vel are you saying the canadians and aussies were just that much better than the americans and south koreans the chinese crushed earlier just earlier because thats uncommonly kind of you.

 

would have been pretty ugly had 12th reg't not played immovable object in front of the chinese.

We cannot also forget that a British regiment to the Aus./CDN front of our units took the brunt of it.  Many of the Commonwealth troops still had totally inadequate personal weapons when they arrived in S. Korea with their Lee Enfield bolt action rifles and Sten Guns.  The Cdn. troops couldn't get rid of them fast enough for the M-1 with its quicker fire rate, used as many of the Bren Guns they could get their hands on, but it was the machine guns, artillery, and other assets that one the day.  2PPCLI had companies overrun and had to fight back.  It was the field artillery that decimated the Chinese hordes with air playing a part as things progressed.

 

Brave men all!

Yes Vel, the Chinese tried...and failed. I wrote this post as a tid bit in lead up to Anzac Day, nothing more or less. Take it or leave it pal, just dip ya lid at 3RAR and the other Allied units who did their job.

As we approach Anzac Day, I suggest we have a little look at the Battle of Kapyong, which took place from April 22-April 25, 57 years ago. Great effort by our blokes and the Kiwis, Canadians and the Yanks. Hats off to our lads from 3RAR (Hey, it's not a pissing contest but you gotta blow the the old horn every now and then). Throw as many human waves against the Diggers as you want, we'll stand tall.

Velocity Vector,

 

So what you are saying is that you have come to the Australia board of SP to try and provoke a Canadian rival into an argument, by attempting to diminish the achievements of a bunch of very brave Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and American soldiers. Irrespective of any facts about the firepower used, it is also a fact that the battle also involved a lot of hand to hand combat by the troops involved and required the commander to call artillery down on his  own position, a BIG call requiring a huge amount of courage on his part.

 

Beersheba has obviously posted this on the Australian primarily out of respect to the Australian soldiers on the anniversay of their achievemement and prior to ANZAC day, which is the most sacred secular holiday in the Australian calander.  However, he very clearly gave credit to all nationalities concerned, as did your government by giving citations to the units involved. The fact that you can't do the same shows you to be a petty individual who doesn't know how to show respect to those who unequivocally deserve it.

 

Ehran,

 

Your attempt to slander the American's and South Koreans who retreated early in the battle makes you just as bad as VV. I don't know the exact details of the retreat, but I know that neither nation breeds cowards and I know that their soldiers have always been competent in a stand up fight. As such I strongly suspect that their position must have been untenable for this to happen. I don't know much about Canadian military history but I do know that Australian soldiers have had to retreat on occasions, Singapore immediately comes to mind. Irrespective of how good soldiers are a larger force of enemy can force a retreat, so it is completely out of order of you to make those sort of insinuations.

 

Since neither of you can show the appropriate degree of respect or maturity on this issue and at a time of year that is very important to Australians, perhaps you should take your arguments away from the Australia board until you learn to grow up.

 

 

I had never heard of Kapyong until a chance meeting with a Kiwi Called 'Reds' on a train between Albury & Melbourne. Reds was a Korean War veteran and had been at Kapyong. I knew about the war, but had no idea that ANZACs had played such a vital role at a vital time.

 

Reds returned home to indulge his true passion - Rugby. He was just shy of donning the black jersey, but went on to coach at junior levels. One of his better students was a chap by the name of Grant Fox. Reds was a life member at Eden Park, and being the sort of bloke he was, told me to drop in if I was ever on the wroing side of the ditch. Unlike some such invitations, I actually think he meant it. It is encounters such as these that have fired my love of history. The grand narrative is always great, but it is the people who really make the story. 

 

It is interesting the way that we continue to discover and re-discover our own history. Proof that history is not a fixed body of knowledge, but an ongoing dialogue between past & present.

 

In the 1980s & 1990s we began to put Kokoda, Long Tan & Kapyong alongside Gallipoli and Tobruk in the great pantheon of Australian military history. There are many more such great battles that I hope will one day join them: Milne Bay, Villiers Brettoneux (sic?), Fromelles, Bullecourt, Buna, Gona & other battles of the New Guinea campaign.

 

Korea occupies a strange place in our national story. In the shadow of the great national undertaking of WW2 and the great national argument of Vietnam, Korea has tended to be pushed to one side. Thankfully there are historians who have documented some of the experiences of these men,and those who served in Malaya. Still, there is much more to be done, and it may only get done if there is a sense that people want to know.

 

It is up to those of us who know & care to push as best we can to have these stories told before the people who can best tell them have passed from us.

Presidential Unit Citation.

That puts the 3rd RAR in some very SELECT company. Taffy 3, USS Enterprise, 101st Airborne, 26th and 96th infantry some US submarines,  and the Dutch Regiment Van Heutz as well as the Turkish Brigade.   

Herald

VV denigrated the stand taken by those troops by saying it was impossible for the chinese to succeed given the mass fires available to the canadians and australians.  this is patent nonsense given that to reach the 12th brigades hastily laid positions the chinese had to push 2 american divisions and a south korean brigade aside to open a hole 20 km deep in the UN lines.  even then the australians were unable to hang on to their hill even with a company of american tanks in support and the canadians kept their 677 by the skin of their teeth.  it was all round a hell of a fight and the consequences of losing it would have been grim for the UN.
i know a man who was on that hill and he tells me that he spent the day humping discarded american ammo and mg up the hill. 

 

VV,

 

Thankyou, very gracious of you.

 

 

Ehran,

 

That is quite beside the point. Irrespective of VV initially said, it does not justify you responding in the way that you did. It makes you just as bad, only now you are worse because he has seen the error of his ways.

 

DB,

 

Quite right, no non-Australian should feel constrained from commenting simply because this is the Australia board. It was however bad manners to start and continue an argument of this nature on this particular thread, when it was clearly written as a mark of respect to the people involved, did not involve any attacks on the efforts of our allies and when it was written at a time of the year that is important to Australians. I think VV gets that now, though Ehran does not.