Stories from the Korean War

Click on any of the videos to hear stories of Korean War veterans from different parts of the world!

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> So he’s the colonel lieutenant of the …

>> Claudio …

>> … Claudio …

>> … de Felici …

>> … de Felici …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … of the military corp …

>> Italian Red Cross.

>> … of the Italian Red Cross.

>> And we are in [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> Okay. We are in the [INAUDIBLE].

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> We are in the room of the Red Cross where the personnel departed for the war in 1964.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> October 16th, 1951.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> So the hospital was operated from December 1951 to 1954 …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … and the personnel …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … were repatriated in …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … until the 10th of January …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … of 1955.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> Mm-hmm. The hospital was composed of paramedics …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … medical officials …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … and …

>> Paramedic.

>> Paramedics, yeah.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> Voluntary nurses …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … and Korean personnel …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … for the services …

>> Of the hospital.

>> … yeah, of the hospital.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> The Korean authorities …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] the American authority.

>> … and the American authorities …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … of the …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … oh, of the coalition …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … oh, appreciated …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … the work …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … the work done by the Italian personnel …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> … of hospital number 68, yeah.

>> Why was it called the hospital number 68?

>> I don’t remember.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> Sixty-eight …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. Now I don’t remember in this moment, but there is [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. I don’t remember now because …

>> I’m very curious.

>> … this number.

>> I’m curious. I want to know, yeah.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> Okay.

>> My name is Claudio de Felici. I am a lieutenant colonel of Italian Red Cross, and now we are in [INAUDIBLE] of headquarter of Italian Red Cross. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> How many people went to Korea?

>> One hundred people went to Korea to serve the fine hospital number 68 during the Korean War, and the hospital stayed in Korea from November 5 [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] 1951 to 1954 December. Italy went. They sent the hospital in Korea. Italy was not a part of the United Nation, but Italy is member wholly de NATO. Mamma mia.

>> Hello. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Wow. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Tell him ... Ask him, Korea War broke out after World War II, very shortly after. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> So ... [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> So, he must ... [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> He must have been tired of war, seeing war, so why did he volunteer to go to Korea? >> Okay. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Thank you very much, yes. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> What is that? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> The Land of the Morning Calm. >> Of the Morning Calm, okay. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Samsung, IKEA. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> There were Italian ... [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Ask him if he ... Has he ever seen pictures of modern Korea? >> Okay. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> No. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Tell him, when he came back ... [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [ Chatter ] >> ... because there were so few nurses and doctors ... >> Mm-hmm. >> ... remember how many there were, very few? That when he came back ... [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> ... did they keep in touch? >> Okay. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> No. >> No? >> No. >> No. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> What kind of patients did he treat in Korea? >> Okay. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Like women, children, old ... [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Soldiers? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Ethiopia. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Did he ... Does he know about other medical units from Sweden, Norway? >> Okay. >> Denmark? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> NORMASH, NORMASH. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Denmark. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Only Italian doctors in his unit. >> No, I know. I know, but did he know about the other doctors? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Did they ever meet him? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Had he ever met them because ... Tell him because when I went to Sweden and Norway, they said that they went to each other's places like the Norwegian doctor went to the Swedish hospital to visit. >> Mm-hmm. >> So has he ever visited other hospitals? >> Okay. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Just Sweden. >> Sweden. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Can you tell him to tell us maybe a story that he remembers like a touching story, a moving story about a patient ... >> Okay. Okay. >> from the hospital, not necessarily personal, but just from the hospital. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> In a gist, what did he say in a gist? >> In a gist? >> In a gist. >> What is an a gist? >> Gist, like the gist of what he said. >> Oh. >> Summarize briefly what he said. >> So he basically described the hospital and the patient. He mentions the sicknesses that existed like it was lepers. >> Leprosy. >> Leprosy, and he also ... Yeah. He mentions leprosy. >> [INAUDIBLE]. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Wasn't it in mice or something? Or ... >> No, it's in the Bible something. It's ... Now what did he do when he came back. How was his life after he came back from Korea? >> Should I ask him that. >> Yes. >> Okay. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Normal, like it was before. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Ask him what ... he must ... Is he proud of his contribution, his service? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> What did he say? >> So yes, he is proud of fighting for Korea because ... [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> When did he get married? >> Okay. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> How did he meet her? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Oh, they knew each other when they were young. >> Yeah. He said that she was older than he was by 6 years. >> Oh, wow. How did they meet? >> They met in Turin. That's all he said. >> Ooh, la, la. >> Ooh, la, la. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Mm-hmm, so he basically has a total of seven kids, two girls and two boys in second marriage, and the one boy died in his first marriage, and I believe in the first marriage there was another boy. >> Oh, wow. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> So he ... [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> So he basically ... He returned back home poor just like ... >> Just like he was before. >> Just like he was before, and he's very interested in history, so rather than getting whatever, $10 million or whatever, and he also said ... Yeah. That's what he said. >> Ask him finally if there's any pictures that he wants to show us. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Any special one, special, special? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Ask him when his birthday is. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Oh, the 20th of August. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> What year? >> Oh, 1924. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> And then when was it, his birthday? >> August 20th, 1925. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> You? Really. No guitar, piano. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> You have harmonica? You have? Can you play for us? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Wow. Wow. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> What did he say? >> This is ... he's ... This is yours. >> Ooh. Mine? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I'm checking. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I don't know if he wants you to take it or what or I don't know if he meant that. >> I don't think so. >> I don't think so. I wouldn't do it because saying take it could also be just to look at .. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> So yeah, so ... >> Okay. Let's go. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Okay, concert. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Very good, grazie. >> Grazie mille. >> Grazie, grazie. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> My name is Krylov Ailey.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> In Korea, I was called Lee.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So I am born the 23rd of July, 1931, in [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So I went into the Army the 8th of June, 1949.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So 1950 was the first call for volunteers to go into Korea.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> He only went with the second detachment.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So this was going on through May [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] 1950?

>> Fifty-two.

>> 1952 until June ’52 where you were in Luxembourg and in Belgium.

>> Oui, mm-hmm.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And then they went to Belgium.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So they finished their instructions there.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Meersburg.

>> To Meersburg.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So in March in ’52, they went by airplane from the airport, Meersburg.

>> Meersburg.

>> Meersburg, where?

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And then first to the Azoren Islands.

>> And then Newfoundland.

>> Then Newfoundland.

>> Springfield.

>> Springfield, yeah.

>> Oklahoma.

>> Oklahoma.

>> San Francisco.

>> San Francisco.

>> Hawaii.

>> Hawaii.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] yeah.

>> And then Tokyo.

>> And then Tokyo.

>> And then from Tokyo, I was [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Then they went from Tokyo by boat to the south of Japan, Sasebo.

>> Yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Okay.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So they went to Korea, and then for 2 months, they were trained.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. Yeah. Yeah.

>> In training, and then … [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And then the first time they went to the front.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So then they went …

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Then they went second time to the front in September of ’52, 1952.

>> Yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And they went to the first post, not far away, about 1 kilometer away from the Chinese.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And then they had two periods there …

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> … during the whole period that they were there.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> You could not bring your head high because all the time it was shooted.

>> Yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And then they went back, and they went again to the front.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> They were the day when there was rain period.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And they were 3 weeks in the front, and they were totally wet from the morning to the evening.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So that’s the period, rain period, for the rice fields.

>> Yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Excuse me, please.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So they went back from the front.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> When they went back, the activities was mainly to make patrol, patrol.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And he remembers he was a special rotation.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> He received another name. It was [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> Aven, Josh.

>> Josh Aven.

>> Josh Aven. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> So he … They changed the name because his father was officer in the army of the Czar.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And at this time, they were still persecuted.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> They have a name to protect him, and then he would come into where they would test prisoner. He would have been in danger with his name.

>> Yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> He received a citation, may be different from [INAUDIBLE] patrol is what we did, which we did.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So that was, he had the graduation because he was very contentious with a big conscious, and very high … He was very cold-blooded, how you call it. He was very … He not was so emotional. He kept his cold blood.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So he was … He received this, all the contention, because of the patrols, and he says that he was very conscious and did his job very well.

>> I have a question, so I know … I learned that your father … So you’re ethnically Russian?

>> Russian, yeah, yeah, Russian.

>> Ethnically?

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So his father was Russian, but his father married here in Luxembourg, during the Luxembourg warfare.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> When the revolution finished in Russia, some people freed from Russia.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Then the white Russians, they had no more financial means.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So they start to … They found work in Luxembourg in the north of the country in Wiltz. There were still industry for to make leather at this time.

>> So my question is, because in the Korean War, Russia was on the other side of the war, right?

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> North Korea was supported by Russia.

>> How did that feel? How did it affect you if any way?

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So this … He says the Navy received protection, but he said he never faced Russians to fight them.

>> True.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So they changed the name.

>> Aven, George. Aven George.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Aven, George.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> His real name is Krylov, yes.

>> Yeah.

>> To protect himself, he changed it to protect himself.

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So he wants to say something more.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So when he was in enrolled with his army in 8th March, the 8th of March, ’49, the 8th of March, ’49, Tuten Werner was his first chief in this part of army.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And then in the 23rd of January, 1950, they went back to Luxembourg, and then the following stations …

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So from Japan.

>> Tokyo, Okinawa, Bangkok, Karachi, Beirut, Nice, Luxembourg.

>> Nice is the south of France and then Luxembourg.

>> Wow.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So they were not … no isolation, so they had a lot of … In the ears, it was very hard, tough.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So he went back to the army to the stay there at his end, and his last grade was …

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So since 1986, he’s in pension.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> If you want to ask something …

>> You also visited Korea many times, right?

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Four times, I visited.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So the firs time he was there …

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> The first time he was there was 1976, and there he could see still a lot of poverty. He could see what the people suffered.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> That’s the second time he was there in 2010, 2013 and then 2016.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So what you could see …

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So you could see what they really succeeded to do a lot of very hard work. It’s very hardworking people.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Also too good, also too can confirm this.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> I think that’s all.

>> I hope that you’re very proud, also very proud.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Thank you.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> I am very proud.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> He likes South Korea. He’s very stoked when he goes to Korea. It’s no … How you call this in English. There’s no …

>> Traffic jam.

>> Yes.

>> No, no, no.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> It is very clean, and it’s a discipline he can experience there.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> So and also he can see in Korea the people know what Luxembourg is, and the children learn in the school to know all the different nations who participated to help liberate Korea.

>> Well, again …

>> Thank you.

>> No, thank you.

>> Thank you. Thank you. That was …

>> My name is Joseph Wagner. I was during [INAUDIBLE] tough years in the Luxembourg Army, and one part of this occupation from back in the Korean War. I engaged in 1950, and I was sent to Korea with the Luxembourg detachment. All the people, they were volunteers. They had all volunteered, and we were attached to a Belgian battalion. We couldn’t afford to have a big force, to have all the logistical facilities, unit command, but we were all the time with Belgians attached to a Belgian company. And so we went, before the war, sent to a Belgian training camp. We did all the training which was useful for fight, for a soldier to be engaged in a war, and after that, we were sent to Korea on a Belgian boat. It was called the Kamina. We went on a Belgian boat, the Kamina, which was not very comfortable. We had very hard time during 6 weeks, being from one sea to the other, and we arrived. We started on the 13th of December, and we arrived in Korea on the 31st of January. It was a long way, yeah? So then we were received in a reception center. We went on training again, what we found out by contact foreign units who had already fought in the Korean War because we came in. Then the Chinese were already in the war. They started in November, and we arrived on the 31st January, and what I feel, we never saw a North Korean soldier. We were all the time engaged with Chinese because during the landing in Incheon, all the Korean units, they were cut off from their bases, and they had no contact from their bases anymore. And, well, our first mission was to fight them, and we had our first mission, was to control the communications of South Korea, and we were stationed in week one. Week one, that was our first mission. We were all the time patrolling the region to be sure that those people would not go making trouble in this area. And after that, we joined the third American division, and we were taken in offensive action that was south of Seoul. As I said, we had to … First crossing was the Han River, and then we went up with American units, with the third division, up to the 38th parallel. And from there, we trenched, our attachment. Then we were attached, the Belgian battalion was attached to the 29th British brigade, commanded by General Brodie. General Brodie, he was a jungle fighter, and when they sent him to Korea, there were only mountains and stones, no jungle at all. And, well, we were attached to this unit, to the 29th brigade, and then came the backlogged [INAUDIBLE] on the 23rd of April, and I was sent out on a patrol from the 12th to the 13th of April, and the Chinese, they were nowhere. Nobody knew where they were, because we had so many patrols during the night. Every unit had to send out patrols, and when I was sent out, I had … My mission was to see if a certain position was occupied, and when I came to this position, the position was occupied. We have a firefight with the Chinese occupation, and then we pulled out. We pulled out. We had one wounded, not by a bullet, but he was … He fell down on a certain position where he hit barbed wire or some kind of defense object. So we came back to our base, and I was called to the brigade’s operation officer, to the [INAUDIBLE] of the brigade, and then I told my story, that we were having contact with this position where we were both sent, and, well, that was very valuable information because 10 days after that, the war started. They started. The Luxembourg detachment was … North of the Imjin River was the other unit, the Luxembourg company, the Luxembourg … The Belgian battalion was north of the Imjin River, and all the other units from the brigade, the [INAUDIBLE], the oilers, the rifles, the [INAUDIBLE], they were south of Imjin River. And then when they attack, well, we had to, first of all, to hurt the position, 23 hours before we could move back, and we were already surrounded by the Chinese, and we were liberated, the help by air strike and by tank patrols. They cut the way from the Chinese, and so we had the chance to pull out, and then we went back. We went back, and during our retreat, we had, from time to time, what I call retreating operations. You had to occupy a position. You had to pull out. You had to occupy another position to make the aggressor that came from time to time on the resistance. And then we kind of came back to, well, south of Seoul. I don’t know the town anymore, and then we were on reserve of the brigade because the brigade was not operative anymore because they had already lost so many. They had lost one battalion. They lost the battalion, was wiped out on their position on the Imjin, and so the brigade was what we call in reserve. And after that, we were patrolling, all the time, the Imjin River, and that is where we had two wounded, two wounded on the night patrol, and we … Because the Chinese had all the time infiltrators across the Imjin River, and they were patrolling the whole region every night, every night. So we had two wounded, and they were evacuated to Japan, and when they had been, the treatment was up, they came back to our position. They came back to our position again. And, well, from there, we came also on a very comfortable situation because we were also reserve of the brigade. And from there, we stayed on the position making patrols on the level of the battalion, what they called a sweep, a coup de ballet, a sweep, to find out where the Chinese were because the Chinese, after our offensive action, they had been thrown out. They had been thrown out. And then of the first of July, we had very big operation, the Luxembourgers with Belgian battalion, Belgian company, and that was, we had to occupy the bridge head across the Imjin River. The bridge head, we had to make our position and when we moved up, we crossed by boat. The Imjin River was very swollen. It was very high, and we crossed by boat, and the British engineer troops, they took us along. And when we came on the other side, there were some people left on the village. They said, “Well, they are 800 men who have just left the position we occupied,” where we should occupy our bridge head. And after that, after we were occupied, we were attacked by enemy fire, by Chinese fire. They were occupied about 800 to 1000 meters in front of us, and we were taken in by fire. They attacked us by fire, and, well, as I was on the side, I had all the time, the possibility, the facility to call for artillery fire, and I knew exactly where they were, and I called artillery fire on their positions, but they were very clever soldiers. They were very, very successful and very skillful. And then a Belgian company was moved up to find out where the Chinese were located, and when they came up to the position, they were attacked by the Chinese, and they had to pull out. And we were on the favorable position to have to help them by protective fire, and all our men, all our, well, platoons started to give supporting fire to the Belgian company, and the company commander, he used to say all the time, “If I would not have had Luxembourg platoon on the 1st of July, my company was wiped out,” and that was a very good compliment to me and to my people. So we had to pull out again. We were the last one section after the other, and I was with the last section, and I was in the last boat being taken over in the Imjin River on the other side. And then the whole battalion, and some supporting elements of the brigade, they all were shooting to protect our reply. So when we were on the other side, well, we were safe again. We were safe because the Chinese, they were not … They had no means to follow, they had no means to go further than what they have done already because the Belgians, they had three or four wounded and so many hurt, so many hit and so many wounded. And then we went up to our position again from where we were located, and then on the … When did we came back? On the beginning of September, we were relieved from our position, and because the idea was to take the first battalion, we were sent in Korea, the Belgian battalion, to be sent home again, and we arrived in Rotterdam on the 2nd of October, 1951, and then we were sent back home again. But there was one more very important incident. Before we were liberated from the position, we had to take part in an offensive action that was what we call a diverging, and we were attacking., We were attacking a certain position, on a certain position, the Chinese. But on another sector, in the middle sector of the whole line, there was a very big attack moving on, pushing the Chinese further to the north. And during the night of … I forget. It was in August, the 7th or the 9th August, we were attacked again during the night by the Chinese, and we were … They were so close to our position that I was afraid that we would not have enough ammunition to fight them for a certain time, but that didn’t happen. The Chinese, they moved back again. We drew them back, and then we came back [INAUDIBLE] Imjin River and then we were called to what we call, to a position where we can have a rest, a resting position, and then we moved up. We handed up all our equipment, and then we were taken to Incheon on the boat, the General McRae, and, I guess, that must be in September. Yes, because we were 1 month on the way up to Rotterdam, and that was the end of the first detachment. We were sent back to Luxembourg, and then the people, they were sent on leave, and I went home to my parents, and that was as far as I had done as a Luxembourg commander and as a Luxembourg soldier during this war.

