cloth, and they will send out fifty copies
for review to the leading London and provincial journals; but
Octavius assures me that Crumpett and Hawker will touch the book
only on these terms, and on no other.”
The old man gave a gasp of consternation.
“Two hundred pounds,” he said weakly, “two hundred pounds!”
“Yes,” said Dodson, “two hundred pounds is a lot of money; but it
will have to be found if poor Luney is to hold his book in his hands
before he dies.”
“I have not a tithe of that great sum among the whole of my worldly
possessions,” said the old man forlornly.
“Nor I,” said Dodson. “I have hardly a red cent. laid by, because you
know I have now to support my people; but if I could lay my hands
at this moment on two hundred pounds, poor Luney’s book should
be through the press before he hears his name called.”
“Come into the shop,” said the old man feebly, “and tell me if you
think some of the venerable tomes on the shelves might produce
that—that large sum.”
Dodson entered the shop and the old man struck a match and lit the
gas. A very brief examination of what Dodson conceived to be a
useless mass of lumber, for all the volumes were very black, faded,
dusty, and stained with time, sufficed to enable him to form a
verdict.
“I don’t suppose,” said he with a candour which numbed the old
man’s veins, “the whole lot together would fetch two hundred pence.
I never saw such a collection—never!”
“I must pray for a miracle to happen again,” said the old man. “One
happened to us on a day.”
“Did it indeed?” said Dodson.
“Yes,” said the old man. “The great Achilles was threatened with
expulsion from his little room. Unless I, his custodian, could obtain
the sum of twenty pounds by a certain day, it was ordained that he
should be cast out into the streets of the great city. Yet on the eve of
that day, when all hope had been abandoned, a man out of the
street, a street-person, walked into this shop, looked upon all these
shelves, and took down one after another of these venerable tomes,
and paying over to me the sum of two hundred pounds, walked out
of the shop with one of these old volumes in his care.”
“What was the old volume?” said Dodson, with an air of keen
interest.
“A Shakespeare of the first folio,” said the old man.
Dodson gave a low whistle.
“Oh, was it?” he said. “Then I should think that that street-person
was not such a bad judge after all.” James Dodson turned his
attention again to the shelves, in which were many gaps, with a
livelier curiosity. “There don’t appear to be many first-folio
Shakespeares left now,” he said in a tone of keen disappointment.
“But it is no good supposing that there would be; these things have
been pretty well gone through. Some street-person has picked all
the pearls these many years, I expect. All that is left is hardly worth
carting away. As I say, all that remains on your shelves, old man,
would barely fetch two hundred pence.”
“Can we do nothing to obtain the sum of two hundred pounds?” said
the old man. “Surely in this extremity a miracle must happen to us
again.”
“I am no believer in miracles myself,” said James Dodson. “I have no
faith in ghosts, spiritualism and sea-serpents either. But it is clear to
my mind that that two hundred pounds has got to be found
somehow; yet it looks as though a miracle will have to happen
before it turns up.”
“And the hours are so brief,” said the old man in his impotence.
“Each day is beyond price; the great Achilles grows frail.”
For a space Dodson was plunged in deep thought. He was not of the
mettle that yields lightly to despair.
“By the way,” he said, “what was that very funny-looking old volume
I saw on the table in your little room—you know, the funny old
volume that seemed to have its pages scrawled over in red ink?
Well, now it has struck me that those pages—I didn’t look at them
carefully—were of the finest vellum of the sort they don’t make now-
a-days. If that is the case a dealer might be willing to pay a good
price for it, if the red scrawl was nicely cleaned off.”
At these words, uttered with singular carelessness, the old man
staggered back against the counter of the shop. He trembled in
every limb, his face was piteous to see.
“You mean the Book of the Ages,” he said. His voice seemed
unrelated to anything in nature.
“I don’t know what you call it,” said Dodson, “but it looks very heavy
and well-bound, and I dare say it is valuable in its way. Vellum of the
old monastic sort fetches a rare good price now-a-days if you know
where to take it. I shall send a chap with a handcart for it to-
morrow, and he shall take it to Temple and Ward, the dealers in
Bond Street, and we will see what can be raised.”
“The Book of the Ages!” said the old man hoarsely; “the Book of the
Ages!”
“Yes,” said Dodson indifferently, “the Book of the Ages—rather a
good name for it. If that vellum is as old as I think it is, and that red
scrawl is nicely got off, and the edges are trimmed, and the surface
is cleaned up a bit, there may be money in it. People do buy such
rum things now-a-days by way of curios, and they don’t seem to
mind paying fancy prices for them either.”
“The Book of the Ages!” the old man repeated. In his peering eyes
were a horror and a consternation that were truly dreadful, yet they
were totally unnoticed by his visitor.
“Of course, you know,” Dodson continued, pursuing this new idea,
which, remote as it was, seemed to afford the only prospect of
obtaining two hundred pounds, “I shall have to pitch a tale about it
to the dealers. I must fix up some sort of a history, you know, about
