Northern Ireland Belfast (5)

>> ... the door who had been captured and could walk over the UN forces with them, but the UN troops, the Astor Rifles and the others who were with them, who had been killed were just left to lie, and they weren't buried by the cruiser, and they went out, and in this hard, harsh ground, they buried the bodies because they felt they needed to give respect to these people from overseas who'd come to fight for them, so it was very poignant, and then we were told how after the ... What we were shown were the ... Albert showed a picture earlier of the bullet holes on the bridge, which another Astor Rifleman ... I think it was a lieutenant then, Merv McCordy, went on to become a brigadier eventually. He got an MC, a Military Cross. Himself and somebody else protected a sort of area and ... two of those who had died in Korea, and they ... I discovered when I was back recently in Korea that near that side of Seoul is where all the monumental memorial makers were, and so that's how they managed to find ... >> [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] >> Yeah. The Padre found ... was told to go and get a stone, and he found a stonemason as well. Apparently, they were in the back of an army truck. I assume he was paid, and they drove around with the ... wherever the battalion was going, and he was told to carve on this memorial to remember the Royal Astor Rifles and the others who'd been there and then in Happy Valley and who'd died there and others of the Regiment, who'd died nearby or elsewhere in battles that included Imjin because the Astor Rifles had heavy casualties at Imjin as well, and that was dedicated July 1951. My dad wasn't there because at that stage he was in Japan training people to go to Korea and things, so he wasn't there but some very famous, very poignant pictures of that. That memorial, we will see later. It came back to Northern Ireland in the 1960s, put up in Palace Barracks ... not Palace Barracks, sorry, the barracks by Mina where the Regiment, the Astor Rifles, had their depot, and then that closed in 2010, and it got moved to outside the city fort here in Belfast, and my father, Merv McCordy got the MC in career, and a lot of the others of the Regiment were very instrumental and moving in that getting it placed outside the city hall, and it's been recently refurbished, and we've now got access to it from the Cenotaph area, the city hall, and they're looking after it well. So my dad and I went back to Korea in 2011. Mr. Kim showed us around Happy Valley, and my dad, I think he never totally said this, but I think, to me, but I think he always felt guilty that he'd survived, and so many hadn't, and he really wanted to do something to remember those who'd died in Korea of the Regiment, and initially we were thinking about putting up a wee plaque or something in Happy Valley. We spoke to the British Ambassador when we were there. We spoke to Mr. Parker when we were there. When we came back, we spoke to members of the Regiment because obviously it would have to have regimental approval, and then when we were sort of just ... We were just thinking of doing something quite small, really, maybe in Happy Valley itself, and then I got ... We met Andrew Salmon out there. He'd already met my father. He'd been to Belfast 2 or 3 years before to interview my dad for his book, "To the Last Round." He interviewed quite a lot of the Royal Astor Rifles for that, and he was delighted to see my father in Korea. They got on very, very well. They enjoyed going out and both good storytellers, so they could sit around and drink and tell stories, top teacher, he was, with the stories. But anyway, Andrew Salmon sent me an e-mail and said that the Irish Association of Korea and the Irish Embassy in Korea were thinking of putting up a memorial in Korea to those from Ireland who had died in the Korean War, and because although Ireland wasn't a UN nation, it ... People from Ireland had thought and for the Americans, the Australians, and then many of people from the south of Ireland were part of the Royal Astor Rifles, which was a British Army Regiment, so it was part of the UN. So and they were also wanted to remember some Padre, some missionaries who died in Korea as well, and there's a link there with the Royal Astor Rifles too, which I'll explain in a wee minute. So anyway, we then started liaising with Ambassador McKee, and again, we had to get approval from the Regiment and from the British-Korean Veterans Association, and there were links between Dublin and Belfast and everything else because obviously, we have these politics involved in this country too, and in among that, that's when Mrs. Carol Walker came on board because my mother used to ... my mother? My