>> So how many Luxembourgers fought in the war?

>> How many Luxembourgers in the Korean war? At the whole, we were the second detachment that was created, and that was … We had 85 people in the Korean War. Eighty-five Luxembourgers were served in the war, and we have two wounded, and about 52 … No, 32 killed, and about 15 to 14 wounded. That was, for me, as a young soldier, a young officer, was a good experience. A good experience not only to fight another aggressor, but it was also very good experience how to handle people, how to handle people in a critical situations because I had to have confidence in my people, and they had to have confidence in me. I was a leader, and we have never had an incident or trouble that somebody was … I was very glad, and very glad. I had confidence in my people, and that was also a very big satisfaction for me when I came back. I had my people. Some had re-engaged. Six people had re-engaged, but where the other people, they went back to Luxembourg with me on the second of October.

>> You came back, and you volunteered. You said the 85 volunteered.

>> Yeah.

>> Including you, why do you think they volunteered?

>> All the other? Well, some people, they didn’t have a job. Other, they had maybe an adventurous spirit in mind because the adventure was all the time in the air, you can say, because people, well, they are excited, but most of those people, I feel they wanted to be soldier, and I don’t know exactly what were their feelings. If they were in to fight an aggressor and to help the Korean nation, I don’t know. My feeling was that I was engaged to help the Korean nation because they were in a very critical situation, and I was just coming back from school, so I said to myself, “Well, this is a very good occasion, first of all, to find out what is going on as a leader in a war.” And my second motivation was to help the Korean people because what we had heard, that the Korean people, the poor farmers, that they had been attacked by a very well-equipped aggressor. Yes, that was … When I started, I was at school. I didn’t know anything about Korea. I didn’t know where this country was, and I didn’t know what was going on, and finally, we found out that there was a separation between South and North which was because the first President, Syngman Rhee, he made elections in ’48, and when the people of the North, they had no rights because they were already under the domination, under the rule of Nam Il-Sung. Nam Il-Sung was the first president.

>> Premier Sung.

>> They did not take part in this elections, and Syngman Rhee had already in mind that he would be the president of the whole Korea. And, well, it came in another way, and, well, they were really surprised, but the American, I mean, information of this at G2, in this area, they should have known that something is coming up because if you start an aggression, you have to assemble so many units and I don’t know. Well, they had no chance. There were not many American units to block them, and so that was the reason why they had a chance to go so far to presume. They … Well, it was not far away that they had thrown the whole United States … not the United States, the United Nation Army in the sea again. And that was … That would have been a very big operation to have ground again in South Korea, and fortunately, in this few place on the Naktong, fortunately they stopped. They blocked the Chinese offensive, Chinese they were, and that was very … the biggest luck which could happen, and then after the Imjin, the Imjin landing, the Imjin landing by MacArthur where he cut out all the bases, all the units who were cut out, and then they broke out. General Walker, he was commander of the 8th Army. He broke out and then to join the forces who had made the landing, the landing that was at the height of Seoul, because from Imjin, they went in direction of Seoul, and Walker, he broke out in the same way because he had not very much resistance because all the North Korea, they were blocked. They were all cut out, cut up. And so they came together, and then from there on, from this part on, it was the United Nation forces. They were, we say, so many nations had engaged themselves, and at the end, we had 21 foreign nations fighting the Chinese in the Korean War, and that was the lucky part, what I have found, and it was very done well. Came the part when MacArthur was relieved from Ridgway …

>> Truman.

>> Huh?

>> President Truman.

>> No. No, MacArthur, he was liberated from his post or sent out or sent back by Truman, and he was replaced by Ridgway, and from there, from that point on, Ridgway was our operative commander, and he was a very good man. He made many punishment operations, what he called, when the Chinese, when we had attacked or found out some posts that they had taken back so many soldiers of the United Nations. Then he made a punitive operation. He said, “Now we will punish them,” and then he attacked on certain points. Well, I could not say much more about …

>> You must be very proud of …

>> I was.

>> … the Luxembourgers’ contributions.

>> Yes, I was. I was really proud, and I was also, not only to myself that I succeeded in my, in the whole field. I was very proud to have done a very human mission, and I was very glad that when the South Korean War was over, and the people could recover, and I was very much surprised what they have done during the last 60 years. I was so much surprised every time when I was in Korea. I was there already eight times, six or eight times, and I was all the time surprised for also about the kindness of your people. They are so kind and so grateful, very. That’s what is also, when I come back, all the time, they say, “Oh, if you would not be our liberators, if you would not come to Korea, what would happen to us?” And so that was what … And in the museums, Luxembourg is very well represented. In the museums in Korea, Luxembourg is very well represented. And then when after that when we followed, when we are back, we followed that very closely, and we were glad to hear that they have had finally come to agreement to cease fire. Not to … at peace because they are still in war. North Korea and South Korea, they are still in war, and I wonder about the motivation of the South Korean units. They are very good soldiers. They are very, very … Oh, I can’t imagine that the North Koreans, they would not come along far if they were there to attack, but there is one thing. I was in one of those tunnels. They had created eight tunnels under the Imjin battle, under the Imjin River. I was in one of those tunnels, and when they would have attacked again, they were not ready, but they could have attacked it with so many divisions across one tunnel. Well, that would be, what we call the most biggest evil which could have happened to the South Koreans because they found only out that there were tunnels. There were tunnels inside. They could not … They found out that the soldier, he was so vigilant, and he said he heard some noise, and went, “What is that?” And then they looked, after that, in making research through the earth, and then they found a [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], we called it. How do you call that?

>> An empty [INAUDIBLE].

>> An empty hole. And they investigated, and they started to look after that, and then they found the tunnels. That was also very lucky. Oh, because that was … No, they had no good things in mind, and luckily, I was very, very happy that Korea had developed in this manner. Good army, very well organized in the industrial field. Oh, I was very lucky to hear that Korea had recovered.