its being found in the tomb of the Pharaohs, or its being the very
identical sheepskin upon which the Scriptures were written. But you
must leave that to me. I shall go round and see Temple and Ward
to-morrow, and you can lay to it, old man, that I shall have thought
of something by then. But, in the meantime, if you really do believe
that miracles happen—I wish I could believe it myself—you had
better think about it, old man, as much as you possibly can, for I’ve
read somewhere that when you do want a thing to happen, it is a
good plan to keep your mind on it all the time.”
Before the old man could consent to a suggestion which he did not
know how to derive the power to sanction, the voice of him who sat
in the little room was heard to summon James Dodson.
“Why don’t you come to me?” said the voice from within. “I can hear
the voice of my friend. Why don’t you come to me with the printed
sheets?”
In some trepidation Dodson obeyed a summons, which sounded
almost imperious upon the lips of him from whom it proceeded.
“The printed sheets,” said the dying poet, stretching out his hands.
“Please place the printed sheets into my hands. I would have my
father read what is printed there, because this little treatise must go
forth without fault or sully.”
“They have not started to print it yet, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson
dismally.
“Why—why is that?” cried the dying poet, with a consternation that
was almost petulant. “Do they not know that a term has been placed
to my days, that the sands of life are running out in the glass?”
“Yes, old boy, they know all about that,” said Jimmy Dodson; “they
know all about that, and—and——”
“And—and!” said the stricken poet with an imperiousness that was
regal. “Are these the words that are brought to me by one whom I
love?” In a controlled excitement, that was almost stern, the stricken
man raised himself in his chair. “Your arm, Jimmy,” he said, with a
look of such authority that it filled the unhappy Dodson with dismay.
“Lead me to the printers. I must speak to them myself.”
The poet sank back in his chair in the tender arms of his friend. The
little strength that remained to him was no longer sufficient to bear
his frame.
“Yes, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “be quite calm, and sit there
quietly. There is no need for you to excite yourself. I—I will go round
to the printers early to-morrow and—and I—I will tell them just what
you say. I will see that they hurry, although by nature, old boy,
printers, as you know, are dreadfully slow.”
“So be it,” said the poet, with an expression of noble magnanimity
upon his beautiful face; “do not think that I reproach you—it would
break my heart.”
At these words Dodson, who, throughout his interview with the
father, had remained so calm and self-secure, now turned away
hastily from him who was sightless, with a half-strangled sob.
“You do not tell me in what manner Crumpett and Hawker received
our little treatise,” said the poet.
Dodson found it a great matter to recover his wise self-possession,
but by the time the poet had repeated the question he had regained
it.
“Why—why, in what manner could they receive it, old boy?” said
Jimmy Dodson. “What could they say to it? What does a religious
chap say to the Bible? What does a scholar say to Homer? What
does everybody say to Shakespeare?”
“It is almost more than I can realize,” said the poet, with a look of
rapture that seemed to sear the veins of his unhappy friend.
LI
Dodson promised bravely, recklessly, despairingly that the next time
he entered the little room he would bring the first printed sheets of
the book. For the poet’s insistence that each line must undergo a
rigorous scrutiny before it was given to the world was reiterated
again and again that evening with an imperiousness that, in one
formerly so gentle and timid, astonished its witness beyond
measure.
“Luney, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson in a rather bewildered manner
after several of these austere reminders, “I am not accustomed to
move in royal circles, I have never been spoken to by a king, but if
ever I was, old boy, I should expect him to speak to me just like
that. You make me feel, old boy, that I have no right to call you
Luney any longer—it seems almost like an act of presumption—you
make me feel, old boy, that I ought to address you as ‘my lord,’ or as
‘sire’.”
The poet laughed a strange, rarefied note of laughter.
“Ah, dear Jimmy,” he said, “in the presence of the faithful we will not
insist on our royalty too much.”
Dodson could frame no reply. Such words appeared to transcend
those bounds indicated by human intelligence which the speaker had
seemed to overstep so many times already. But, to the amazement
of the beholder, the white-haired old man, who all this time had sat
at the table with his eyes pressed devoutly to the Book of the Ages,
rose at these words of the dying poet, and with a grave deliberation
sank upon his knees before him who was blind.
“My liege,” said the old man humbly, “I would not have you consider
your servants to be insensible of your quality if they do not address
you in the fashion which it would seem to demand. Sire, your
servants do not esteem your royalty to be the less because they do
not wear its livery upon their lips.”
Smiling his secret and beautiful smile, the dying poet extended his
right hand, so white, so fragile, and so transparent towards the aged
man, his father, with the sweet air of a great prince, and the old
