A Different Sort of War: Australians and the Korean War 1950-1953

- Richard Trembath,

The Korean War, 1950­1953, occupies a doubtful position in contemporary history and also in Australian military tradition. Its scale, measured in terms of destruction and casualties, is impressive enough. It involved the death, dislocation or injury of millions. It threatened on a number of occasions to escalate into a nuclear conflict and a third world war only a few years after the cessation of the bloodiest war in history. It marked the first exercise of collective will by the new United Nations, a huge exercise in coalition forming, under the political and military leadership of the United States. Chinese and Western troops clashed directly in combat for the first and last time. For Australia the Korean War meant having to make difficult choices about participation and the scale of our participation.

Despite the political signifi cance of the Korean War, and the ferocity of the conflict, Korea has struggled to occupy a prominent place in Australia’s collective memory ­ or the collective memory of other participating nations. This book explores the reasons why Korea has been called ­ repeatedly ­ 'the forgotten war'.

Much of the book looks at the experiences of those who served in Korea. Many of these individuals volunteered specifically to serve in Korea and in terms of the Anzac legend and Australian military tradition they comprise the last group of Australians to volunteer for overseas service. They are the end of a line that stretches back to the colonial era and the Maori wars. The book lays bare the motivation of these men as well as their experiences of combat, the landscape, other cultures, friend and enemy, and significantly, whether these servicemen saw their contribution to the Korean war as significant, as having meaning. The stories range in tone from patriotic to poignant and go some way towards restoring the Korean War's place in Australian history.