>> Well, like you said, we are all very grateful to you and your fellow Luxembourgers for your service.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> I am Robert Decoling. I am born in Bruges, in Belgium, on 21st of December, 1922. I joined the Army in 1949, and I went to Korea in 1953, our squadron leader in Korea, section leader. I went to Korea in Korea Battalion in May 7th, 1953, and we departed to Korea in 19 July, 1953, just before the end of the war. We were held in Camp Drake in Tokyo when the armistice negotiations were closed. So I entered Korea after the war, so I was not in the war, so I left to Korea in the 16th of July. The armistice was on 27th of July, so we entered in Korea a few days later. We stayed first in Camp Drake, later on in Sasebo in Japan and then in Korea. So I served 11 months in Korea after the armistice, after the ceasefire. Nevertheless, we had a lot to do. We have to patrol. We have to look out. We have exercises. We are on the way every day, so we had a hard and rough time over there but not the danger of the war. That's all I can tell about Korea. >> Why you volunteered? >> I volunteered because it was a sort of adventure for us. Korea was a country far away from us. We never thought we'd have the chance to go there, so there was a sort of adventure for the most of us. I was a young sergeant, a young military, so to see the world, also perhaps to help the Koreans, but it was not our first goal to help the Koreans. Only we look at as an adventure, the most of us. I have to tell the truth. That's the reasons. So that was the reason of why I went to the Korea. >> Hundred died. >> Mm-hmm. Yes. Correct. >> Three thousand one hundred seventy-two ... >> I know. >> ... served. >> Mm-hmm. >> That must have changed when you came back. >> Of course. Of course, we saw a lot of misery. Oh, those were totally different when we left to Korea. When we left to Korea, we knew nothing about Korea, nothing. It's a country far away from us, not knowing the people over there, but when we came back, we know the people of Korea. I'm very, very thankful to be for some help to the Korean people because I'm sure the Belgian troops over there helped the people there. There are a lot of [INAUDIBLE] and the people [INAUDIBLE] all the way, even though when we come back to Korea, we are always very welcome in Korea, all the veterans are going there. I have been four times in Korea since the war, so I know what I'm talking about. >> I was told about the Belgians never lost a position. Explain that a little bit. >> I wasn't there at that moment. >> Oh, yeah, but you heard about it. >> Oh, of course. I heard the stories, of course. >> Mm-hmm. >> Yeah. I know the history too. >> Mm-hmm, so what does that mean? >> Well, it means [INAUDIBLE]. >> Mm-hmm, especially about artillery and parachutes, right, historically? >> Yeah, but we didn't have parachutes in Korea, you know, but the story of Belgian army is another side about the good artillery. There were good parachute jumpers, yeah, of course. We were world champions many times for world champion parachutes. [INAUDIBLE] so he is one of them. Yeah. >> Do you remember the saying, "Belgians can do too"? >> "Can do too," yeah, of course. >> What does that mean? >> That does mean that we can do anything that another army did, but we are a small batallion. There are very few over there in our battalion. We needed the help of the Koreans even to make our battalion complete. We needed Koreans to serve with us because there were not Belgians enough to have a full battalion over there. >> How many is a battalion? >> There about 800, I think. I think we had the support of 40, 50 Koreans in the battalion serving, I think. I'm not sure of the amount, but I think that it must be that, during the war in one area, yeah. >> Oh, Korean soldiers, KATUSA, KATUSA. >> Korean soldiers, yeah, they served with us, yes. >> Oh. >> Yeah. Also, there are many. Six deaths among the Koreans who served with us, six casualties, yes. >> Do you remember about the Korean civilians? >> Of course. We have seen ... >> After the war doesn't mean armistice is signed and everything is wonderful, right? That's when the country needs to rebuild, right? >> Of course. Yeah, we saw Korea. When we left Korea, Korea was flat. It was just destroyed, Seoul, not much left in Seoul, so no, when we left, and we returned, no, it was any sort of difference. Korea is a wonderful country at this moment, oh, but the moment we left, it was destroyed, completely destroyed, and the people were poor, needed help from everywhere, from anyone, yeah. >> I am very interested in the armistice. >> Uh-huh. >> Do you remember reading about the armistice? Who signed it? Why? Do you remember a little bit? >> The signing was between the North Koreans and the Chinese and the Americans also. You know the members. I don't think there were Belgium among them. It mostly between the North Koreans, Chinese and, of course, the Russians behind. Russia was one of the supporters of North Korea, so on the other side, on our side, was the Americans. They supported the South Koreans among the 23 other countries who helped South Korea, so yeah, that is all. >> Everyone must have been very happy that ... >> Of course. Everyone was happy that the war ended, especially the people. >> And you were very lucky. >> I was very lucky. >> Yes, you were very lucky. >> I wanted to join the Korean battalion before, and a friend of mine came to my parents to ask if I could go with him, and my father said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no." It doesn't happen, but 1 year later, I joined anyway. [INAUDIBLE] was the name of the man who came. He was a friend of mine at home, and my friend, he died already, yeah. >> In the war? >> No, not in the war. Afterwards. >> Okay. Good. Okay. Well, do you have anything that you'd like to share, anything else? >> No. No. >> No? >> I'm glad I have been in Korea. I'm glad I could be of some help to the Korean people. I met Korean people because they are very friendly. >> Well, thank you, Grandpa. >> You're welcome. >> I'm very grateful for you.
>> Go. >> [INAUDIBLE]. My name is Gorfed Gormumen. I'm 88. When the Korean War started, I was 21. I was a Korean War ... >> [INAUDIBLE]. >> [INAUDIBLE]. >> And now I am a veteran as a Korean War volunteer. >> Volunteer. >> Volunteer. From September '50 ... 18 of September '50 to the end of the war was armistice. The war is still going on at the moment. It was armistice on the 27th of July '53. Then I stay in Korea a little bit longer, more than 1 month. In September, I was back in Belgium, September '53. Then I stay in the army. When I leave Belgium, I was a sergeant, and I was the leader of a squad. Then I stay longer in Korea, 1, 2, 3 years, and become sergeant first class, sergeant major, and then I was the leader of the weapon platoon then the third year. Then after we come back to Belgium, I stay in the army, and then I leave the army on pension as a [INAUDIBLE] officer. >> What? >> [INAUDIBLE] officer. >> More for the moment. >> And [INAUDIBLE] museum now? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Oh, yeah. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] So you are now in charge of a museum? >> No. Yes. The commander of the Para, it ask us to [INAUDIBLE] museum, and that we did. >> And when was it ... >> I must do it because [INAUDIBLE] Koreans. And I did my best to help that commander in [INAUDIBLE]. The 3rd Para Battalion take over [INAUDIBLE], and because of that, they build a museum. Okay. I did. I ask around to have some items for the museum. There were a lot of items, and I asked to send them to 3rd Para. Then after any time, I [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] ... >> I was sorting out ... ... after ... >> ... all objects that were sent in. >> We started there with the museum in the late '80s, '87, '88, but the innovation, no ... >> The inauguration. >> ... inauguration in 1990 [INAUDIBLE] it is 25, 27 years that I do it in the museum. >> What do you think is most important for people when they come visit the museum to know about the Korean War? >> About? >> What is it [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] museum [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yes, the interest because the Korean War is known as forgotten war, and now when they visit the museum, no more forgotten. See? When you come in, there is a title, "Forgotten War," and when you come out, "Forgotten No More." See? >> What are some of the more interesting things in the museum? >> Interesting? Our battles. We don't have so much place. I must [INAUDIBLE] to our situations [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] See? And there's a theme. Around the theme, we have our museum. I can't show everything in museum. Our battles are the most important rings on our colors [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] on our colors of the battalion. The 3rd Battalion, they take over our traditions but not our history because the 3rd Battalion is ... >> Forms. >> ... founded. >> Or founded. >> ... during the Korean War, you see, and it's at that moment you take over colors, our tradition, but the history start later, and because our history in '50, September '50 [INAUDIBLE] and the 18th of September '50, see? I can tell much more, but do you like it? >> When young people, okay, go to the museum ... >> Oh, yeah. >> ... how do they feel? >> How they feel? >> Mm-hmm. What do they think about it? >> Yeah. Yeah, they don't know nothing. There's nothing saving Korea. What do the younger people know of the Korean War? >> Very little. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Very little. >> Same here. The Second World War, First World War, Second World War, no, they know nothing about Korea. >> What is the significance of Korea in Belgium's war history? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yes, it was a terrible time. That was a terrible time. >> Can you explain the historical context? >> Maybe it was the Cold War and with all the trouble in the east, east of Europe. Then the 25th June, Korea War broke out. I was one of the first to enlist as a [INAUDIBLE] for Korean War in Amsterdam. I was 21. It was a long time ago now. >> Okay. >> For the moment, I still stay with our veterans always, always. I was back in Korea. Six times I went back, and once with the inauguration in Washington, D.C. I was there. A lot of rememberings from Korea. Three [INAUDIBLE] [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Sometimes, I was in front of the first line. I spend 29 months in the first line in Korea, and sometimes I'm asked to do some listing calls before the front line many times. I'm leaving, and we are there. I notice that light here, light there, lantern. We are making our Chinese New Year in that, so we had the fireflies. You know? You know that? And I was there with a couple of men with the radio and two, three men more in front of the [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] because of that then and because of the red. It's characteristic for Korea, the poncho. Because of that, in Washington, D.C., you have with the poncho. >> Poncho. >> Yeah. Ask me what. >> I hope you're very proud of your contribution. I hope you're very proud. I hope you and Belgians are proud ... >> Yes. >> ... of Korea. >> Yes. That time, I think it was neat. It was naughty. >> It was necessary, we thought, at that time. > It was necessary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I [INAUDIBLE] it was necessary to go over there to stop that the congress ... >> Power. >>... system there took over, overthrowing ... > Expanding, overthrowing other countries. >> Yes, yes, yes, and now I hope it don't start again. It go sometimes, right? You never know, huh? >> I hope so too, and I hope there will be peace and two Koreas unite and one Korea. >> Mm. >> Mm. Okay.
>> Good afternoon. My name is Raymond Bier. I am the national president of the Korean Veterans of Belgium, the Belgium United Nation Command, BUNC. I was born in Limburg, one of the nine provinces in Belgium, in October 1933. As I went to the military school, I had to wait until January 1953 to go to Korea. When I arrived in Korea, I saw a country where the children were standing in the mud. On the way, I saw the papasans and the mamasans carrying all kind of things to build sheds to live in. Children were asking for some food, and I thought, "What did you do? Where are you came? You came to a country where we had the same problems as we had between the War '40, '45 with the German." When I came to my company and the Chinese attacked Shadko, the old papasan, and we lost many people, and soldiers were crying for their mother. I was sitting. I was moderating one. I was sitting in a hole, and my friend who lived 32 meters from my hometown, and he would go home next month. He was killed in front of me of 1 yard, and I was thinking about friends. Okay. War is no good. Afterwards, I came back to Korea, and I was invited by the Korean people [INAUDIBLE] a restaurant in Korea. It's so good, and they asked me if I could give them an interview and the lady who watched me, and she said to me, "Mr. President, are you certain that your friends who were killed in action in Korea are worth it?" And I didn't have to think it over. I said this. When I left Korea in 1953, I had to cross the Han River on a bundle bridge. Today, I came to Korea, and I saw 32 bridges with six roads, and it's not enough. They're still building them, and when I saw in the museum the little children who were all in dresses from their schools in yellow and blue, and they were waving with the flags, and they were happy, and they're laughing, and they say, "hello," to us. And I saw the old people driving [INAUDIBLE] with a bicycle and having such high products on their bicycle, and they were happy, and they were laughing. Then I saw that the Korean people are happy. I saw that we did something for the Korean people, and yes, lady, it was worth that we lost more than 100 soldiers in Korea. That is Korea today. Today, it is the fifth biggest economy country in the world, and we are proud that we have given them a hand. I was not a general. It was 18 years, and I'm proud to have a second home in Korea. Thank you. [INAUDIBLE] of the the Belgian Korean Veterans is mostly the same as in all the other countries. We have nine provinces in Belgium. It is a little country, but we are very proud of history, and we have nine monuments, Korean monuments, and we are gathering, every province, are getting once a year to maintain our friendship, but we are also very close, and I tell you, very close with the Korean people. I send every year four students to Korea for the young camp, and I tried to send all those people who were injured in action [INAUDIBLE] disabled person. I tried to send them to Korea on the base of visiting Korea, and once again, those people, when they came back, they are telling me, "How is it possible that the Korean people treated us like [INAUDIBLE]." But we are getting old and getting no [INAUDIBLE], and there was a time to come, and there was a time to go. The time to come is gone, and the time to go is in front of us, and it won't last too many years, and we will be history. I wish you very luck [INAUDIBLE]. Okay.
>> My name is Declane Louis born 12th June, 1931. I'm Belgian. I served in the Korean Battalion from the 7th October, '50. Joined a ship the 18th December, '50, to go to Korea. We need ... Our ship was a very, very quick ship, and it's only 41 days, normally 35, okay? You see, first ship, okay. We start with landed at Pusan the 31st of January, '51, and there, we're leaving to a little camp on river. I think it was Nakdonggang. I'm not sure, and we stayed there, and we saved some equipment? Why? Our equipment was very nice. We need everything. It's easy. After 8 days, we went Nakdong River, Nakdonggang, supposed to be fighting against guerrilla. I never saw a guerrilla, but we went several times in the mountains. After 1 month, we won. We were leaving to the frontline. It was in March '51 in a train, a wagon, not Volkswagen, an old wagon, and came at ... I think I mixed up the names ... At the village near the Han River, Hantangang, and my platoon was immediately on the line at the OP. I was an OP-4. They had OP-1, 2, 3 and 4. I make the OP-4, and I was surprised to see for the first time in my life a rifle that's shooting at night. I never saw it. [INAUDIBLE] green thing. The morning at the Han River, there was some fog. You know what I mean? Incidentally, wind comes up, and all of a sudden, [INAUDIBLE] that was a village and an ocean officer, and this ocean officer was talking with a Korean, okay? I remember this officer. Why? He have a big [INAUDIBLE] his boots, golden things, the North Koreans don't have this in this time, the Chinese certainly not, and I know that's in '47, okay? When I saw ocean soldiers, '47, okay? After 3 weeks, I think, we were leaving and making offensive to the north. The north was [INAUDIBLE]. There was no bridge at Seoul. There was only a ship bridge into [INAUDIBLE] and the field battle that we have was at Uijeongbu. There we lost our first man [INAUDIBLE] company, and he was in Charlie Company, the first soldier to die. Okay, meanwhile, I forgot to say at [INAUDIBLE] we make the first combat battle my platoon, the combat patrol on the other side from the Han River, and the Chinese [INAUDIBLE] move, which was maybe, maybe not. And I know that after [INAUDIBLE] this of the Han River was full with mine, all that I know. That was before after [INAUDIBLE]. Then after we go farther to north, and we will leave the 187 air bomb, jumping behind the lines. I don't know if you know that, 187 air bomb jumping behind the lines, and we are the first to leave quickly against all the people to move forward to the north. And we leave the 187 air bomb, and from there on, we went on to the Imjin, Imjin. We changed from American to the British. Why? Our rifle was 707, 703, anyway, something [INAUDIBLE]. It was too long a time ago, and the British went in the 29th British Brigade. A big thing that I'd like to say, our battalion was only 699 men and not 1,000. Mostly people say one battalion, would say 3,000. No. We are still of 700, complete battalion, until 1953 with the relief to get [INAUDIBLE] 3,000. Don't forget it. It's easy to say 3,000, but we're only 700 men [INAUDIBLE]. American, 1,000. Korean, 1,000, and we never go back, never. We hold whole time our position. That's all that I can say about Imjin after the Chinese attacked on the second day of April, I think. I remember [INAUDIBLE]. Why we're surrounded? British take us north of the Imjin. and all the people British on the south of Imjin. We are surrounded. We had broken the surroundings and tried to deliver the [INAUDIBLE] battalion that surrounded too and completely down. The Chinese [INAUDIBLE] prisoner camp. Then after we retreat until Kimpo. From Kimpo, again, attack on the Imjin. Imjin was finished, a second Imjin. From there, this was the beginning of the position, means trench, bunkers. That was the beginning, June, July of '51, and the whole [INAUDIBLE] the Belgian fight and the antinaval just the same. We're on the front. Why with the [INAUDIBLE] and not with the other? Yeah, that's it, tactical. Okay, and I make all the rest [INAUDIBLE] in placement to stay 30 days on the front line. I stayed 55 days, and after several attacks from the Chinese in a still hold position. The Chinese never gained in our position, never. That's all that I can say. What about after? I came back in '53 the 4th December and the 4th November, '53. They came back in Belgium the 4th December, '53 [INAUDIBLE] holiday, and I joined the Army, first the light infantry and then after Belgian airborne special forces. That's all. Something further? >> Have you been back to Korea after? >> Sure, and I like Korea. I was surprised, really surprised. The first time I went is after the Olympiada. >> Olympics. >> No, no, just after, and I was surprised. I know Korea from before at landing, Pusan. It was terrific to see it, all these people leaving from the street. Impossible to believe it [INAUDIBLE] left and right and dogs and cats, and then I came in Korea, and I saw a beautiful nice, little country, all these highways, buildings, buildings, building, bridges on the Han River. That's impossible, and then I went in the tunnel that not Koran did. You know that they make it to inside? And I was proud that the Korean soldier hear it and said it to his officer. That's all. That's enough. >> Well, thank you so much for your service. >> Okay. >> And I hope that you will visit Korea again and again because ... >> I hope so. >> ... it's very, very advanced, right? Very advanced. >> It is. The last time I went, a few years ago. I went to [INAUDIBLE]. >> You're young. You're young. >> Hey, old papasan, don't forget it. >> No, no, no, no, you're young. >> And my wife is a mamasan. >> Yeah, mamasan, yes. >> Okay like that? >> Yes.
