Griffin, is that PPCLI as in Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry? Which battalion? The 2nd Battalion of that regiment fought alongside our 3RAR at Kapyong in Korea. Both units were awarded the United States Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation for holding off a division of Chinese. At the risk of sounding dramatic, if I was the Taliban I'd be bugging out of there quick smart! Keep up the good work. Cheers.

that's the lads alrighty. have you seen that honking huge marble memorial the sk put on top of the canadian hill there? i've read they still do a big memorial service there on the anniversary of the battle. it's good to stay in practise for the next time we colonials have to bail out the brits ;)

AdvanceAustralia "Griffin, is that PPCLI as in Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry? Which battalion? The 2nd Battalion of that regiment fought alongside our 3RAR at Kapyong in Korea. Both units were awarded the United States Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation for holding off a division of Chinese." Yes, it was the 2PPCLI. They made quite an impression on the US 10th Mountain and 101st Air Assault in its first deployment in Jan. 2002, and continue to do so today. Latest news report today suggested that about 100 Taliban were in the same area that the earlier fire fight took place. Supposedly, they are not causing too much mischief as it is just about poppy picking season. Our troops won't at this stage do any eradication of the crops, as for many in the local population that is their main source of money. They are awaiting some support measures from the Afghan government to change the crops grown so the Afghan police and military, along with our guys won't be fighting the locals and the Taliban and al-Qaeda. While it is troubling for many, myself included, to see our people caught in this jam, it does make military sense. Defeat the Taliban and other terrorists, and then work on changing the crops. Considering the amount of money poor farmers can make on the narcotic crop, I won't hold my breadth awaiting a quick solution.

Ehran,I assume the memorial shown on this page is the one you mean: http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/general/sub.cfm?source=history/koreawar/pilgrimage/garden It's good the SKs remember who their mates are. Cheers.

was a close run thing that day. had 12th brigade been forced out of position there was essentially nothing available to stop the chinese from over running seoul and the stockpiled supplies there. probably have set the war back another 6 months while the UN regrouped in the south.

Didn't realise how close things were. Most Oz writeups on Kapyong talk more about how many bad guys were in front rather than the lack of good guys behind. This has a parallel with the Battle of FSPB Coral during the 1968 Tet Offensive where 1RAR & 3RAR (supported by armd/cav/arty elements) blocked an advance on Saigon by 7 NVA Division. Do you have any good historical links on Kapyong from the Canadian perspective? Cheers.

i know a guy who was there believe it or not. he said one of the things that made the difference was the ammo and weapons discarded by americans falling back. said they spent several hours shlepping mg's and boxes of ammo up the hill before the fighting got started. another tidbit was that somehow or other a little det of sas guys wandered in and decided to stay for the festivities. the interesting thing was that the casualties were so light on our part despite one company being overrun by the chinese and having to resort to using our own arty on the companies positions to thin the chinese ranks. the commander of d company bet that his lads being in holes and the chinese being in the open the chinese were going to pay far more heavily. if you read the ppcli battle diary they have a good account of the battle but i don't have a link to it. there was no shortage of good guys to the rear they just were truck drivers, clerks and arty men. at one point the guys had a full corps arty firing in support. got to give it to the chinese though cause they were still making it onto the hill after being pounded by that awful amount of arty.

I found these via google: http://ppcli.com/ & http://army.ca/inf/ppcli.php - worth a look but doesn't seem to be much detail on Kapyong. I'll keep looking. One of my father's mates in the Fleet Air Arm was an MP in the army before joining the navy. He was attached to 3RAR at the time of Kapyong and remembers when the sun came up in the morning the valley was "full of Chinese". Scary stuff. Cheers.

basically at kapyong an aussy battalion was on a hill ahead and to the left of the canadian battalion with the road coming down from the north and passing between the two hills. 12th brigade was thrown in fire brigade fashion as at that point the main line had shattered/routed call it what you will. best part of 4 chinese divisions were pouring south down the road which led to seoul and the vast stores of gear there. essentially no infantry forces available to plug into the line on such short notice left 12th with do or die in your holes orders. the hammer came down on the australian battalion first and they held out for about 8 hours before they decided their positions were untenable and they withdrew around south of the canadian positions to regroup. i never heard what they did after that during the fight. the pats managed to hang tough aided by their salvaged mg's and ammo plus i believe there was an airdrop of ammo at one point. next day you were supposed to be able to walk across the valley to the hills on the north side without stepping off bodies. i remember being quite astonished by how light the canadian casualties were considering the length and general ugliness of the battle. how did the aussy btn fare that way? the accounts i've read were very much about the pats and the aussy btn was basically them guys over there.

Ehran, 3RAR casualties were: 32 KIA, 53 wounded (about 10% of the battalion). Source: Australian War Memorial - there's a write up here: http://www.awm.gov.au/korea/operations/kapyong/kapyong.htm Cheers.