man, still kneeling, bore it to his lips.
Ever smiling in the same manner, the dying poet then extended the
fragile hand again, this time towards the astonished Jimmy Dodson,
whose every faculty seemed to be atrophied by so strange a
situation.
“We would have thee also make obeisance, faithful servant,” said the
poet gently. “It is not for this insignificant flesh that we seek thy
homage; it is not to appease an unworthy pride, which too often
devours princes, that we would crave thy vassalage. Rather it is that
we would have all who are gentle and simple offer their devotion to
that which alone makes the life of man comprehensible, of which
this broken clay is the too frail custodian.”
With a shamefaced trepidation, which only recently he had been
taught to feel, James Dodson sank to his knees before his dying
friend, and, in the fashion of the white-haired old man, he bore the
fragile hand to his lips. He then rose, and, without venturing to give
a look to either of the occupants of the little room, he made a
headlong flight through the shop into the all-enfolding, ever-
welcome darkness of the streets.
LII
The poet and his father passed that night together, as they had
passed so many others, in the little room. The blind man, seated by
the fire, alternately dreamed and mused, while his father conned the
book which was spread open on the table. For the last time he
conned it with the blood like water in his veins. Yet in him now was
the mute acceptance of those who have passed through the whole
gamut of their suffering, upon whom experience has nothing more
to confer.
In the dead of the night, while the dying poet was murmuring
strange words in his sleep, the old man took for the last time from
their receptacle the chalice, the bistoury and the stylus. A hundred
times had his flesh been pierced in vain by that inexorable point, yet
again this night he made trial of it, and for the last time.
And now his trial was not without reward. No sooner had he dipped
the stylus in the red blood of his veins than it began to traverse the
page. For the first time since those fingers had grasped the pen, the
fruit of eighty years of vicissitude upon the wonderful earth flowed
to the parchment. Line by line grew the writing. That which he had
laboured these long years to express, that for which he had prayed,
fasted and kept vigil, was now born without a pang in this brief but
magic hour.
Faint with joy, yet also filled with a nameless fear, the old man
addressed the poet as soon as he awoke.
“Achilles,” he said, “wilt thou write thy page in the Book of the Ages,
in order that our dynasty may continue itself?”
“Nay, my father,” said the poet, with a noble conviction; “it is not for
me to inscribe my page in the Book. For are not the conditions
fulfilled by which our dynasty shall cease? A thousand years, my
father, has it striven to affirm itself; and it is written that in the
magic hour it shall achieve its apotheosis, it shall be effaced, in
obedience to Universal Law. Yet be of good courage, O my father, for
it perishes only to achieve re-embodiment in an ampler notation. In
the hour this little treatise upon human life is wrought, the archives
of our dynasty are as seed scattered broadcast upon the four winds
for the service of all the peoples in the world.”
Such words of high authority proceeding from those revered lips
filled the old man with a courage and a resolute acceptance of that
which was about to befall, which he had never hoped to achieve.
“Is it seemly, O Achilles,” said the old man, having derived a vital
strength from the poet’s wisdom, “to efface the means by which a
new lustre is given to the heavens?”
“It is as seemly, O my father,” the poet answered, “as it is to pluck
the ripe fruit from the stalk.”
It was therefore in no mood of passion, of wild soul-searching, that
the old man yielded those magic parchments which for a thousand
years had been as the archives of his race. He bowed to the decree
of fate with that calm acceptancy which, in the end, had ever been
the crown that awaited each individual destiny.
Yet, when this volume, which was a thousand years old, had passed
for ever from the precincts of the little room, he did not reveal the
marvellous circumstance to him who was blind.
However, in the evening of that day, the poet said, as if armed by a
prophetic vision, “My father, why dost thou turn no more to the Book
of the Ages?”
The old man took the poet’s fragile hand to his lips with a humble
gesture of obeisance.
“Because, O Achilles,” he said, “is it not seemly, since thou thyself
wouldst have it so, that when the ripe fruit is plucked the stalk shall
be discarded?”
“Verily, my father, thy wisdom is commendable,” said the poet,
speaking in the perfect simplicity of the blood royal.
LIII
After the Book of the Ages had been dispersed among the great
world out of doors, many were the days that elapsed ere the dying
poet’s faithful emissary was seen again in the little room. The old
man was thrown into a fever of dread lest so strange an envoy
should never return; but even in the extremity of his fears he was
consoled by the noble courage of the poet. From day to day he who
kept the chimney-side, and whose hours could be numbered as they
passed, retained a superhuman serenity throughout the whole of
this cruel period, which seemed to gnaw at the vitals of both. In his
invincible fortitude he even sought to assuage the distress of the
aged man, his father.
“He will never return, O Achilles,” wailed the old man.