father used to be ... He was very much behind the setting up the Somme Association, the Somme Museum to remember those of the First World War from the north and south who'd died at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and he knew that Carol had a lot of experience in memorials. She put up memorials for the First World War in France, in Turkey, in visitors places. I'd asked her initially for advice on that, and then discussion began about taking back veterans from the Royal Astor Rifles and from Ireland. Generally, Carol has had experience of taking back First World War veterans to First World War battlefields, and so that's how she become involved in the ... on the team, basically, and then a representative of the Royal Irish Regiment, the modern regiment for the Royal Astor Rifles, which the Astor Rifles, my dad's regiment in 1968 amalgamated with three other regiments into the Royal Irish Rangers, and then in 1992, that became the Royal Irish Regiment, and they're very supportive of their heritage and interested in their heritage. So lots of discussions about the memorial, lots of liaisons between Korea and Ireland and phone calls at 7 o'clock in the morning and to work with the time difference, and then in 2012, Carol, myself and Trevor Ross, who was representing the Royal Irish Regiment, went out to Korea at the time of the Commonwealth Veterans revisit the following year and met with the British Ambassador, the Irish Ambassador, members of the MPVA in Korea, went to see possible memorial sites, and it was then that it was decided the memorial should ... the key memorial should go up in Seoul because it'd be easier to look after it there by the War Museum and things, and the Irish Embassy said it was look after it and that there would be a panel put up in Happy Valley as well to remember the battle in Happy Valley too. 2013, and you'll hear more about this from Mrs. Carol Walker, the memorial was dedicated in Seoul. My father and I were meant to go to be there for that dedication and for all the other events and be there with the other veterans from the Royal Astor Rifles and from Ireland. Unfortunately, my mother had a very severe stroke just a week or two prior to us going out, and we, anyway, my father and I couldn't go. She died shortly after the veterans returned from Korea, but we were very close in contact with what was going on. My dad was very keen to know. He kept saying, "Have you had a signal from Carol?" because he's not quite into e-mails, but a signal, and so Carol, Trevor and the others sent back information of what was going on, sent photographs of the memorial being dedicated, being put up and everything, but me and my father were ... My father and I were very evolved with Carol and others, and everything had to be approved with the wording on the memorial and everything else. Then with regards to the memorial, my dad ... One of the sides of the memorial, one of the sides is the Royal Astor Rifles and reflects this memorial here in Belfast and the wording on the memorial here in Belfast, and it particularly mentions Happy Valley. Another side mentions those Irish birth and heritage. Another side is ... talks about seven missionaries from Ireland, who died in Korea, and one of those missionaries, my father actually knew. Father ... I think he's known as Father John O'Kane, is it? >> It's O'Kane. >> Yeah. Father John O'Kane, though, my father knew him as Father Jack. Quite often in Ireland, people who are called John are known as Jack, very confusing. Anyway, so my father knew Father Jack. He'd been a Royal Astor Rifles Padre in the Second World War. We think he might have been at D-Day with them, but we definitely know he was with the Royal Astor Rifles in the Second World War. He was older than my father, maybe 10 years older than my father, and then after the war, my dad was in Palestine and Egypt, and he was the Catholic Padre with the Regiment there. The Royal Astor Rifles has a Catholic Padre and a Protestant Padre, and he was Catholic Padre in Egypt, and he remembered him because he was a Padre. He was part of the officers' mess. He had a tent, himself, I think, because he's a Padre ... had his own tent because my father had to share a tent with somebody else, which are all the boys who are over there, had a lot more in the tents, and he remembers them being very good at cards. He remembers them being a lot of fun. He remembers them riding around the camp on a motor bike, and all the guys thought he was wonderful, so my father was very sad when he'd heard that he'd been killed in Korea. He knew he'd gone out to Korea as a missionary, and so that's a link between the Astor Rifles and the others in the memorial as well. Then in 2015, this ... the ...