>> My name is Philips Armand. In English, Armand, the British English. I was in the third battalion volunteered with Korea with Roger, my friend, and the make ... The meeting was in Belgium, three battalion to go to Korea. The UN, United Nations, ask, and one battalion complete, but Belgium has never can come to the number of 650 men like the English. They only had 600, 700 people, but one-fourth of it is administration. Fighters was not enough. It was 500, and all of the English were 800. Belgium wasn't the right force to go. Then we made a prepares to go. We're coming to Korea. Roger says with all the dates and began ... Busan, is it Busan? We stay a little while in Busan, and then we move higher and higher. Along way we helped ... We make a ... with the American Army, but Belgium Army has British weapons and the equipment, all British and a Lee-Enfield rifle, the old one. The US go, "No thanks, to Belgium, Put them over there," because we cannot give them ammunition, and it was just ... Put your gun away and take another one. That was a diplomatic difference over there, and after the Imjin is over, go on, go to America, so Roger was free. I was away in this moment. Then we do this the same way, Busan, higher up to the 38th frontier on the Imjin, and that you know. You know that. And along the way, we have made the [INAUDIBLE] and was looking for the invasion of the Chinese soldiers. When the Belgiums were on the boat, the Chinese, not the North Koreans [INAUDIBLE] were something we never see. I never see the North Korea. It was China. China was behind it. And they [INAUDIBLE] onto Seoul, bombardment of American Seoul. Seoul was a wreck, completely horizontal. No people over there and the Belgium battalion [INAUDIBLE] over the Han River to platoon, with a platoon to look if there was enemies where they is, but the Chinese were away. They were going, and we never known why, and we did a night patrol over the Imjin, and my platoon commander, the lieutenant, was the leader, and I stayed with the others on the other side. They said, "Spend the night over there," and when they come back they ... I was watching on the land mine, and the Chinese have their little dynamite box on the Han River, on the side, for the tanks. There were tanks, and that is with the wire to the big one, 2 kilo and a half dynamite, and the tanks of America has changed before. They cleared a little bump. They can't ... But the big bomb was here and the little one there, 5 meters. When the little bomb sprang, it's with the chains, but the other 2-1/2-kilo dynamite was under the tank. They're smart, this one, and my platoon commander was leader, and he was floating 8, 10 meters in the river and on the ground, and commander of the company was dead and two or three American officers, and the tank was finished too. On that moment was I platoon commander, as Sergeant First Class. It was in the company C. It was platoon A, B and C. [INAUDIBLE] was in platoon B or G ... B or C? There was no platoon. There wasn't one platoon. I was second-in-command, and I make [INAUDIBLE] platoon something to say, but afterwards, platoon commander. I was first sergeant, Sergeant First Class, and all the time from the Imjin and that, I stayed around the Imjin. I got shot. Now I just would finish it, but the Battle of the Imjin. When we come on the Imjin River, in Panmunjom was the peacemaking, right? Come on, it was starting then, but we're still staying on the way, on this side of the Imjin, but the British have let go the Belgium on the other side, and there was a bridge over with ... a military bridge on the Imjin River, and they put the Belgiums on the hill sometime, and there was a platoon. Roger's was on the right. I was in center, and another group was ... platoon, three platoons. We have communication with the radio and telephone, booby traps and all the things, wires [INAUDIBLE] like the Belgium Army with the protection. Then the invasion was coming, and in the night, the battalion commander, the colonel, said, "They will not come now because they have need 2 days to come from higher on the Imjin," right, higher up. [INAUDIBLE] was somewhere. We have time to make the defense here, but the Chinese were very quicker there, and we have not finished anything, and the Chinese ... Well, the Belgium battalion or the platoon, we are maybe 90 persons over there. The Chinese come maybe by thousands along the hill, and we got surrounded by the Chinese, and [INAUDIBLE] then my platoon commander was coming back over there. After the commander was over, I was again shot. I got a bullet in the rear. And then was I platoon commander, and I will see in a moment there's no more ammunition. The day and the night shooting always, grenade [INAUDIBLE] not much ... Let me see. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] ... wounded, wounded, a lot of wounded people, but not too heavy. And I was there in a certain moment. There's one corporal. Combat is ... the machine gun. They say, "Adjunct." I stay adjoint to the platoon. They always call me Adjunct. I was commander of the platoon because of ... And he comes away, and I see in the slit trench was when you go was around and make the connections make a place for the men. When they go up to come to the center, you see he has no main cover, and one of those corporals comes to get the machine gun and say, "Adjunct, it's no more good to sit around [INAUDIBLE]," and I run toward him. I say, "Go back," and then I gave him a [INAUDIBLE] ... And he's as far as I am, and on the look for my left, there was a little horse with an officer, North ... from North Korea or the Chinese, and two men were the problem, the little problem, the covered problem [INAUDIBLE] and one of the men stood because that was the way of coming up, up over the hill. He makes a ... and one of the moment, I gave a shout to the other. He give ... and I got a bullet here and comes out here. I got my mouth open. My tooth was back here, but I got wounded, and then, a little bit before, my platoon commander was wounded. He was around 90 kilo. He's a very heavy Russian big man with four soldiers to take him away into the tent. They gave him a shot, can no more do. No more can aid than that because there was a war on, and I had command to the people, and everybody asked, "Ammunition, ammunition, no more," and the British have a basic load, the double. Leave it there, and we'll take over, but the ammunition stays because we have to sit, but we have double ammunition, and the night, after the night, was no more ammunition, just shooting all the night, all the night. And we take care of the officer in the tent, give him a shot, and I take the platoon over. When I was shot, I asked for the oldest sergeant, oldest. That was Roger. I didn't know very well, but he knows. I came to the commander, and I say to him, "You have joined the company staff" because in the war, if you give over command, you must give him the order if you continue because there's no more ammunition, and the company was on the right side, and I said, "You come back to the company," and there was a mistake. I don't know what's happened. He's going up in panic. They shoot and grenades. He says to the men, "Follow me," which means, "Follow me," but I tell them, "You go to the company. That's the orders." It's the right thing. If you don't do the order, you go to ... You're punished, and we have 2 year in the school. We know what we have to do and not to do, and he was in the same school as me, and he says, "Follow me," and he run to the staff over there, to the Imjin, and the colonel put him away and put the people back, and at that time, we must evacuate with the officer that [INAUDIBLE] and he don't want to go. He stand up, and he's falling on the way somewhere in the corner, and I was not shot at this moment, and a bit later, I gave over the orders, and I go, and the people say, "We go with you [INAUDIBLE] it's under" [INAUDIBLE] no, no, I go. I say, "I'm finished," but with the bullet, I ... And I see my officer in the gate somewhere and the jeep with the doctor and the boss there. I was running to look for them. Was maybe 500, 600 meters after them, and I see him, and I go. I'm trying to look for them since I can't continue. I was wounded too, that bullet here, and I see the jeep for the doctor, and I go, and when I was on the jeep, I heard a commotion, and I say, "Benoit is over there, the officer," and they get, and they haven't found him, and they gave me the paper, confirms latest ... Roger has it. I have saved his life on that moment because I say to the doctor, "[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Benoit is there, my officer," and I approach them, and we were in the same in Daegu, in the hospital, and in the helicopter, he was on the left side and the right [INAUDIBLE] Russian and we go to Daegu, and the hospital in Korea is in South Korea. Well, it's still Korea, and in Korea, I was wounded, could not solve it. Must go to Japan, and he was going to Japan too, but I had no way of knowing. We were not in the same plane, and in Japan, I see him back. He was come to visit to me. The bullet was gone in there and out. There's nothing touched on the inside. There was a second wound for him, and he was with the colonel [INAUDIBLE] too. They come to visit. They said, "Thank you, good job. That's it [INAUDIBLE] you see," and a salute and this in the hand and gave me a paper later, but I stay 4 months in Tokyo because it was very ... And because the bullet hit my tooth and go in and here, it was in my right ear was amber fluid, they call it, here, and there was always ... And there was a Japanese doctor, very old, that was used to seeing things like that. The Japanese always have been in the war, was one of the doctors, and the major, a black man, negro, major. One of the first, highest officers I've seen in my life. He was major, a big one, you see, and the Japanese, the old doctor, said to him, "We must do this one [INAUDIBLE]," and they gave me a shot, go to the room, and it was with a syringe, a pump but with a needle, goes in the ear to the place, and they pulled the amber fluid out three times, going back to the room, and then 4 months in the hospital, and a couple of time after was better and could going out, maybe dancing on the promenade later, but the doctor said to me, "Pay attention. You're wounded, no [INAUDIBLE] for you," so while I watched, and I have do. I do what he said to me. Well, that's my story. That's in Japan, and then ... >> So were you able to fully recover? >> What? >> Were you able to fully recover? >> Yes, they said at most there was a hole here and a hole there, here, under there. >> But they've ... you ... >> Put your ... Put your finger here. Push, push, do you feel it? That's the wound I was given over there, and the bullet just ... >> But now you are okay? >> Lots better, I don't really ever hear, the ear is sort of imperceptible. I always look like this. >> And did you go back to fight? >> No, no, I must stop [INAUDIBLE] and go to Belgium in the first boat, and it was a British boat. We stayed 14 days in Hong Kong, and then we go out there and to Liverpool. In Liverpool, England, in the plane, a DC-3, go to Brussels, and my parents were over there, my friends. It was a homecoming, everybody. >> Yes, did you volunteer? >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Did you volunteer? >> Yes, I was ... >> Why? >> I was in the military school for noncommissioned officers because there was no more for all the old officers after the war. The school, the school of the cadets, as I would call it, was for all young people, has them in the order, the school. That was not exist, but the noncommissioned officers was open, sergeant and the [INAUDIBLE] and I go, and then we see, and when it is over, I go to the para-commando in Belgium, parachute [INAUDIBLE] the commander and was ... And then, I am sectioned by the commanders in Belgium, and the first time that the Korean War are announced and volunteers, I all say, "I am in the army. I know very good the rules, just not the logistics," and that's no good [INAUDIBLE] can do this and that, but the action of the war, they don't know what it was. We have seen it in the film, like the [INAUDIBLE] said, "The Korean War has come." I said, "I go," not because of the Chinese or Korea, but for to learn something. When you have 18 years or 19 years, sort of, I know you hoping for your life, and we are careered to handle that. We know each other in the Leopold [INAUDIBLE] Belgium, and we are in the same company. >> You came ... You went, and you came back wounded. Did you regret that you went? >> No, no, I got the pension. I asked for it. I am an old war elite and a big one, more than 50 percent, but [INAUDIBLE] but that sound like the good, I have the one on that, and I was married at same time, and I had a boy. I lost my wife 7 years now. I am alone in the house. I got a grandson and a son. I have no many contact. Contact is okay, but I'm better alone with my little dog, and I lose him, and I'll make a [INAUDIBLE] four, number four, but I'm still a little bit sad because there was no more there, and I was only a line, only alone, and now I don't see him anymore. He got this [INAUDIBLE] and I ... That's my life. >> Did you go ... >> And then we have ... >> What did ... >> ... we write a book of what we do in Korea, and I was the beginning, and I gave him two books on the other, when the embassy was still on the older side in Brussels. Maybe in the library [INAUDIBLE] you can find. The book has maybe stay over there. There's a book about over the Imjin and the company C, company. I said [INAUDIBLE] there's still two [INAUDIBLE] ... >> And you ... >> But if you want to know more in detail, it's in the book. >> Okay. >> It says the one ... >> And you ... >> ... "One Season in Korea" because we still stayed 3 or 4 months, the wounded, and then the platoon was [INAUDIBLE] we put the people in the other platoons, and the commander was liquid and me too, was finished and the reorganization ... And that's the stopping them on the Imjin [INAUDIBLE]. >> Last question: You revisited Korea. How did you feel? >> I ... We do it with Roger. We go together. That's 3 or 4 years ago, and we are still candidate to go, but the nationalists, I guess ... >> How did you feel? How did you feel when you ... >> I was ... I can't explain this. It was special, really. The special was in the [INAUDIBLE] I went to Busan over there. Then after, we contact them at the Korean [INAUDIBLE] the special forces. They gave a demonstration, something that ... more better than the Belgians. I cannot take out the ... always the taking out [INAUDIBLE] was very fine in the military, and then Roger was the spokesman on the table with the big boss over there. Then we had the medal decoration, like that. Yeah, that was very fine, very good, but the boss, the best over man over there, this was him. He know everything about Korea. It's 4 years over there, yes, but you must [INAUDIBLE] ask. If it's not possible, then the library. Yeah, over there with the books, maybe you find the book over there. It's "One Season in Korea." [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] it's in French. I gave two ... Maybe it's the officer.
>> My name is Roger Verbist. I went to Korea with the first battalion. I joined the first Belgian volunteers on the first or second of October, 1950 and got trained in Belgium until we left on the 18th of December on board of The Camina to go to Korea. It took us 6 weeks to arrive at last in Korea, in Busan, after a not-so-pleasant trip because the ship was not made for so many people. We were overcrowded. Anyway, we arrived at last on the 31st of January '51, in Busan at port. After that, we went to a trainings camp for a week of adaptation equipment change because we were fully equipped with the good old Belgian army coat and everything, which was really not adapted for the Korean thing. Also, to sleep, we had five, six blankets, which was really uncomfortable or impossible to take with you. Anyway, so after 1 week or so change, in 2 weeks maybe, where one nice remembrance is that we went training at night. Our second in command, Major Vivario at that time, he became later lieutenant general in the Belgian army, head of the Belgian army, but at that time, he was a major, second in command. He took the whole battalion out on a night exercise to get adapted to the mountains and everything and the hills, and we left in Indian file, and when we came back, he only had two people behind him. All the rest of the people had been lost. But anyway, we came back a few hours later to the camp. After that, we went for another what they call [INAUDIBLE] and said [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. It was [INAUDIBLE] of course between guerrilla and [INAUDIBLE]. After there, a few things, at last, we could go to the front line at the Han in the winter that time still, quite cold at the Han and everything, stayed there in position. Anyway, we crossed the Han and moved to the north. We had in April the Battle of the Imjin where we got surrounded, and as I said, I had nothing, but I've seen it all what happened there and everything. After that, we had some relative peace when we went to the neighborhood of Gimpo, the other side of the Han. That's where I took my first rest and recreation holiday in Japan and where I got promoted from corporal to sergeant for the Battle of the Imjin. Anyway, after that, we had, with the first battalion, a lot of [INAUDIBLE] which have been explained by General Crahay in is book. [INAUDIBLE] participated on that, and while I was there, on the 23rd of March, we had a fight before the Imjin, even, on the hill where I had some personal experiences and killed an American observer and some Chinese, but okay. I never had any. It was not my fault. He shouldn't have been there in the dark at night. We never knew he was there, but he was a hero, really, this guy. But anyway ... >> Explain what ... Explain a little bit. >> Explain? >> Uh-huh. What happened? >> Well, it's never ... You see, it was what they said, hill 155, 3 kilometer out of [INAUDIBLE]. The C company, which was my company, and the third platoon, we had been progressing, and in the afternoon, we took over hill 155 from an American company. I don't know which were the guys, but they had taken the hill, and they were still everywhere, Chinese around foxholes and everything, some still smoking from phosphor and everything. Anyway, we took over the top, my platoon, the rest of the battalion. It was the top of the whole thing. The rest was down. The battalion was everywhere. We had the top. So the lieutenant, the American, I still remember. When he left, he said, "Oh, guys, I would be careful. You probably will get a visit tonight." He meant from the Chinese. Anyway, we had foxholes, and we threw the bodies off. I don't know if this [INAUDIBLE] threw them off. We took over the foxholes because they were [INAUDIBLE], and we settled down for the night, but we had been working just with a little backpack, so nothing, sleeping bags, nothing, nothing, nothing real. Anyway, at the certain time when it got dark, they said, "Ah, the trucks arrived downstairs at the hill. One-third of the platoon can go down and get the kit bags for your sleeping bags for the night," and everything and everything. So instead of 1/3, about 25 people went down. We were left on top of the hill with maybe 10 people. That was all. So while they were down to pick up, we got attacked by Chinese, and the first thing I heard, I was in a foxhole. It was when a grenade fell in the shoe of the companion who was with me. He had took off his shoes. He was not supposed to, but he had done anyway. A grenade fell in his shoes and rolled away, and his shoe exploded. He had size 46, so at around maybe 3 months later because they didn't serve the size of shoes on his gymslips. Anyway, we got out. They were all over the place between us in the dark, and I got out, and I did something to some Chinese [INAUDIBLE], and as I said, very dark, confused. One guy came getting up on the thing, and I couldn't tell. It was an American first sergeant, I found out later, an American first sergeant major, who was an observer for the motors. I didn't know he was there. Anyway, I shot him, and he died of his wounds later, so I still thinking ... I have never known, knew his name, who he was or everything. That was one thing that, if you say, that after that, that I said we did. After May, everything got more quiet down, a little bit more comfortable, so then after the day, the day after that I shot this guy, General MacArthur came on visit. Oh, yeah, I met him downstairs. They called me down. In effect, he said, "I know what you did. Don't worry. You did what you have to do. It's not your fault," and at that time, too, the chaplain of the battalion came to me said. He said, "Oh, you know, I have some bad news for you." I said, "What?" He said, "Your father died." I said, "Oh, yeah?" I said, "When?" He said, "Well, in the middle of January." I didn't know, so I said ... Well, he said, "Yeah, we apologize that you've been advised so late," and so on and so on. And then he said, "Do you want to go to Belgium?" I said, "What am I going to do in Belgium now? He's gone 2 months already. Now you tell me, so, no, I don't want to go to Belgium. I stay with the battalion." So then, anyway, the first battalion went back home somewhere middle of August. We had to take the General McRae to go back to Amsterdam, and about 400 of us went back to Belgium. In Belgium, I had 1 months of holiday, and after that, we joined the first airborne battalion to get parachute training which I did obtain my parachute training. At the beginning of January, I was qualified and everything, and then I was giving training to some [INAUDIBLE]. That time, they had draftees. We still had draftees, so I was training draftees in [INAUDIBLE]. I didn't like it, so I re-enlisted for Korea, and the 3rd of March, I went back to the training center of Korea in [INAUDIBLE], stayed 1 month, and I rejoined the battalion where I arrived. I left Belgium again on the 7th of April and arrived on the 24th of April, just in time for the celebration of the Battle of the Imjin where there was a ceremony there. And there, at that time, I decided, and I said, "I'll never go back until the last Belgian goes back," and that I did. I stayed until '55 until the last Belgians had to come back. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> No. If you're interested, in '54, but then after the third year or second year, you got 1 month of holiday in Japan, and regular R and R, like they said, famous R and R. I had people I knew in the embassy. In fact, one of my friends, he's married to a Korean. Her name is Kim, by the way. They have this shop in [INAUDIBLE], very famous, really became rich, she did, very aggressive saleswoman and everything. No, they have a very good company. It's still existing, Pagoda, in [INAUDIBLE]. It specialized in Oriental stuff and everything, and that's why I learned my wife, my friends married her. I went to their wedding party in Tokyo. One year later, I also went to the celebration of their first baby which was born in Tokyo, so I've been kept in touch with them very much. I learned my wife there, and I went back to Korea, and then I applied for permission. You had to have permission to get married that time. Oh, yes. There are a lot of regulations. I still have them. In fact, you had to do this and that and that and that and that. I did all that and brought it to the embassy in October '54 to get married, and I came to the embassy. This is another story, and the chancellor said to me, "I'm sorry. I can't marry you because the Belgian government changed the regulations. If you want to marry, you first have to go back to Belgium, stay 1 year there, and you can't come back to Korea. You have to bring her there and everything." He said, "I can't marry you. Everything is okay, but I can't marry you." Said, "but," he said, "Do you want to get married?" I said, "Sure." He said, "Okay. Tell your wife to go to the local administration not outside of Tokyo." I said, "They don't have the instructions yet." I said, "Get married for Japanese law." And he said, "If it's Japanese, and if you're married there," he said, "You bring me the papers. The same day, I make a Belgium passport for it." That doesn't exist anymore. At that time, it was. "And you're legally married because Japanese law is legal in Belgium," so we did. My wife went to ... We lived in Tsurumi between Yokohama and Tokyo. She went there. In fact, I didn't even go. She just brought all the papers. No, I was staying at home. She took two witnesses, and they witnessed, and we were legally married. So I went to the embassy. She got a passport. It's the chancellor who did it. I was not supposed to do it. He was a very nice fellow, so that's it. So then I stayed until '55 in Korea until the last one and came back on the last like everybody else, and wife rejoined me. >> After the armistice in 1953, July 27th, what were some of the things? Because people think the war ended, so everybody goes home, right? But you stayed until 1955. >> Mm-hmm. >> What did you do there after the armistice? >> '55? Well ... >> No, after the armistice, what did you do there? Why did you stay in Korea for another year and a half? >> Well, we had still some obligations to the American thing and to the United Nations. There was not officially, shall I say, a peace. There was a cease-fire, but still, they still have demarcation line, as you know, so at that time, we were still there at the first time. They still expected some attacks even after that from the Chinese, so we were staying there on the line, occupying our position. We had to move back so many kilometers to have the demarcation zone. We had to move back. We occupied and just stood guard like we did before except that we didn't get artillery shells and everything for the rest. Then after 5, 6 week, we went back, rotated, got in reserve, and there, we did like the Belgian army does when they're on the camps, and we're training, exercises with the Americans, tests, to compare our combat readiness, tested by the Americans, which, by the way, we came out first of the whole thing. We had 87 percent, I think. We always used to love the [INAUDIBLE] They wear those big boots. They couldn't move around, so I think we wear just a normal thing. We moved around like that on the hills three times when they moved. That was the thing. We were training just like, as I said to him, hasn't known this. He has just known the period in Korea at the beginning there when there was every day moving up mountain, down mountain, up mountain, here a shot, there a shot, attack, this and that, never ate really. At night, you slept in a little hole and everything. After that, from when I went back in the beginning of '52, '51, things had changed completely. Before, it was a moving war, and every day, as I said, up and down, up and down, up and down. You never had any food, C rations and things. After that, when we get a static war and got on lines, it changed. We had tents where you had certain periods on line where of course, you were in bunkers and had some attacks and patrols, but once you were out of the line, in reserve or so, you had tents, beds, cots, to sleep on. You got a bar. You got food instead of C rations all the time, so conditions changed completely, and I said, I've had worse training in Germany as I had there in Korea at that time. That was the thing, but we stayed there because they wanted, how I shall I say, to have the representation of a Belgian thing. That was 200 people they chose who stayed. >> Mm. Did