“Our honest servant will not fail one who is the comrade of kingly
death, O my father,” said the blind poet, smiling in his faith.
“Must I pray for a miracle, Achilles?” said the old man, who looked to
him in all things now.
“We would have thee be of good faith, my father,” said the poet.
“Never yet was a destiny but that it fulfilled itself. The printing-
presses are groaning under these pages of ours. To-morrow they will
be strown like autumn leaves all about the floor of this little room.”
Yet the morrow came and the emissary did not return. Another
morrow dawned and yet he came not. Day succeeded day; the dying
poet became as one who has scarce the strength to raise his limbs;
the sands grew less and less in the glass; yet still no breathless
messenger issued forth from the streets of the great city.
In this long-drawn suspense such an anguish of despair besieged
the old man, that again and again he turned to the poet for the
sustenance which it was his to give.
“Be of good courage, O my father,” said the dying poet, yet at this
time the whole of his right side was become paralyzed, so that he
could no longer raise his right hand.
After listening full many weary nights and days for the ever-expected
tap upon the shutters of the shop, there came at last the familiar
sound in a December evening.
With unsteady limbs the old man went forth to unbar the door. Upon
the threshold stood Dodson, worn and pale.
“Do not tell me the miracle has not happened,” cried the old man in
a high, quavering tone.
“Yes, the miracle has happened,” said Dodson in a voice that was
thin and unstrung.
“And—and they have printed the mighty pages?” cried the old man.
“Yes,” said Dodson, “they are printing the cursed pages. I have the
proofs of the first volume under my coat. The others will be through
the press in a few days.”
The old man gave a cry of joy.
“Then the miracle has happened for the second time,” he said. “The
Book of the Ages was cherished by the world of men.”
“Call it what you like,” said Dodson. “Call it a miracle, call it a
business transaction, or call it a daylight robbery, or anything you
please. I can only say that James Dodson had to scour heaven and
earth to get that miserable two hundred pounds. I lied to the dealer;
I drew up a false pedigree for those infernal pages of parchments; I
cajoled them into believing that black was white; I proved to their
satisfaction that that cursed writing in red ink was that of the
Pharaohs, and was supposed to be indelible, because, do what they
would with their chemicals, they could not get it to come off.”
“Oh yes, yes,” said the old man, breathing heavily. “I should have
made it known to you that the writing in the Book of the Ages can
never be effaced.”
“Whatever that infernal writing was,” said Dodson, “it was the cause
of my not being able to get the two hundred pounds I asked for
from the dealers. Do what I would, say what I would, it was only by
sheer good fortune that I was able to get one. They happened to
take a fancy to the clasp of that infernal volume; and as I had the
presence of mind to tell them it was formerly the clasp of an ancient
Roman libellus, they wrote out a cheque for one hundred pounds,
less five per cent. for cash. And after that I had enormous difficulties
to raise the other hundred. Talk about the labours of Hercules; what
are they to the labours of one who attempts to raise a hundred
pounds upon no security in this Christian country? I lied to my aunt;
I put my name to an instrument that may land me in gaol; I lied to
Octavius; I cheated an insurance company; and, as a consequence
of all this, the great house of Crumpett and Hawker have undertaken
to send out this three-volume poem for review on the twelfth of
January. And let me tell you, old man, that in all the long and
honourable history of that world-famous publishing house, James
Dodson is the only man who has ever caused it to betray signs of
what you might call undignified haste.”
“No words of mine can requite you, sir,” said the white-haired man,
whose eyes welled with gratitude. “But yet the proud consciousness
is yours that unborn ages will be your debtors.”
“Their monickers on a note of hand or on a three months’ bill don’t
go for much at this hour of the day,” said James Dodson. “I too, like
poor Luney, appear to have made the mistake of being born before
my time. And it seems to me that of all the mistakes a man can
commit, there is none quite so bad as that.”
However, no sooner had Jimmy Dodson come again into the
presence of him who kept the little room, than all these tribulations
to which he had given so free an expression in the shop, yielded
immediately to that solicitude, mingled with awe, with which he had
come to regard him.
“Ah, friend,” said the dying poet, “so here are the printed pages at
last.”
“Yes, old boy, here they are at last,” said Jimmy Dodson.
“Give them to me,” said the poet, extending his left hand, which he
could scarcely raise.
Dodson placed a few of the printed sheets upon the extended palm,
which shook like gossamer; and as the poet, with a look of
composed passion, held them up before his sightless eyes, it seemed
almost that those dead orbs were again endowed with life.
“The paper is good,” said the poet, rubbing the pages against his
cheek in order that he might know its quality. “I hope the printing is
clear.”
“Yes, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “a brand new fount, beautifully
clear.”
“Liberal margins, such as are beloved of the gentle reader?”
“Yes, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “beautiful wide margins. It will
make a fine page.”
“And they are printing the poem in three volumes?” asked the poet,
“with a new phase in each; and also they are omitting the name of
the author from the title page?”
“Yes, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “they are doing all that. All your
instructions are being carried out to the letter. By the way, would you
like a frontispiece in the first volume of the Wayfarer communing for
the first time with Earth, his Mother? I could get a chap I know to
draw it; last year he had a picture accepted at the Academy; and
Octavius would raise no objection.”
“No, no,” said the poet almost sternly.
“It was only a suggestion, you know, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson
with nervous humility. “You are not offended, old boy, are you?”
In answer the poet extended that weak left hand which he could
hardly raise. Dodson’s first impulse was to clasp the fragile fingers in
his own, which were of such power; but a glance at the countenance
of the blind poet caused this impulse to yield to a finer instinct.
Without in the least knowing why, Dodson sank to his knees and
saluted the extended hand with a reverence he could not have
exceeded had it been that of his sovereign.
LIV
Every evening thenceforward until the third volume had been set up
in type, James Dodson would return to the little room with further
instalments of the printed pages, newly from the press. And full
many weary hours did the poet’s aged father labour through the day
and night to compare the manuscript with the printed work. Weak
and frail as the old man now was, half sightless as were his eyes, he
yet addressed himself to this task with a joyful rapture. Sometimes,
in the stress of the gladness that overcame him, he would read
aloud to the poet in his thin, quavering tones, some of those
passages whose quality he could not forbear to acclaim.
At these times the blind poet, ever sitting by the hearth, would
listen, breathing deep, with head uplifted, and with strange emotions
flitting across his inexpressibly beautiful face. And then when
through sheer weariness the voice of the aged man had ceased to
utter the wonderful music, he himself, in his rich and rare tones,
would take up the theme; and he would speak the lines of ineffable
majesty with a justice so delicate that his aged father needed no
longer to look at the manuscript, but was able to verify the printed
page by the poet’s voice.
Sometimes these labours would even be conducted in the presence
of James Dodson. And although that robust denizen of the great
world out of doors, whenever he found himself in his natural
element, could never bring himself to believe that the labours he
was undertaking with such an all-consuming zeal were being
conducted in the cause of reason and sanity, no sooner did he enter
the little room of an evening than his scepticism fell from him like an
outer garment.
It was not for him to understand the words that the poet and his
father recited with such a holy submission; they had no meanings
for his unaccustomed ears; but the dominion of the poet’s presence,
which sprang from that which was now upon his face, the wonderful
serenity of that sightless aspect filled the young man with an awe
and a credulity which he could not recognize as belonging to himself.
“I am going wrong,” he would say in his perplexity as he went his
ways about the great city, “and, of course, they are as wrong as
they can be—yet the marvellous thing is that they make you feel
that all the world is wrong, and that they are the only reasonable
people in it!”
One evening, after Jimmy Dodson had sat in a kind of entrancement
for several hours while the poet had recited many passages, he was
moved to ask with dry lips, “I say, old boy, Homer and Milton were
blind, weren’t they?”
“Tradition has it so,” said the poet, and his sightless aspect was
suffused with that secret and beautiful smile that had come to haunt
poor Dodson in his dreams. “But what is ‘tradition’ but an
adumbration of the light that never was?”
On the evening that the last line of the poem had been passed for
the press with an astonishing thoroughness and celerity by the co-
operation of two minds which had to be almost independent of the
use of the eyes, the poet committed these final pages to the care of
his faithful emissary with further injunctions for their prosperity in
the great world out of doors.
“Let our little treatise have reticence, chastity, sobriety,” he said.
“I wish you could see the binding I have chosen,” said Jimmy
Dodson. “Octavius calls it very chaste indeed—you can’t think what
an interest Octavius is taking in the publication. Octavius made one
error in his life, which we will not refer to now, but he has turned
out trumps over this. He would give his ears to know the name of
the author!”
“That is a secret you are pledged to respect,” said William Jordan in
his voice of soft irony.
“You can be quite easy about that, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson.
“Wild horses shall not drag it from me; and, of course, there is not a
soul in the world who would ever suspect that the author is you.”
“I trust you,” said the poet simply. “And there is only one further
charge with which I shall tax our friendship. I shall ask you to collect
all the papers that bear the impress of my hand, and lodge them at
the English Museum, in the custody of the English nation.”
James Dodson contrived to dissemble his bewildered surprise.