you go back to Korea? >> Huh? >> Did you go back to Korea after the war? >> Yes. After the war, as I said, after Washington, I quit the army after 6 years at the embassy in Washington. I quit the army. I took to my pension after 20 years, and at that time, I was 38 years old, so I had to make a decision. Am I staying in the army, no promotion until I'm 56 and then retire, or am I going to try to do business, a career in private civilian life? I decided to get out, so in fact, I still have my blue card as a permanent resident of the United States, but my wife and my daughter then, they wanted to move out, and me too, out of Washington, so we went to Hawaii and lived 1 year in Honolulu where, in fact, I got my first job as assistant manager from the Hilton Lagoon apartments. I don't know if you know Hawaii. The Hilton Lagoon, I got there. After 1 year, my wife and daughter, and me too, said "Always this sun, always this beach. Let's go back to Japan," so we moved to Japan. >> I asked whether you went back to Korea to ... >> Yeah, well, that's what I'm coming to, yeah? So was in Japan, I start working in civilians for civilian transportation, German, Japanese thing. I went. I had very good relationship with ... It was in the air cargo business, so I had very good relationship, first of all, with Korean Airlines, and I had to go at least six, seven times to Korea as civilian then for business. >> What year? What year? >> I was in from '76 to '90, I stayed. I was in Japan, but as I said, at that time, I traveled to Australia and New Zealand. I'm doing what you're doing now, I did many times before: the States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Europe. I did that at the time, but I went back at least four or five times to Korea for business with a certain Mr. Lee. There are also many Mr. Lees and Kims. I've been back many times. >> When was the last time you went? >> As civilian? The last time I went was in 2012 for the big Revisit Korea thing. >> Oh, and so it was very different from when you went for ... >> That's what I've told him. He remembers, and I remember, first time where we went in Seoul, I still remember the railroad station. Everything was in ruins, and everything there in '55, when I left, was already quite a different change, but not like this, but I told him. I said, "You're going to be surprised when you're going to [INAUDIBLE]," because it was still in his mind this way. Anyway, but it's the same in Tokyo. When I was first time in Japan in Tokyo, it's nothing. Now, the last time I went to Tokyo was maybe 4 years ago. Every year, and I lived in Tokyo [INAUDIBLE] between Tokyo and Yokohama, 12, 13 years there. I lived there. When I left in '90, came back to France because I lived in France, and I went back 5 years later, I didn't recognize Tokyo already: new highways and everything. And every time I go back with my wife and my daughter now, it changes so quickly. >> Well, so let's go back to Korea. >> Yes. >> So, did you think of ... >> You know what? >> The people, I mean, what you experienced now towards the end of ... You visited again recently in 2012, and, you know, it's very ... You say, it was very different, and, I mean, just the people. Explain a little bit more about what you felt because you were there when ... almost 70 years ago. >> What I saw in 2012 was the normal Revisit Korea program. We went to Busan to the military cemetery, or to the United Nations cemetery, to visit. We visit [INAUDIBLE], a few ceremonies in Seoul and things like that, ceremonies and medal and things like that of the normal program, but I was amazed by the efficiency. This tour was organized, and as I said, how they took care of us, that amazed. There was just another couple who was in a wheelchair. They were waiting at the airport. Took us there. I said, everything was perfectly organized because I have been worried. I said, many times, I worry when Korean veterans, Korean nationals, came to visit Belgium, they didn't get the same reception. Much less, huh? >> Okay. >> I found that regrettable.
>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I'm Pete Fond du Lac, born 21st of March, 1927. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Which year? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Went to Korea in October 1950. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> It was for that, infantry. >> Infantry soldier? >> Yeah. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> How long did you [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> You were there for 1 year, came back in November. >> It was a very difficult winter. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yes, of course, it was a very difficult time. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Cold, very, very cold winters. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Several of my comrades were killed and my foot froze. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> No. >> Yeah. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Okay. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> PTSS. >> PTSS. >> Stress Syndrome. >> Stress Syndrome. >> Yeah. >> Hmm. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Our commander was killed. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> When I came back, I was just a civilian. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> It wasn't difficult. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Had you not had [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] from the [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> We were just the front, so I didn't meet any civilians. >> What do you remember about the 2nd Infantry Division, your comrades? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I don't remember much about them. >> Well, show us your ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I don't know the translation. >> No, no, no, not American. I said about the Dutch being part of the 2nd Infantry. >> Yes. >> I want him to show ... >> The ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] the 2nd Infantry [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah, show, show. >> Show, show them. >> And you were put together with them? Were you in barracks together? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] okay. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> The Netherlands unit, we were fighting for the same thing, of course, but we fought separately. >> You volunteered? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. >> Why? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I was first in service in Indonesia, and then I came back to Holland, and then I wanted to go to Korea in order to stay in service. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I had a difficult situation at home in my youth, and when I heard that they were enlisting soldiers for Korea, I thought that would be a good chance ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> ... together with Dick Hermanns. >> But it was a brutal war. It was war, and you were young. >> It was [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I was 23, 24. >> Twenty-three years, yeah. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I never went back there. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> No, I didn't. >> Why? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. He said, "I was never shipped back there. The war was nearly finished anyway, and I experienced enough to want to stay away after that." >> But did you go back to Korea Revisit Program? >> No. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I didn't want to go. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I had the chance to go back a couple of times, but I don't feel the need to go and visit the cemetery, and I don't want to go back. >> But today in Korea, Korea is a very successful country. >> Korea [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> ... successful land, and that's seen on the television. >> Yeah. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Dick Hermanns told me so because he's been back. >> Mm-hmm. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I hope that you are at least proud of your sacrifice. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yes, we're very proud. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> But I don't advertise the fact. Of course, it is [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. >> Yeah, it's the forgotten war, and he doesn't talk about it often. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> He has sort of recurring memories which are too emotional for him. >> Nightmares? >> Nightmares? >> Yeah. >> Even now? It's been such a long time ago. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> When Dick Hermanns comes to visit, he's a good friend, and he comes regularly, then they talk about old times, and he has a difficult time later. >> Mm, well, I hope that I could bring you some peace because I don't want you to remember the horrors of war, but I am here to show you that thanks to you, I'm here. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [ Chatter ] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> We always get a good reception when we go to the Korean Embassy too, and he understands fully that you are grateful for his services. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> He goes once a year. >> I come here not as just myself but all my family, my friends in America and Koreans all over the world ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> ... but not only Koreans but everybody because you defended Korea and the world from the threat of communism. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah, I know it. >> So I know maybe it's difficult thinking about it, but I will pray that you find comfort. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Okay.
>> My name is Dick Hermanns. I'm born March 30, 1927, in Amsterdam. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]? >> I was 23 years old when I go to Korea. I was a volunteer. All the Korean soldiers, Dutch Korean soldiers are volunteers. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]? >> I was in [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], how call you that? >> An assistant, general assistant, you worked. >> What did you do there? What did you do there? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] fighting. We walked patrol, yeah. >> What do you remember? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], we go north and almost we have to go back south because the Chinese are coming. Yeah, I don't know more of this. Every day was the same. I don't know more. >> Do you remember seeing civilians? >> Civilians, the civilian people in Korea? >> Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. >> Yes, we walk on the street. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], she go and shout that I know. All the village are empty, and the winter, the cold, terrible, 25 degrees below 0 on top of the hill. We used [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. My sleeping bag was from the summer. A winter sleeping bag, I don't have. Cold, no washing, bad food, sheet rashes, you know what it is, sheet rashes? Our teaching was in the south with the Korean soldiers, which it was difficult to talk. She don't speak English. We don't speak the Korean language. We use our hands, and you ask something. What is this in the Korean language? And one Korean soldier told me, my sister, and I had a picture of his sister, and you have to say [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. That is what I know, remember that. The people, the Korean people, their clothes is terrible. War is terrible. When I go to the army again, I'd think it was the same in the navy. We don't know it was the very cold. We know nothing about Korea, but we know. I know now. We arrive in Pusan. We go by train to Daegu, hours, very cold. We make fire in the train because it was too cold. In Daegu, we get a little training of a few days, and the Dutch officers say, "Your shirt out. You have to walk sporting naked in the morning, about 10 degrees below 0," [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] the Dutch soldiers are very, very good, and after the training, we go to [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. I go to a school. All the years, we sponsored two students for to learn at the school, yeah, and we go to the front. Yeah, and then [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], and the Chinese attack, and we attack, and then we go after a few weeks' rest, yeah, yeah. Your memory, what's left of it, yeah. >> You fought in the Indonesian War before this. >> No, this, in Indonesia, was not a war. It was mere guerrilla, not a frontline in Indonesia. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], we set up an outpost. >> Hmm. >> From the outpost, we walked every day, not the same soldiers but order. Every day, you had an area, and you have to walk through it. You have to see that the people, oh, soldiers, okay. >> And you were there for 4 years, and ... >> Yeah, 3 1/2. >> Three and a half, and you came back in 1949. >> Yeah, at end of November, December '49. >> But why did you volunteer to go to Korea? >> Yeah, why? To help people there. I go to Indonesia to help them. I join the army after the war, after the Second War, still war between the Japanese. Japanese are still in Indonesia, and in Korea, I don't like the communist. Maybe I think that to help. We were a small unit there, one infantry battalion. It was not much, but, yeah, we did our best. Yeah, that is it. Thank you. Yeah, Indonesia was different, total different. In the city, oh, it was okay, out the city. >> And almost 5,000 Dutch served in Korea, and 124 died. >> Yeah, yeah, it's not much. >> But it's a large percentage. >> Yeah, but this ... >> Yeah, more ... >> And Indonesia, had a main battalion in Indonesia. They had about 60 killed in action for over 3 years fighting. >> Mm-hmm. >> We're fighting. We're fighting not every day. It is slow, small fighting. >> What year did you go to Korea? When did you go to Korea? >> I go to Korea in October 1950. >> That was a very difficult time, one of the most difficult times in the beginning. Right? >> Yeah, I know. >> Right after Inchon landing? >> The Inchon landing with the marines? >> Mm-hmm. >> Yeah. >> You were there from October to when? From October to when? >> Yeah. >> How long were you there? How long were you there? >> My time in Korea? Eleven months. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> Not 6 months? >> No, no. >> You were there ... >> And the order, the [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] there, but our unit, the first unit, had the most casualties for the Dutch. >> Explain to us about the first unit. I don't know much about the first unit. >> That's because most of them are dead. Now here they are too old. From the 640 men, maybe living, 50? What we know maybe, when she a member of the reunion, a member of the association. The number shrunk. A lot of them are not a member of the association. We don't know if he's still alive or dead. >> When did you join the association? >> When [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]? >> When did you join the association? >> What are you thinking about the ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Oh! >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> When it was first founded. >> When? >> 1970, I don't know sure, about 1975 from the beginning. >> Wow. >> And every year I go to the reunion. >> Mm-hmm. >> This time, it's in Tronchburg. >> Do you think it's important for young people to remember this war? >> I don't know. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> No, do you think it's important? >> It is important, but if she don't care ... It is now each a little bit better. Many years ago, I walk on the street with this, showing people that I do this for my life, yeah? There's no better. There's no better. You walk over the street, no problems. Yeah, that was how we did it. >> And the Dutch, are you proud of Dutch being in the Korean War? >> Yes, yes, I'm very proud, yeah. >> You fought well. >> Yeah, and my daughter's name is Kim because one of the Korean soldiers killed in action, and his name was Kim. I know Kim is a last night. It's not the first name, and [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Kim, yeah, yeah. >> Because you remember. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], and I want to go for the second time. I meet my wife and done. I'm studying in the Netherlands. >> Have you been back to Korea? >> Yeah, three times. >> Three times? >> Three times, yeah, and I meet a soldier, a civilian and with men in group, three times. >> When was the first time you went back after the war? >> At 676, it's the first group ... >> First group? >> ... was about 18 men in all. >> What did you think? >> Everything, we're going for 5 days and a few days in Japan. Yeah, that was the first time in Seoul. You go to Pusan and the palace and the East Gate, yeah. I have a friend. Yeah, I don't know if he's still alive, of course. His name is Kim Jin-Mook. He lived in Seoul. Yeah. >> When was the last time? >> The last time, in the '80s. I don't know when. >> No, the recent time, recently. >> I don't know. >> No, when did you go to Korea, 2000? You said you went to Korea three times? >> Three times, yeah. >> When was the most recent? >> What is that word, recent? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Oh, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> What did you think of new Korea, new Korea or Korea now? >> Oh, it's very, very beautiful, big buildings. The roads are very good. In my time, the roads was terrible. Oh, there was nothing left there, but now, yeah, very, and the people are very ... I was there. There was no one who knew Korean and [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Curfew? >> Curfew was, yeah. At that time, when I go to Korea, curfew, 12 o'clock, you have to go off the street, we also. >> Mm-hmm. >> The '70s, in the '70s. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Now it's ... >> Not anymore, no, no anymore, no. >> ... It's a free world now, free. >> Free, yeah. >> Yes. >> And when go to the [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] village right down the road, yeah, but there are some picture of me and my wife in clothes of the Korean, a man and a woman. >> Hanbok, hanbok. >> Hanbok? >> Yes. >> Hanbok. >> That's that it's called in Korea, hanbok. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> You must be very, very proud. Right? >> Yeah, yeah. >> Mm-hmm. >> I always see my jacket from ... and jacket with the Indian head and the Korean flag. I walk on street. >> Mm-hmm! >> Not on Sunday, Saturday when I use other clothes. In the week, I use military clothes. >> Mm-hmm. >> You see it when you come in? >> Mm-hmm, because you're proud. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Hmm, well, thank you for your service. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you.
>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> My name is Feri Titolata. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I went to Korea in 1953. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I was injured there in June '53. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I went back to Korea, and what I now think about the situation is ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Feri was amazed at the six-lane traffic, of course the modern version of what he had seen in 1953. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> There used to be only one bridge. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> And now there are 29 bridges. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> The hills were green. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> It used to be brown and bleak. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Feri remembers the nicer thing about his period there. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Seventy years of memories, it's hard to recall everything. >> What do you think is important about your comrades, the Dutch? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> We made a contribution ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> ... for the future, for the present-day. They made then the contribution for now. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> And I hope that everything will continue to go very well for Korea. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> What did you do in the war? >> Oh, fight! >> As a soldier? >> I was wounded. >> Soldier? >> Yes. >> Soldier. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I would prefer not to talk about that period. >> Okay. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I came from Indonesia to fulfill my service, and soon after I got here, I was sent to Korea as a volunteer, and this is my uniform. >> How old were you? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Twenty-two years. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Twenty-one! >> Twenty-one. >> Because his mother must sign. He was not 21. >> Oh, so he was underage, and his mother had to sign to go into service. >> And after the war, and stayed in the Army, and he retired in that uniform. >> Oh, wow! Why did you volunteer? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> You saw adventure. >> But ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> But the adventure became part of your life, your career. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Yes, stayed in service. >> Well, thank you for your service. >> You're welcome.
>> My English name is Bill Kramer. I'm born in Amsterdam, 19 December 1934. I joined the Navy when I was 16. After 2 years, then I was 18. I joined a ship for Korea. The Dutch Navy had six ships, always 1 year in Korea. We arrived just after peace fire, so I don't experience the shooting, but we did always patrol, checking for [INAUDIBLE] assistant to aircraft carriers and so on. But we had it a lot better than the ships before. We go regular to Japan to refuel food and R&R for the crew, rest and recreation for the crew. We go [Indistinct] and so we had a wonderful time in Japan, and in Korea, I really was only 9 days. Then I was ashore. We were ashore two times in Pusan and one time in Imjin. Imjin is the harbor of Seoul. Pusan was, during that time, nothing, only some American nationhood a couple concrete buildings but were nothing left. I was last May in Pusan, and I saw a wonderful, big city, and I was in 2008 in Korea. I was not to Pusan but before to the 38th border, and we saw just [INAUDIBLE] back in Korea, and we saw a nice train station that is built for connection from Pusan, Seoul to Paris, yeah. North Koreans don't allow to make railway complete, but impression of Korea is very, very high, and the people is so nice and friendly. I have no words for it, so don't ask me. It's too difficult. I was back in Holland in 1954, and I got an accident in 1957 and a medical discharge in 1960, so that's my story. >> Well, first of all, you must have been very proud when you went to Korea because you were part of Korea becoming what it is today. All right. So thank you very much, and not a lot of people know that the Dutch stayed after the war. People think, "Oh, armistice, and everybody go home," but that's not true. >> No, no, after my ship [INAUDIBLE] another ship that arrives in 1954 until 1955. >> Yes, a lot of people don't know that the countries that participated stayed until 1955. >> But from the Navy, only two men are died, one quartermaster. It's in very heavy storm overboard. He went to save one of the lifeboats, and he was not fastened and get overboard. They never find him, and a radioman in Korea was calling ashore, little, little boat to pick up a Korean officer that was wounded to give him medical help, but the engine of the Dutch boat [INAUDIBLE]. It was English, and it makes the same noise as not Korean fishing boats, so it was foggy, and it starts fire, and the boat had a noise, so it was friendly fire, okay? >> Maybe you can tell about what your experience, the revisit from last year with your ... >> Yeah, yeah, I was ... >> ... last experience with Korea. >> ... Back in 928 last year again, and last year, it was very special because the Korean government are allowed that people who died here in Holland that all Korean veterans that are cremated can go back to Korea and go to Pusan International Cemetery. In Pusan, the cemetery is the only in the whole world what is from the United Nations, and so [INAUDIBLE]. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Next year [INAUDIBLE]. When we arrive on the air field in [INAUDIBLE] and complete guardian watch [INAUDIBLE]. After that visit, we got a DVD that a whole studio and DVD that pictures only about 700. He was there, and he was there and I. >> When? November? >> No, May. >> May. >> May. >> May. >> [INAUDIBLE]. >> Good weather. >> Good weather, yes. Monday, it was raining, raining, raining, and the director of veterans affairs told us, "Don't worry. At 2 o'clock when you arrive at the cemetery, it is dry." We call it [INAUDIBLE]. Rain, rain, rain. We arrive, ding, dong, 2 o'clock. The rain stops. >> Yeah. >> It was beautiful, yeah. >> It must have been very emotional when you went to the cemetery. >> Yes, and what my buddy told about South Korea and North Korea, we were the last soldiers in Seoul, and [INAUDIBLE] people walk around and a big sign, "What do you think about North and South together?" So we signed it and yeah. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Yeah, it was beautiful. >> Yeah. >> I am going to visit Korea, Pusan, the United Nations cemetery last after I go everywhere around the world, and I know that there are many Dutch soldiers. >> One hundred twenty-four. >> Are they all there? No. >> Yes. >> Not all in the cemetery in Pusan. >> No. One is in Singapore because he died on his way back to Holland. >> That's [INAUDIBLE]. >> Two men are missing. >> How many are there in Pusan cemetery? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> All of them went back to Holland. Their families took them back to Holland. I don't know exactly how many. >> The Americans are all back. >> Yes. Americans always bring back. >> Yeah, yeah. >> But I learned that recently, some of the Dutch veterans have requested that they be buried at the United Nations cemetery along with their comrades, so I am looking forward to visiting them and paying tribute. I think it will be very emotional for me. >> I think so too. Yes. You speak Korean? >> I do. >> Oh. >> I will be there in May. >> Because in museum where I was this afternoon, I saw Korean boy that works [INAUDIBLE]. He's working by the Dutch police, and he goes back to Korea 2 years ago. He said it was so difficult because I'm a Korean, but he arrives in Netherlands, been there 6 months, so he don't speak one word Korean. >> But he is Korean. >> He is Korean, so it can be happen. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> My uncle adopted two Korean girls, and they had restaurants [INAUDIBLE] here in Holland, Korean restaurant. >> Really? >> Yeah. Well, they are my nephews. >> Oh. I told you, my uncle. >> I know. >> I told you. >> I know. It's permitted? >> Oh, yes, please. >> Thank you.
>> My name is Phil Altemus Ludovic Highmund. I was born in 1931. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Born February 18th, 1931. >> Yeah. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I joined the Limburg Military. >> I then to the war in Korea, and then it got [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], and I was 6 weeks in Korea until the cease-fire came. >> I was only in Korea for 6 weeks when the cease-fire came. >> I have 1 year in Korea with the patrol [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], Lex. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I can't think of the name. I said, "Okay." >> After the cease-fire, I stayed in Korea for 1 year, and I was on patrol. I had a half-Korean boy who was my helper. I forget his name. It was a Korean name. >> I cannot speak a Korean name. I speak to the boy. I say to you, "Lex." >> I called him Lex, and he accepted that name. >> I have 1 year with Lex in Korea, and it was [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Lex and I spent 1 year together, but when I had to leave, of course, he stayed there. I also had a little girl in Korea called Long-Kyung. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] no same people can go ... Only the American military, military, military and [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. [ Chatter ] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. [ Chatter ] >> Lex was my best comrade. I spent a lot of time with just military people, but I really liked the Korean people who lived there, and they were very kind to me. I liked them. They were open and friendly. >> Lex had learned [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. Lex [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] no people, no people. It was [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> He was at the fort post with Lex, and he said, "I can hear people," and Lex said, "That's not people, that's frogs." >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I left Korea. I went home, and I forgot to ask Lex for his address. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Now, I think of Lex a lot of the time. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Next year, I'm going back. >> Maybe you can find him! >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Oh, I had photos but not of Lex. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I gave those photos, and they're now in the museum. >> Well, you were there for 1 year, right? And you were there after the Armistice. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Dinner is ready. >> Dinner is announced. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> You were there after the Armistice, after. >> Yeah. >> So before and after, what were some of the major differences? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I had changed. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I was very angry. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I became very easily angry later. >> At one time, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> It was difficult to contain it. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I would relive my problems at night. >> Well, I hope that when you go visit Korea that you can let it go ... >> Yeah, maybe I go to [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> ... and that you can find peace in your heart. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Apikleiner, is his name. Born in ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> ... 1932 in Heerenveen, which is in the north. You were 22? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Twenty-two, yes, 22 years old. Now, I'm 18 years old in military years. >> You went into the ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> ... military service when you were 18 years old. >> Yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], 21. >> I was 21 when I went to Korea. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> My parents wouldn't allow me to go. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> His parents were very cross with him, and his oldest brother was 27 years old, and he started crying because his younger brother was leaving. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that was in September, the Korea [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> We went to Korea in September, and I was there for 1 year. >> Yeah, 1 years, and [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> He got homesick. He wanted to go back, but he knew he had to continue. >> Regulation that, it was [INAUDIBLE] before the ceasefire. The ceasefire was [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> They were there ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> ... before the ceasefire, and they knew it would be coming soon, and a few days more and a few days more. >> Yeah. >> Fourteen days later, it was announced, ceasefire. >> Ceasefire. >> And they were happy. >> Yeah, it happened on [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], all the fighting, fighting, fighting, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], and it was a ceasefire, and [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I was walking the patrols ... >> Yeah. >> ... every day, day-in, day-out, and that was very exhausting, and I do not [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Last year ... >> Last year. >> ... my friend and I went back in May. >> Yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> It was hardly recognizable at all in Hongseong. When we were there, it was just the bare mountains, and now it's green and beautiful. >> Yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> We went to the cemetery where all my friends, my comrades were buried, and that was very emotional. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> It was difficult to say, "Good-bye," when we had to fly back. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> I would like to go back there for the rest of my life now. It's so beautiful there. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> His dream is that it's one Korea. >> Yeah. >> Just one Korea. >> And [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> When he was leaving, the local residents there said to him, "What are you going to remember when you go back to Holland?" And he said, "That's also very emotional." >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Mm-hmm. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Oh, the parades. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> He was referring to the border with North Korea, that they hold parades and ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> ... shows of spirit ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] South Korea is defiant for North Korea, but that isn't true. South Korea is defiant for North Korea. North Korea is defiant for South Korea, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], and South Korea [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom. >> But I want to mention his business out there. >> Did someone say for Ireland? >> I went to the schools, and I spoke to the schoolchildren about this, and they said, "What did you expect to find when you came back?" and he said, "Exactly this." >> Yeah. >> Maybe it's good to tell that this organization, yeah, the old Korean Warriors have adopted a school in Korea. >> Oh. >> This is what he is talking about. >> Yeah. >> So they went to that school, Alice Goldwinn, Samuel? >> Yeah. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Samuel's school ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> And then Dutch school, and every year they're giving money to that school for their development. This is what we ... came through from our lost entities. >> Yeah, but you don't need it anymore because Korea is from a poor, poor country, now a rich country. >> Oh. >> Developed country, so we can only now special scholarship to people what had very good conduct. >> Scholarship? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> To students that have high achievements? >> Yep. >> Hmm, wow, for how long? Since when? >> Oh, oh, many years. >> Many years. >> Actually in the '70s, yep. >> Oh, my god. >> That school was all ... >> Yeah. >> Oh, my god. >> Yeah. >> ... supported by this association. >> So you have many grandchildren? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> He's not talking about that. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> This is a [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Blue, blue ... >> Blue eyes. >> Yeah. >> Hey, cut it out. >> Yeah. >> No, no. >> One more thing that I think is important that I'd say, the Dutch, because it is the Forgotten War. >> Yeah, yeah. >> It's called the Forgotten War, and the Dutch see everything upside down. They know very little about it, and they think that the South Koreans are the enemy of the North Koreans instead of the other way around. Many Dutch think that because they were not educated. >>[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Yes, they've been brainwashed. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] South Korea is also failed, but that isn't true. >> Brainwashed. >> That isn't true. South Korea [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Yes, the North Koreans have been brainwashed to believe that the South Koreans are their enemy. >> Yeah, and I hope so maybe next years, back to Korea. >> You want to go back next year? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], yeah, yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> His son will go with him. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> You're making a mistake. >> Yeah, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], but this, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I like Korea, yes, oh, yes. >> Well, Korea loves you. >> Yeah, Korea love me? Okay, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> I'm so grateful. Thank you. Oh.
>> My name is Jolke Rijsdijk. I born in [INAUDIBLE] in 1928 and served in [INAUDIBLE] versus the Korean ... >> Volunteer. >> Volunteer. >> Volunteer >> ... Volunteer in 1950 after 2 years in Indonesia service. I awarded the Medal of Honor from Indonesia and Korea, [INAUDIBLE], the medal of [INAUDIBLE] ... >> United [INAUDIBLE]. >> United Nations. >> [INAUDIBLE] Korean War Medal. >> And I was in Korea in 1950 with about the [INAUDIBLE]. After shooting in the range where there's the American troops, they say to us, "You can come to the front. You are ready for shooting everywhere every day." So we started in 1950 to go to the front line, first to Taegu, afterwards to Suwon and later to [INAUDIBLE]. >> Kusongpo-ri. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Above [INAUDIBLE] Hoengsong. >> Hoengsong. >> Hoengsong. >> Hoengsong. >> Hoengsong. >> Hoengsong. >> Hoengsong. >> And [INAUDIBLE] by the Chinese troops. We started to go to help three to five because the Chinese held the North Koreans in force, so on the upper side of the street [INAUDIBLE] died [INAUDIBLE] ... >> Preacher? Preacher? >> [INAUDIBLE]. >> ... priest died, and the paid boss died with 15 other guys, two corporal sergeants and so on. So [INAUDIBLE] little bit. >> What does this mean? Were you an artillerist? Right here. >> Combat rifle. >> Combat rifle. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Several days on the front line. >> Yeah. >> Ah, oh. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> If you are 90 days in the front line, you get from the Americans the Combat Rifle. It's the one. >> [INAUDIBLE]. >> Means that you have 90 days on front ... >> Ninety days on the front line, yeah. >> ... on the front line. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Straight? Ninety days straight? >> [INAUDIBLE]. >> Straight? Ninety days straight? >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Straight on the line. >> Yeah, yeah. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Radio man. >> Uh-huh. >> [INAUDIBLE] people I go with in the radio, and afterwards, North Korea, I came back in [INAUDIBLE] 40 years by the [INAUDIBLE] things. >> [INAUDIBLE] things. >> Connections. >> Connections, yeah. Telephone. >> Connections. >> Telephone, ah. >> Radio. >> Wireless operator. >> Oh, wow. >> I was wireless operator ... >> [INAUDIBLE] wired radios. >> ... and made steps in different ranks. >> Wow. In the Armed Forces? >> In the Armed Forces, yeah. >> He stayed there. >> For 40 years? >> Yes. >> For 40 years, yeah. >> Hmm, just like Grandpa [INAUDIBLE]. >> Every 36 years, you get a golden medal. >> Mm. >> Thirty-six years. >> Did he say that he received the Medal of Honor? >> No, that's ... What he's talking about is the medal that you are 36 years in the army. >> Army, 36 years, wow. >> But he stayed longer than that. >> You stayed longer? >> Yeah. >> Wow, so what are you proud about the Dutch in the Korean War? >> Wait a moment. I was in 1998. They came revisit in Korea with my son. >> Mm. >> And he works in Korea with the [INAUDIBLE] ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> ... oil platforms, to build oil platforms. >> In Korea? >> In Korea. >> Wow. >> And he brings it to start ... to Africa and all over the world. >> Does he still live in Korea? >> The Koreans platforms. They build in South Korea. >> So he lived in Korea, your son? >> And now he lives here in [INAUDIBLE]. >> Okay. >> But he goes everywhere with the platforms. He brings it back, and then during the start, they test it the [INAUDIBLE]. >> Wow. >> And the platforms bring to the power of the place. >> So you remember serving with many comrades because you were in the army for 40 years, long time. >> Yeah. >> So looking back, Dutch in the Korean War played a very important role, right? >> Yeah, yeah. >> Name couple that you feel are very important for young people to know about Dutch in Korea. >> Oh, yeah. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Yeah? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Yeah? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> I don't do that, but there are others today do that. They talk in schools, classes, over Korea. >> Mm. >> And now my four [INAUDIBLE] go in ... >> Grandchildren. >> ... go in May to Korea. >> Mm, good. Peacetime ... >> [INAUDIBLE]. Yeah. >> ... to learn ... >> Four. >> ... to learn about the Korean War. >> Going for a week now, Korea. >> Oh, okay. >> It's nice, isn't it? >> Yes. Do you ... Did you go back to Korea? >> No, I not. >> To 1998 ... >> Maybe I go to [INAUDIBLE]. That's far enough. >> You went to Korea with your son ... >> In '98. >> ... in 1998. How about recently? >> No, there were [INAUDIBLE] British over there now. >> Did you go recently? >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Yeah. >> And what's the last time? In 1998. >> Yeah, yeah. >> I hope you enjoyed it. >> It was very nice ... >> Very nice. >> ... to be there. >> Well, thank you so much for your service. Thank you. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Oh.
>> I am Case Mutzhaven, born January the 5th, 1928. I went to Korea on March 16th, 1951. When the war broke in Korea, I was, at that time, in Boston for 3 months to take over some ships: the USS Rinehart and the USS Burrows. I was still a good face on board. March 16th, I went to Korea, and I came back June 21, '52, and there was a celebration of my daughter. She was 1 year old. I had never seen her before. I was married just before I went to Korea. Yes, it was a very hard time. But I was in the Navy, of course, and at that time, we are serving in the Yellow Sea in Korea to kite the jeep carriers, were in there for planes who bombardments in Korea, and we have ... Also, every 3 weeks, we went back to Japan, Sasebo, to rest and to fulfill our equipment, and then we go back to the Yellow Sea again. Once we are also on the east coat, and we enter the Bay of Busan, and that was the celebration of 175 days of shooting at Busan to the trains who are entering to go from the North to the South for things to bring for the soldiers there. In the bay, there was ... Do you know Busan on the east coast? It is in the north, and there are the three ships, and every 120 degrees, we are shooting in Busan. There was 175 days of shooting, and when you look at the looking glasses, you see that everything is standing alone. Okay. No, and that is ... And what we have done there, it was very difficult things in the Yellow Sea. At night, there were also fisherman's vessels, small vessels, and they had a radio on board, but they don't know the procedures there. So when an American spotted on the PPI and spoke and they asked for the code for friend or foe, when they don't answer within 1 minute, they shoot, and that happens there. So we had several people on board who lost their legs, and it was very bad. So we talked together that we make an opportunity that we can send telegraphs at night to those vessels to protect those vessels, and we did. So I sat there along the board. When I came on board of a vessel, my contact with the captain, and I gave him a hand, and they can go to sleep, and I sit behind the radio, and I know the the procedures of course, and so we protected those vessels. It was a good thing. >> You were the past president of the association. >> Yes. Yes. >> When was the association founded? >> It was founded in 1977. >> Oh, wow! >> And it has been about 40 years this year. Forty years this year, yeah. Forty years. >> So 4,000 members fought from the Netherlands, right? And how many are surviving right now, and how many members are in the association? >> The members of the association, all over there is about ... >> Two hundred and seventy-four. >> No. No. No. There's only the veterans, not the whole. In all, there is about 500? >> Yeah. >> About 500 members. >> Five hundred members. >> And from the 500 members, there are 275 veterans from the 5,000, more than 5,000. The percent is that we have more casualties in the Korean War than the Americans, which is 30. >> Right. You're right. >> Yeah, 124. >> Yes, out of 5,000. >> Out of 5,000. It was a lot. >> That's more than 20 percent. >> Yeah, more than 20 percent. Yeah. >> Because Americans, 1.8 million fought. You're right. Wow. Wow. Well, what do you think ... Again, what do you think is ... What are you so proud of with the Dutch in the war? Let's just say all the presidents of different organizations meet and brag about, "Well, we did this." What would you say about Dutch contributions? >> The contribution was very good, especially in the Army. But in the Navy, we only were on the open sea. I one time was on Incheon, on land, and also in Busan. We also rescued, and we tried to rescue a pilot who was down in the Yellow Sea. We came there with his parachute, and behind his parachute, he was already drowned. So we brought him to Busan for the cemetery there. >> American pilot? >> American pilot, yeah. I was finding that was [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Do you remember other nations, other people? Americans, obviously, but do you remember others? >> Yes. When we got to the vessels, then we go by helicopter or by slope to go to the vessels. And when I got back to the vessel from the destroyer of Australia, the Warramunga, I slept there. That was a very good membership for the people there. >> Well, explain to me a little bit about your medals. >> My medals? >> Yeah, you have a lot of medals. >> Yeah, I have a lot of medals. This is the Knight of the Order of O'Ryan. This medal is the medal of the 4 days walking in the Netherlands. I did it twice. That is the United Nation medal. You know them, yes. And this is the war medal of Korea, and that's the peace medal. >> Talking about peace, you know that the Korean War never ended? >> Never ended, yeah. No. No. Still an armistice in this moment. Yeah, and I'm convinced that it will be this century that says, "We'll unify the whole peninsula." >> Well, I hope this century! I hope sooner than the century, but yes. >> I said within this century, okay? It can be next year but then also over 50 years. >> Hopefully in many of the veterans' lifetime we will see a unified Korea. >> But you don't know what Trump and the new president of Korea are doing. I don't know what's happened with him. >> And we don't know what's going on with the North Koreans either. >> North Korea, no. >> Well, have you been ... Last question. Have you been back to Korea? >> Yes, several times. >> Several times? >> Yes. Yes, the first time was with the Minister of Defence in 2001, and I was also convinced that the people were very friendly. That is so kind, and then I was also in 2003 there, 2007 with an invitation from Mr. Moon, and I was in his castle. Mr. Moon, you know that? Have you ever been there? No, you've never been there? >> Well, again, thank you so much for your service, and on behalf of the Korean people, I appreciate your sacrifice. Thank you. >> You're welcome.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> My name is Tom Harsalehr.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> I’m 87 years old.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> When I was 22, I left, in 1950 … January 1953, and I came back in 1954.