“Of course I will do so, old boy,” he said gravely and promptly. “I will
make a parcel of the manuscript now. It is too late to take it round
there to-night; but the first thing to-morrow I will take an hour off
from the office, and I will carry it to the English Museum myself.”
“Thank you, thank you,” said the poet. “I thank you in the name of
truth and of ages yet to be.”
LV
Some time during the forenoon of the following day the
unprepossessing outline of an undersized young man with a short
black bristling moustache, who wore a bowler hat, a pair of smart
brown boots, and trim overcoat of blue melton cloth with a velvet
collar, might have been observed in conference with one of the
stalwart custodians of the portals of a massive building in the
purlieus of Bloomsbury. The young man, who was somewhat pale
and rather excited in his manner, bore under his right arm a brown-
paper parcel of not inconsiderable bulk.
“Can’t deal with it ’ere,” said the custodian of the portals, without
any display of amiability that would have incurred the charge of
excessive. “Better take it round to Mr. Tovey. First to the left, second
to the right when you come to the top of the second flight of stairs.”
In the course of a few minutes the bearer of the brown-paper parcel
had made his way into the presence of Mr. Tovey—a bald-headed
and black-coated gentleman whose mien was one of determined and
unalterable impassiveness.
Mr. Tovey viewed the bearer of the parcel, and particularly the parcel
itself, with a polite disfavour, which, however, did not in any sense
transcend the bounds indicated by an official courtesy.
“The English Museum Authorities,” said Mr. Tovey, as his visitor took
the liberty of depositing the brown-paper parcel upon a table
without seeking permission to do so, “the English Museum
Authorities are not empowered to undertake the care of the written
manuscripts or typescripts of living persons.”
“Yes, but you see,” said the bearer of the parcel anxiously, “but you
see, the poor chap happens to be dying.”
“I am afraid, sir,” said Mr. Tovey, with a sympathy that was very
nicely poised, “that even that unfortunate contingency is not
sufficient to justify the Museum Authorities from breaking through
their fixed rule. That rule is perfectly explicit; it cannot admit the
manuscripts or typescripts of living persons.”
“Are there no exceptions?” said the bearer of the parcel.
“If exceptions there are,” said Mr. Tovey impressively, “and as I
speak there are none I can call to mind, they would only be in
favour of persons of such remarkable distinction that they would
form no precedent.”
“That is all right, then,” said the bearer of the parcel with an air of
relief, “because it happens that this is the work of the greatest poet
in the world.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Tovey with a very well-bred air.
The bearer of the parcel repeated his assertion.
“Is not that a somewhat comprehensive claim to advance on behalf
of a living person?” said Mr. Tovey, enunciating his words very
delicately.
“Well, he seems to think so, at any rate,” said the bearer of the
parcel, “and I suppose he ought to know.”
“Would you mind informing me of the name of this accomplished
person?” said Mr. Tovey, with an effective combination of polite
interest and equally polite deprecation.
“His name is to be kept a secret,” said the bearer of the parcel. “He
doesn’t want it to be known.”
“I assume that his poems have been published?” said Mr. Tovey.
“Not yet,” said the bearer of the parcel; “but,” he added, with an air
of weight that was not without its effect, “they are going to be
published by Crumpett and Hawker on the twelfth of January.”
“Curious, curious,” said Mr. Tovey.
However, the announcement itself seemed in some measure to
reassure this very courteous black-coated gentleman, since he
requested the bearer of the parcel to untie the string that he might
take a glance at the manuscript. This the young man proceeded to
do; and it must be said that for one whose proud boast had once
been that his self-possession was invincible, his heart began to beat
with a preposterous violence, as soon as Mr. Tovey came to examine
the contents of the parcel.
Jimmy Dodson narrowly scrutinized Mr. Tovey’s impassive
countenance as he ran his fingers through the pages of the
manuscript, all stained and defaced by contact with compositors’
pencils and with printers’ thumbs.
“Rather incoherent, is it not?” said Mr. Tovey mildly, as he turned the
pages over. “Is it not somewhat pagan in tone—that is, as far as
there is a tone—there does not appear to be any very definite
conception of Deity—and rather incoherent—rather incoherent. I am
afraid this will never do.”
The last by now familiar phrase seemed to pierce the heart and
brain of James Dodson.
“I—I suppose, sir,” he said with scared eyes, “you occupying a
responsible position in the English Museum, you would be rather a
judge of poetry?”
“I am not accustomed to make such a claim on my own behalf,” said
Mr. Tovey, in whose well-regulated bosom a sympathetic chord
seemed to have been touched, for at least he seemed to unbend a
little and he seemed to do it very nicely, “but perhaps I am entitled
to say that the Oxbridge Press paid me the compliment of inviting
me to edit their Chaucer, their Spenser, their Keats, their Felicia
Hemans, and their James Russell Lowell. And I have also competed
for the Newdigate Prize.”
Jimmy Dodson strangled a groan. He clenched his hands in
desperation.