>> But it was great.

>> It was radio work.

>> In Korea, my job was a radio man. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> I was a radio man, and I was up with the commanders, commanding officers. My children know nothing at all about my past, and I want to keep it that way.

>> Why?

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Because I lost my two best friends there.

>> Hmm. How?

>> Killed.

>> Killed in action.

>> Killed in action.

>> Hmm, it must have been very painful.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> But you served, and you made a sacrifice, and something great came out of it, and aren’t you proud? Don’t you want to share that with your children?

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> I’ve always found it extremely difficult to talk about this.

>> Even after almost 70 years?

>> I have everything here and here. It’s for me and not for other.

>> Well, how about maybe not your personal, but how about your … Well, how about this? In war …

>> Yes.

>> There’s a lot of pain and suffering, but sometimes, there’s also humanity.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Like caring for the civilians, kids, I hear a lot about veterans remembering, soldiers remembering orphans. Do you remember anything like a touching story of humanity? You mentioned “M*A*S*H,” something laughing, something funny.

>> I got three friends over there, three dogs.

>> Three dogs?

>> Yes.

>> You had three dogs?

>> Three dogs.

>> Oh.

>> That’s after the war.

>> After the war, when you were a cook?

>> Yes.

>> Yes, do you remember their names?

>> I’ve got everything. No, I don’t know, but I can give to the dogs anything.

>> Yeah, dogs are man’s best friend. Well, so you mentioned that two of your best friends died, and I know 124 Dutch men, servicemen died. What do you think is … What do you think other people should know about the Dutch service?

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Something different about Dutch service than other …

>> You mean what they do over there in Korea?

>> Whether what you did or what you think is very important, like protecting …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> … other soldiers, and …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> I will need … He doesn’t want to to discuss the extraordinary things that were particularly Dutch because …

>> No.

>> … of his friends.

>> No, but … No, I’m not talking about personal story. I’m talking about, well, numbers. You’re part of the Association. What … Why is the Association important? Why do you think Dutch or the rest of the world should remember this war? Because it’s called the Forgotten War.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Yeah, I …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Yeah, no, that’s my friends [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> I have … These are my comrades here, but we never talk about the things that we have personally experienced in the war.

>> I know, but I’m not talking about personal experience.

>> No.

>> I’m talking about …

>> No? Okay.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> The important thing about this Association …

>> The Forgotten War.

>> … is that it’s … It remembers the Forgotten War that Dutch history books forgot, literally, and it is hardly taught at school [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> I was introduced to the Korea Association by a Mr. Ralph who came to see me at home and told me about this, and that’s why I became a member.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> I go to the annual ceremonies.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And I accompany all the … all my comrades here to the grave.

>> Explain to me about … You wanted to explain to me about the dog tags.

>> This is for the dog. Listen. In Korea, when you’re on the line, and you have them. This one and when you are dead or killed, then she take this. She take this.

>> Okay, mm-hmm, ah.

>> But the medics, she coming, and she take this one. Then she take this one, and then she know who you are.

>> Identification.

>> So you have the two of them. One is used if you are killed, and then the medics come along to pick you up.

>> Yeah.

>> And they just take the other tag and know who you are?

>> The medics take this one, and you have this one.

>> And because it’s stuck between your teeth, you don’t lose it.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Well, I am very, very glad that you have both.

>> Everyone present is glad that you have both.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> It’s been hanging in my bedroom for 60 years.

>> I’m very grateful. Last question: Your tie, explain to me about your tie. I love …

>> Your [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> My [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] that’s the Korean [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Association.

>> The Korean Association tie …

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> … with the Indian emblem of the second division.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] forwards and afterwards.

>> Yes, the emblem that was on the sleeves, when they went out there, the Indian was looking forwards, and when they came back to Holland, the Indian was looking backwards to Korea.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> On the right or …

>> On the right or the left?

>> On the left, it’s looking forward.

>> Oh.

>> Yeah.

>> And that … What’s that looking?

>> That …

>> It’s looking on the …

>> That’s only the [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> It’s just the Association tie.

>> Yeah.

>> Hmm.

>> You like it?

>> I love it.

>> You want it? You want to have it?

>> He’s looking to the right, so he was going out there.

>> You want one?

>> Yeah.

>> Last question, have you visited Korea?

>> Yes, 2 years ago.

>> Tell me about it.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> November 2015, he was there.

>> All different, very, very different, when we come to Korea, we see only one thing: water, sand and [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] very bad. In Seoul, one bridge, and now … [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. You’ll … In Seoul, you have only one street [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> There’s only one street which was paved.

>> Only one street, for the pigs, and rest of the land, nothing.

>> Mm-hmm, the rest of the land were just …

>> The houses, very …

>> … no roads.

>> Oh, very bad, very bad [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> That was the first time.

>> And after that, I come back.

>> And the only time [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> When you were a soldier, when you went out, then.

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> And now?

>> And now?

>> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

>> Things have improved so much it seems as if we are holding back. We are now primitive. They are very advanced.

>> Yeah [FOREIGN LANGUAGE].

>> They are way ahead.

>> Well, I hope that you saw that, and you were very, very proud.