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far eastern tour

Far Eastern Tour

McGill-Queen’s University Press

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2002

Legal deposit third quarter 2002

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper.

McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the financial support of

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

Watson, Brent Byron, 1970–

Typeset in Sabon 10.5 /13

bcib British Commonwealth Infantry Brigade

nato North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Five decades after the signing of the ceasefire agreement at Panmun-

The terrain and limited nature of combat operations in Korea

without being properly indoctrinated. And despite bed nets and

public are bound to pick up on this, leading to a profusion of pop-

Many people assisted me in researching and writing this book. My

far eastern tour

Bums from the Slums

On 8 August 1950 a full-page recruiting advertisement in the

assumption that any future conflict would be a replay of the last,

member of the U.N.”8 Similarly, the Halifax Chronicle Herald

And according to the editor of the Montreal Star, “the Russians

Caught on the horns of an increasingly embarrassing dilemma, the

Northwest Europe and, like Stone, was commissioned from the

actually lodging in a barracks at the depot. They were required to

Special Force. The photograph later appeared in the national press,

into North Korea in mid-October. Since then, although they had

historians have characterized these units as comprising poorly edu-

were born in their regiment’s traditional recruiting areas,47 while

won the firefight. Inadequate weaponry and the Canadians’ obvious

Although Canadian soldiers enjoyed a reasonable standard of

For too long, public and governmental apathy have obfuscated

Military training prepares soldiers to fulfil their duties in an oper-

Wainwright was a prisoner-of-war camp. But the officers of

Infantry Brigade Group) concentrated at Fort Lewis, Washington,

insults from the training staff. A recruit whose turnout or perfor-

in basic military skills, such as first aid, weapons handling, elemen-

concerned with teaching recruits the parts and characteristics of

in a manner not normally deemed safe in peacetime. Battle inocu-

included instruction in fieldcraft and field fortifications. It was at

with battalion training and is the final stage of training before an

down artillery fire on any troop concentrations in the area. The

Most other Canadian infantry units to serve in Korea appear to

enough emphasis on patrolling during their collective training pro-

like Germany as opposed to the realities of Korea.”70 And accord-

A Lot of Good Men Died

One of the key factors in soldiers’ combat performance is the qual-