>> Okay, thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> My name is Sven Yacht, and I joined the Jutlandia in 1951. No, that's not correct. That was the first trip, when the ship left Copenhagen. I joined the Jutlandia sailing from Copenhagen 19th of September in '52, and I had asked for a job on board the Jutlandia already in 1950, when it was decided from the Danish Foreign Ministry that Denmark would send a hospital ship to Korea. At that time, I was in India, but I sent a telegram back to East Asiatic Company, which owned the ship, that if they could need me, I was ready to volunteer for a job as engineer on board the ship, but as it was normal custom in the EAC at that time, I never heard an answer for it. So it took until September '52 before I all of a sudden was called in with about 3 days' notice. So I had to pack up all my clothes in a hurry and go to the ship, which was laying down at Langelinie, where the memorial, the Danish vigilance memorial, placed only a few meters from the place where the Jutlandia left Copenhagen. Strange enough, we sailed, and strange enough, we sailed 19th of September, and it was my birthday, 28th of September. So at that time, I joined that, call it short period, I met, very, very fast, we learned each other to know on board the ship, and one day, when I was on the deck, looking at what happened on the sea and so on, there were three nurses standing also just there. I guess they were standing there, and I walked there, probably the way we did it, and among them there were a young nurse, which I was going to learn later on, but we talked about it, and I told them it was my birthday the day after, and they said, "Oh, well, we'll come. We'll come." I said, "Oh, that's a very good idea. You can join me tomorrow morning. I'm finished in the engine room at 4 o'clock in the morning." "Oh, well, that's a little bit early," and, no, they couldn't do that. That would not be allowed, and they were very shy at that time. After a year or two, it had left most of them, but that was the first time I met this young ... She was the second youngest nurse which had signed on board the ship. There were very strict rules and very strict ... What do you call it? They should at least be 25 years old, and they should have been nurses for so-and-so long, and they have worked with operations and other things from a hospital. So it was very trained and very clever nurses that were on board, but then we sailed further on, and it was a fantastic experience for the crew, for the young doctors and for the nurses, when we came to the Mediterranean and later on through the Suez Canal, and because it was so close, after all, it was so close from the Second World War and the German occupation of Denmark that they had never been abroad from Denmark, all these, only very few. So it was the great ... Everything was new for all these people. When we came through Suez Canal and went to Sri Lanka or to Ceylon, was its name at that time, and then it happened that I went ashore for a few hours in Ceylon, and I met three nurses up there. That was, of course, the same nurses as I had met first time, and they were a little bewildered. They didn't know what to do. They had never been away. So I said, "Well, wouldn't you care for a drink or something in this heat down here?" "Oh, yes, yes, better." I said, "Well, I know there's a fine hotel here we can go and have a drink. What do you want to drink?" They didn't know because none of them were used to have drinks, but one of them had been ashore in Southampton, where we had called on the way out, and she said, "Oh, oh, I will have a gin and tonic," and so all of a sudden, all three wanted gin and tonics. So we got that, and we sat in this hotel and had a 1/2 an hour or so, and among them were also this nurse that came. We left Ceylon where we called for fresh water and oil and other kind of supports for the ship, and we came to Singapore where we also called in, and Singapore, there were possibilities for the nurses and doctors, for the hospital staff. They were allowed to go ashore as much as they wanted because there were no patients there at that time, and I was so happy I could have a few hours off, and I went ashore to buy a few things, and, of course, I met three nurses carrying parcels, and they were saying it was really an adventure for them to be in Singapore, and Singapore was a wonderful city, at least at that time. Well, it still is, and I said, "Have you been at Raffles Hotel?" "No, no." I said, "Well, you go to Raffles Hotel and have a drink. You can't be in Singapore without having been at Hotel Raffles." That was the most important hotel there, and it was from back to the colonials to the time from when Singapore belonged the Great Britain, but I said, "Well, I'm going on board now. I'm having a taxi. What about all these parcels and all these things? Shouldn't I bring them on board, and so you can go to Raffles and have a nice time?" So I did so, and that was good. That was the third time I met the same nurse, and, well, then we left Singapore and came to Yokosuka in Japan, which was the naval base for United States ships, and we didn't see much to each other then after that because from there, after a few days in Japan, we sailed to Pusan, and a few hours after arrival to Pusan, we got the first patients, first wounded soldiers, and so everybody had their business to do. So there were no shopping or no possibility to meet each other very much, but then New Year's Eve, we were invited, for the 1st of January, we were invited to a reception by the American commanding general in the place which the American soldiers and especially the officers, where they met very often. I don't know. It was called Old Ironsides. Why? I don't know, but that was the name of this place, and everybody who could leave the Jutlandia participated in this reception, and there were speeches and so on, and the day before, I met this young nurse, and I said, "Well, are you going to the reception tomorrow?" "Oh, well, yes, I think so." "Have you company? Are you meeting some of your friends or your colleagues from the cabin or so?" "No, no, I have ... No." "What about ... Shouldn't we join, and would you follow me?" "Oh, yes," she says, "I would like to." So that was, in fact, the first time I had a chance to sit. We came in to a big table, hundreds of people there, and we had a nice, a very nice reception, a very nice day there, and we had much fun because there were a lot of American officers at the same table, and Americans are very polite. So when later, after a few hours, one or two ladies needed to go outside for a few minutes, and every time, all the Americans stood up, and when they came back, they stood up and sat down, and these older chief surgeons from Denmark, they said, "Oh, what the hell? Are we going to stand up every time one of the nurses has to go out?" They were not used to so much politeness. So it ended up with the nurses tried to ... Oh, sorry, my brain and my English is not what it has been, but they stayed at the tables until the last minute. So that was actually the first time we had to speak together and have a nice time, but then, later on, we had our work, but when we were in Korea, in Inchon. We were anchored in Inchon. We started off the first two trips with Jutlandia, the ship were in Pusan, but then the second trip went to ... The first trip we called Jutlandia service in Korea in three different trips. The first trip was we were sent by Allied Command to Europe or actually to Ethiopia, to Turkey, Greece, France, Rotterdam with wounded, and it turned in Rotterdam and immediately back to Korea, but then the second time, Allied Command said, "Now you go to Europe again." We took the same route, but from Rotterdam, we went to Copenhagen because we should have a helicopter deck made on it, and we should have some air condition because the temperature in the operating rooms were up to 40 Celsius during the summertime in Korea, and that was the chance for me to join the Jutlandia. That was when it was finished with helicopter deck and all that. We started back to Korea 19th of September, and strange enough, that was the same date when this nurse, which I later learned to know, she also joined the ship. She had asked for it before, with Red Cross, but she was too young at that time. She was not 25, but now, the third trip, she had passed 25, and she was taken as a nurse on-board. At that time, she had been a military nurse in the Danish Army. So she was very well-equipped for the job on-board the Jutlandia, but it was strange that we had both asked before to join the Jutlandia, but first, the second trip, the third trip, we were allowed to join ship, and that was, I think, some strange coincidence that we both had sought for it and both were at first allowed to join it in September '52, but ... Well, we jumped a little bit in it, but later in Inchon, we didn't have much chance to meet each other or to speak or to, as you saw in the Jutlandia Hall Museum, there were not much possibilities, and in fact, the nurses were not allowed to go to the officers' area. I don't know why, but there must have been some reason that they wouldn't allow nurses to go there. So we had each our job after this 1st of January session in Old Ironsides, but, I can't remember, probably a Saturday or Sunday where we could go ashore, and we went to Kamakura. That was when the ship was in Japan. Every 6 weeks, the Danish and the American ships, one by one, were sent to Japan with a full ship of wounded soldiers which then were sent from Japan. The very much wounded soldiers were flown out either to Hawaii or directly to USA, and when we were in Japan, we had to take care of the engine, all the engines, because we were not allowed. We should be able to leave the road of Inchon with only 1/2 an hour's notice in case something happened or in case the North Koreans still found an airplane which could attack. So we had this chance, and while then I dared to invite this nurse for a trip to Kamakura, which is a huge Buddha figure not very far from Yokosuka in Japan, very impressive. We had a very nice day. That was the first time we had a full day on our own, and that was the 10th of January. Yes, I remember, still remember that because that was the first time that we felt sympathy for each other, and we were trained and bussed from this place down to the airbase in Yokosuka, but it ended at the gangway. There were no possibilities to go further on board the ship. So then we, from that time off, it was ... We didn't see much to each other. We met on the deck sometimes, but that was all, and we came home the 23rd of October when the war ... when the Armistice legislation had ended, not ended the war because the war is still existing, actually, but there is an Armistice, what do you call it, situation, but when we came home, I was still in East Asiatic Company, but we kept writing letters to each other. My wife was in a large Army camp as chief nurse, and we kept contact as well as we could. I was in the East Asiatic Company, and she was in her work, but after a year or there about, we found out that a marriage was the right thing to do, and we asked a former priest from Jutlandia who had served as ... What do you call it, vicar? >> Chaplain. >> On the Jutlandia, whether he would marry us, and he said, "With greatest pleasure," and we were married in [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], which we passed today. We were married, but the ship, at the time, when we found out the date and so on, but when the church was ready to receive us, we were in the second biggest city in Denmark, in Aarhus, in Jutland, and we phoned to the vicar and said, "Well, what about it? It's a Saturday. Can you take us?" "Well, any time," he said. "Yes, but while we are both of us in Aarhus at the moment, we don't know, if something happens or if the weather is bad or so we don't come, well, never mind. We'll find out," and now my wife, I think that was a little bit silly that she was going by train back to Copenhagen, and I was sailing. I said, "Why don't you stay and board? I'll lock you into my cabin so you can sail with me to Copenhagen." Okay, that was fine, as we found out, and we were married only very few because none of the family or anything ... I phoned my brother and said, "Well, just to tell you, I'm going to be married tomorrow and there and there in this church, and so couldn't you arrange some dinner or something for us?" Well, not he, but he and his wife. "Oh, yes, we'll fix everything." So there were only ... My wife had four sisters, and only one of them were able to reach our wedding, and there were ... I think we were six or seven or so to the wedding, but it was enough, and both parties said yes. So it was all right, and I still remember we walked out of the church. Now, I was an old ... My trousers were out because everything was so fast, and she said, "Oh, well, I've saved money for a wedding dress, and now, well, look what I look!" I said, "Well, that's not very important. The important is that we have said yes, both of us," and we walked out. We were still in the 777, walked down into the church and into the [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I don't know, it's in Danish, but there was a small room just before you leave the church, and there was the church woman who take care of everything, and we were both high up, and she said, "Oh, congratulations, oh, wonderful," and then I used to pay some money for the problems I've have had. So I told the vicar after what she said. He said, "Oh, well, that's impossible," but we had to pay her a little bit for the wedding. She had not participated in anything. So that was our marriage, and since then, we were married for more than 50 years, and after ... When was that? Three, 4, 5 years after our marriage, we had our first son, and he wanted to join East Asiatic Company to be educated as a businessman, but normally that was not allowed because in the East Asiatic Company, it was not allowed that [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> The crew or the staff. >> The staff of the East Asiatic Company were not allowed any sons or daughters, or there were no women in East Asiatic at that time, but they were not allowed to let their sons into work in the same company, but at that time, our son, we gave him a trip to the United States to the ... >> College. >> To the university, and he asked me, "Would you prevent me to journey?" and so I said, "No, I would be happy, but you will not be allowed," but I was in shipping, and he was in the business department. So that was a meeting with them, from East Asiatic, that he should be in this part of the business, and they told him, "Well, we can tell you next year." "I can't wait for that," he said. They're not used to that way in East Asiatic Company. So he said, "Well, I'm leaving for United States for 1 year, and if I do not know whether I can join East Asiatic, I will have to, when I come home, I will have to seek some other places," but he was very, very well-educated. So he came back, and he joined East Asiatic Company, and he was educated there and finished and was ready to join some of our offices and all over the world, but he, unfortunately, he died when he was 22 years old by something, a brain aneurysm. It was the Latin name for it. So that spoiled a little bit. My wife never came over his loss. When we got 5 years, we had our second son, which I'm fortunate to have today, but unmarried, but heavy engaged in Stockholm, so ... >> Really? >> Yes. So I think we should take a stop, a pause now. Well, kind of impressed of the story, so that was the reason he made the song. The song is free. It's not correct, but that's never mind. He said it was in 1949, and nurses 16 years old. They had to be 25 years at least. >> Yeah. >> So ... but that's a freedom composer. >> The artistic freedom. >> The song was fantastic good at the time when it came, when he first made it and sung it because a lot of young people in Denmark said, all of a sudden, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] "We must know a little bit more about Jutlandia," and my wife was, at that time, at her last job as a nurse. She was a nurse in Magasin Du Nord. That was the biggest warehouse in [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Storehouse. >> Yeah, I don't know. >> Mm-hmm. >> I don't know whether you know, but that's something like Macy's or something like that, and she was the chief nurse there for whole Denmark. It has a lot of smaller places, and she said when this song came, all the young people in [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] at that time, 63,000 people working in this warehouse, this place, and they all came and said [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] "They tell me you have been in Jutlandia," and so she was, all of a sudden, she was top of this warehouse. >> Star! >> So it had a very good mission to it, to tell a new generation exactly the same. The picture is terrible, but it has been shown in television 12 times now. >> Oh. >> Twelve times they have, repeatedly. People phone me every time and say [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] but it also has a mission, this picture, because people that see it today, they don't know how it was in reality, really, in Korea. So it also has a mission, and I think there is no people in Denmark now which doesn't know what Jutlandia means. So both the Kim Larsen and this one is important, but they are not true. They are full of false things, but that doesn't matter because it's very important. Kim Ju Whan is on this film, and, well, I'm also, strange enough, on this picture, but ... Well, when the Korean War broke out, or actually when North Korea attacked South Korea, there was a meeting in the United Nations, and, of course, United Nations, thanks to a mistake from Russia, which had no vote at the security council at that time, the UN asked all countries in the world to work for South Korea, do something for South Korea, and 16 countries gave military support. Denmark had just finished the German occupation, which is not to compare with the Japanese occupation of South Korea, which was terrible and rough. It was hard in Denmark, but not to compare with the Japanese, but we were a rather poor country. We had no forces at all. We couldn't defend ourselves. It was on top of the Cold War at that time. So the foreign ministry took very much care about not to attack Russia in any way. So they said, "Well, we can't help with military forces," and United States were not quite support with that, but we had no soldiers. We couldn't even defend ourself at that time, and we had the Russian forces, they were 20 minutes away from Denmark, in Poland and Eastern Germany. So they could have attacked Denmark in a matter of a few hours. They had landing crafts already on the Polish and East German coasts, and we had to go very, very easy with the helping South Korea, but I called into Korean understanding or what you would ... I don't have the right word. Denmark was one of the first countries to give their support to South Korea, but we started off giving medicine. That was not enough. We started off kind of a support one way or another, but it was not satisfied enough for United Nations and especially understandable very well for USA forces. So finally we ended up with a chief doctor who was chosen by the foreign ministry, a chief doctor to handle the negotiations, and his name was Lehmann, and he grandson is ambassador in Korea today. That's strange, but that was ... Finally, well, foreign ministry and UN and US accepted that we promised to send a hospital ship, and then they had to work to find the ship which was able, in a short time, to be transferred from a normal freighter or so to a hospital. So they choose East Asiatic Company's ship Jutlandia, which was a combined passenger and cargo ship, and it was on its road to New York, and strange enough, they forgot to inform the ship, the captain on the ship, Captain Kondrup, who was later to be the captain on the hospital ship also. So when he came in and board at the keys in New York, there were hundreds of photographers and journalists, and he said, "What the hell is happening?" He didn't know why all these people were there because he didn't know that Jutlandia was chosen, and it was emptied immediately for passengers and cargo, and everything was just ended. It returned as fast as possible to Denmark and went straight down to the shipyard, NASSCO shipyard, which had built Jutlandia in 1934, and they worked day and night, and they knew the ship because they had built it originally. So they had all papers and all the work ready when the ship arrived from New York, and that was what made it possible to leave Denmark again, already the 23rd of January. They had built a new helicopter deck. They had given, as I was told, air condition and some other few repairs and things which they had missed when they were in Korea. So in that way, that we made the whole humanitarian help and Red Cross ship. So Russia couldn't be mad of that. So that was the beginning for it. Many has asked, a lot of people ask us, "Why did you volunteer for the Korean War for Jutlandia?" and I said, "That was not very strange." For instance, for my wife, she was from the southernmost part of Jutland, which for nearly 40 years of occupation, the southern part of Jutland, of German occupation, and she know what it means for a small country to be occupied by a big cog. So she had immediately volunteered for it, and as soon as I heard it, when I saw it in the news we received aboard the ship, where I was then. I was in the underground movement in Denmark, and I was arrested by Gestapo, the German Gestapo, during the war, but by my action during the German occupation, was very, very small because I was in Elsinore, and it was not allowed to make any sabotage or any killing or anything in that area because that was the main area for Jews to go to Sweden. So we were no heroes at all, but I had felt Gestapo enough to know that. We were only saved from the German occupation by the help of Allied forces, especially English and American forces. So it was my impression that we owed at least a little as a thanks for the help they gave us, and without their work and their mighty losses of soldiers, we could not be free. So now we couldn't say no when another small country asked for help. So many of the residents on-board had that impression, that we ought to join the Jutlandia, and we did. We did that, and that was very fine. When the ship was repaired and furnished and was all ready to leave Denmark, the journalists, the press, the media was very, very bad because they said, "Well, the ship will sink before they reach the Mediterranean," because with three chiefs and a lot of chief doctors and professors, they would fight, all of them, before they reached very far away. One captain, one expedition chief, one hospital chief, and all these professors and doctors, that was impossible, but they were clever. They became more clever because when we came home, there were no end to how beautiful it had been. So that was strange with the media, but it was the reason that the Jutlandia, in my impression and in most people's impression, that it ended up as a success was definitely because Imperials, when there were not any severe war between North and South Korea, all the nurses and the doctors, they couldn't go idle without no work, and they sent thousands of people ashore while in Pusan, where the ship was moored up. We want to be allowed to take a civilian's. Of course, Korean soldiers were welcome, but civilians and children were not allowed, but they said, "We will do that whether you like it or not." That was the Allied command which were against it, and Koreans has never forgotten that, never. Well, you have this saying which goes through everywhere, "We will never forget," and they have never forgotten anything. So that was the reason that we, in fact, are a success. I was a fresh lieutenant engineer, as I told, but the praise, the reason that we became such a success, that was, of course, the hospital part. We brought the hospital from here to Korea, and we served in all kinds of ways the hospital, but it was the doctors and the nurses who did the job, both for the soldiers, but also for the civilians as much. They had to sign that in case of heavy fighting, we had to send all civilians ashore, and children, of course, but we were not in that situation. We had very, very short, before the [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Armistice. >> Armistice, yeah. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Just before the armistice, a few weeks before the armistice was signed, the Chinese, they attacked a part of the border, but unfortunately for the Chinese, they had just changed the Americans. All the American soldiers had been drawn back. They had been fighting very, very much in that area, and the Turks had taken over, and when they smell blood, they really fight. So they ran right into the Turk forces, and the Turks, they lost 700, if I remember clearly, and more than, I think, 8,000 Chinese were killed in that fight, and then all fighting stopped at that moment, but at that time, it was just before the hospital had broken down. They had helicopters as fast as they could bring wounded people in, and it was discussed whether they should send out doctors from Denmark, but the doctors on-board, although they knew that there was a risk, they worked up to more than 24 hours just operating and operating and operating. Then they had few hours sleep and then down again. Same with the nurses, they worked all the day and night, but they managed it until the fighting stopped, but there were many things which we have to thank the hospital department for because they performed miracles sometimes, and the old doctors or professors say, "Well, you can't operate anymore." "Well, then who's going to die? Which one are we not to operate on?" They said, "Well, yes, go on as long as you can." So they performed miracles, the doctors and nurses. So ... >> How many total doctors and nurses went? >> Well, strange enough, there were a ship's crew of between 96 and 100, and there were hospital staff between, I think it was 98 and 104, and so because it changed very much how many there was, especially the hospital staff had to change. Professors could only join the Jutlandia for maybe 3 months. So they were about 3 months, and some were 1/2 a year, and some were the whole trip, but there were many of them were practiced on-board all the time, and Jutlandia were on the UN flag for 999 days before the UN flag were taken down in Copenhagen. >> Did anyone die? Did any Danes die? >> Yeah, how many? >> Mm-hmm. >> I think we had, for all that time, I think we had 16 deaths, and that was a fantastic record. >> Sixteen Danish died. >> We had a visit. I was by phone one day ... >> No, no, no, how many Danish? >> No one died. >> No one died, okay. >> No, no, we fought a war on first class because no one died. >> That's good. >> We had nothing to do on the frontline. In fact, they were not allowed to it because they had Red Cross. So they were not to, but we were on-board a ship. So there were no reasons. We had nothing to do, and no one was killed on the way. As I told you, the trip, my wife and I were invited from Inchon to Seoul It took at that time ... I can't remember, but I know today, with six lanes, it takes just the same time to come from Seoul to Inchon that it took at that time on a very small road. So we had no casualties, in fact. Well, we had a doctor who fell down the stairs, and he was operated, and the commander was also operated on-board the ship, Captain Hammerich. I don't know what it's called. So I have to tell it in Danish. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Oh, hemorrhoids. >> Yeah, at that time ... but I have to continue in Danish. At that time, his wife was a guest on board the ship. She was traveling at the time, and she came up in the official big room for all the doctors [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Where she ... >> So that was ... >> ... said thank you to everybody for helping her husband. >> But one of our patients in the dentist clinic was Syngman Rhee. He came very often, partly because he loved to come and board the ship, and then next tour, he had some trouble with his teeth. So he came there, but that was on the first trip. So I've never met him, but he was one of the first patients in the dentist's clinic. >> Speaking of him, how many times did you go back to Korea, and what do you think of Korea and the Korean people, feature of Korea? >> Yes, well, exactly as I said, "We shall never forget," the Koreans tell us, and they never do because they have arranged, although it's now more than 60 years, they still invite, every year, invite veterans to visit Korea or, as they say, revisit Korea, and I have been five times. I think I've been five times on revisit Korea, and that means that we ... The veteran himself pays for the transport forth and back, but everything during 1 week in Korea, hotels and all things are paid for us, and it's a very, very [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]. >> Sensitive. >> One feelings ... >> Sentimental. >> Sentimental, yeah, sentimental. >> Sentimental every time we have visited Korea. A few times, we have been through to visit Korean Veterans Association, but otherwise, we have been in pen with John, and they don't know how they do so much for the veterans which come. Americans and Ethiopians has been there. One from Columbia has been there as an honorary visit to Korea, and it's very, very impressive. I was there first time after the war in 1984. We were about 40 veterans at that time which joined the trip to Korea, and we were astonished when we came with the plane because there was a real airfield, when during the war, they had these iron plates they could land on, but now there was a real airport to receive us, and when we came around in Seoul, there were more than one bridge you could pass the river, and it was fantastic. There were already the first skyscrapers were built at that time, and then next time we came, we couldn't recognize it from the first time because now the adventure and everything, especially we must say under Dictator Park, President Park, during his reign. He promoted business and shipyards and everything. Many things happened during his ... He was a tough guy, but that was necessary because South Korea was full of Communist groups fighting, especially in the southwest part of South Korea. There were some terrible groups fighting. So, well, I guess he had to be pretty tough, but that was impressive to see, the diligence and the fantastic work the Koreans had made in this. Not to talk about now, when we were there, well, I was there last time in 2003. We couldn't recognize anything in Seoul. The time I told you before, when my wife and I was on the trip to Seoul, we should have something to eat. We could have eaten in the military camp, but we asked, and they said, "Well, that's probably the only civil house with two floors. There is a restaurant," and we went to that, and we had our first Korean dinner, and the rest of Seoul was flat. Nothing except some official buildings taken over by military or administration and always that were more, but that was a few houses only. So it was fantastic to see the way Korea recovered, and last time, in the last period of the war, when we were in Korea, they recorded it would take about 100 years for Korea to recover. They did it in, well, let's say 25 years and later. That was fantastic. I think all of our veterans has been in Korea one time after the war. They were extremely impressed, not to talk about the new airport in Inchon now. When we came there the first time after it was built, it was one of the biggest airports in the Far East. So you have really worked, but it's terrible that South Korea necessarily must use so extremely much money on defense, with a big army and with everything just because of this mad reign in North Korea. In North Korea, they don't take it very serious to use so much money for their army because people, they just die of hunger, but in South Korea, just imagine what they could make for the money they use for arms and the army, and when South Korea donates thousands of tons of rice to North Korea in bags or something of South Korea, they are not allowed to show that it comes from South Korea, but they have given very, very much help to North Korea, and all they get instead are missiles and atom bombs and spies or tunnels under Panmunjom area where they, I can't remember how many. I think it's eight tunnels they have found. So I think it's a completely mad situation in Korea. In fact, Denmark still has military in Korea because they have, what they call it, observation for the borderline, and I was in Korea in 2010, and I brought my son with me, and all his 50 years, he has heard about Jutlandia, lived with Jutlandia with both mother and father, and he was very, very impressed, and while we were there, while visit Korea, they celebrated the recovery of Seoul from North Korea, and we were at the Olympic Stadium, fantastic show they turned up there, and what was it, what was my ... Oh, well, yes, I was invited for lunch with the president. So I felt that was very until I ... We were 150 guests, but still it was an honor to be invited together with all the other people, and the day after, I and my son, we were invited to a dinner in the Danish Embassy, and there were, among other people, there were a Korean rear admiral. He was guest, and we were only 16 people invited for this dinner, and I had a very nice talk with, "I was in the Danish Navy, too," and he told me, "Well, but you don't think I've been in Denmark." I said, "That's impossible. What? Was your ship out of course, or what happened since you ended up?" No, he was inspecting. He was checking on a submarine which was built in Germany, but the water was too low to test the submarine. So they had to go out north of Denmark to test the submarine, and on that occasion, they had to go into a Danish city for something, a Danish city in Denmark to get some fuel or some other for the catering department, and I said, "Well, that's funny," I said, "because I was in England. I was in the submarines myself in England. I was in 6 months in the British submarine port." "Oh, you have been in the submarine, too!" and he took off, he had that I don't know [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] but, yes, for the ship. It was a submarine. So he take, and he gave it to me. It was nearly as big a medal as that one, and we had a wonderful evening, and another Korean, I can't remember what his job, but he was a seaman in my agency out here, that there is a small picture with ... What's it called, calligraphy? >> Calligraphy. That's the same word. >> Signed, and you can see something like ... It stands on the back of the picture, "One who strives for life in a situation will probably die, but one who dies, he will live forever," and that's the typical voice. I think that's about what I can tell you about. >> One last comment about future of Korea's peace and unification? >> I did not quite ... >> Korea's reunification, do you think it could happen? >> I will say I do not hope it will happen very fast. The best thing, in my poor occasion, I think if it could go very slow that they have a North Korea, but without all the Kim Il-sung dynasty. So by and by, they could open up for business communication as they started, but responded with this industrial area they had for a period, with South Koreans starting business in some area, but I think it would be a catastrophe if it happened like it did between East and Western Germany because the 20 million or how many they are in North Korea, at that time, if they would flow into South Korea and eat and steal or whatever they could find, I'm sure. I certainly do not hope it comes in a sudden way. It should be maybe 10 or 15 or even 20 years ahead that they get tired of it, and they kind of a democratic reign in North Korea, but still exist as a country itself, as North Korea and South Korea, but on friendly terms or moralist friendly terms, I would say, but I think that could be a way to start a new area in North and South Korea. >> I think it would be possible with the new generation. I hope so too. >> We have to hope for it. There's not much showing that way today, with his atomic and missiles and all this, but I don't know how it should happen. Hopefully, he dies within a few years, but then there will be some other one probably, one general or something like that who will take over. I think it's wonderful to be a dictator. >> No! >> So it's very, very difficult. >> Okay.