12-16-17 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

Information

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[rayg]

Greek fighters? US supplied with M1's and the helmet. Ray

[BEAR]

Turks and Aussies fighting together in Korea! Who woulda thought!

BEAR (BDY)

[browningautorifle]

Greek fighters?

Looks like most of them are...

[Paul S.]

Turks and Aussies fighting together in Korea! Who woulda thought!

BEAR (BDY)

I suspect they may be Greeks and the Digger in the background may be an interpreter.



Trivia fact: my son in law, who is a serving RAN officer, told me that during the Gulf War they had a few RAN sailors seconded aboard some of the USN ships to translate the RN's (heavily-accented Pommie English) voice radio traffic into "Americanese".

[browningautorifle]

the Digger in the background may be an interpreter.

Who's going to translate what he says...?

[Mark in Rochester]

Greek fighters?

No Turks - original caption - Allies in Korea: Australian and Turkish soldiers meet for the first time.


In Korea, two former enemies joined forces

Michael Gordon, Istanbul

THE first, and only, contact between the Turks and the Diggers on a battlefield after Gallipoli could, very easily, have ended in tragedy, according to one of the young men who observed it in fading light on a freezing day in Korea 62 years ago.

Jack Galloway, who was 20, remembers ''pot shots'' being exchanged before the two groups realised they were on the same side and set up camp together at Kunu-ri, a village of mud-and-stick houses near the Yalu River in North Korea.

''We didn't understand the Turks too well and we finished up getting into a dust-up with them,'' Galloway, now 82, tells The Age. ''We got it all sorted out pretty quickly, but when we first ran into them, they fired on us and we fired on them. No one was shot.''

The confusion was understandable. Not only did both sides confront a language barrier, the Turks had been in a hurry to get to a front line that was, in the words of one observer, ''a bit of a mess'' after the arrival of 400,000 Chinese troops transformed the contest late in 1950.

But, very quickly, mutual suspicion gave way to trust and even affection as young men whose relatives had fought against each other at Gallipoli acknowledged and then celebrated a shared history that bound them and their countries together.

My father, Harry Gordon, now 86, was the youngest of the Australian war correspondents in Korea and he recalls that the meeting took place on ''one of the really bad days, when the cold used to pierce deep into your marrow, until your joints ached miserably".

It was so cold that the Australians fossicked everywhere for something to burn, tearing up railway sleepers and hacking at telegraph poles, until the squatting Turks, huddled around their own fires, beckoned them across.

"I remember walking through a railway tunnel and finding a group of Turks at the top of an embankment at the other end. From the centre of the group came a yell, flatly and unmistakably Australian: 'Come and join us, mate. We're all flamin' Anzacs here','' Gordon wrote.

In the huddle, one of the Australians, Norm O'Neill (whose mates called him Peggy), was telling a group of Turks proudly about his father, who had been a machine-gunner at Gallipoli.

The Australians offered cigarettes and chewing gum; the Turks reciprocated with something that looked like pancake and was sweet to chew, and the numbers around the fire increased. A dozen more Turks joined the group, and one of them shyly pulled a bundle of snapshots from his wallet to pass around.

"It was hard conversation (it took 10 grinning, gesturing minutes for him to extract the information that they had been in Korea 22 days) … but it was rewarding. Their ready acceptance of us, their eagerness to make us feel at home among them, weren't just standard behaviour for new-found allies. They, too, had had the Gallipoli story drummed into them during childhood,'' Gordon wrote.

"Scores of similar Turko-Australian bunches huddled round fires that afternoon and evening, and learned about each other. The fact that there were no interpreters did not affect the harmony of the little groups. They talked in signs, and got along fine.''

Galloway agrees. ''It was great fun. They were slapping us on the back and all sorts.''

For the Australians, it was a night when many illusions were shattered.

''Somehow the Anzac speeches of their youth had built the Turks up in their imagination as massive, heavily moustached fighters who carried daggers in their belts and remained sullen and aloof,'' wrote Gordon. ''Nothing could be further from the truth; these Turks were not large men, and they were shy and gentle … and a few looked absurdly young in their oversized greatcoats. There were moustaches, certainly, but they were soft, boyish, kitten-tail affairs with the texture and quality of those that 19-year-old Australian soldiers were managing to cultivate."

They may not have looked intimidating to their new friends, but the Turks in Korea could fight. The day after they camped together, the two groups were split up - the Australians sent to the south-east, the Turks to the east, where they were victims of faulty intelligence and surrounded by a huge Chinese force. First, they were pounded with mortar. Then, waves of Chinese infantry flooded in from every side.

Initial reports from the battle said the 5000-strong brigade had been virtually wiped out. In fact 741 were killed in action, 2068 wounded, and 244 taken prisoner. Many of those casualties, undoubtedly, were young men who had shared such a convivial time with the Australians less than 24 hours before.

The truth was that the Turks, in their baptism of fire, had fought against horrendous odds in sub-zero temperatures against an encircling enemy, and acquitted themselves superbly. They surprised the Chinese by using bayonets and long-bladed knives effectively in hand-to-hand fighting.

Galloway insists the result would have been very different had the Australians not been deployed elsewhere.

That first savage battle had a sequel late in January 1951 when the Turkish brigade attacked a Chinese position south of Seoul and avenged that first defeat.

The Turkish commander later confessed that he wanted to get them in a fighting mood, and told them the unit on top of the ridge was the one that cut them up so badly in that first battle. "My men went up that slope as if they were running in an Olympic sprint," he said. "They were in a desperate mood."

As Gordon noted, the Turks continued to fight with a ferocity that made them something of a legend in Korea.

Shocked Australian stretcher bearers often reported that wounded Turks had refused assistance, and given a terse, scornful explanation: "Me Turk!" Their durability was such that some were known to treat bullet wounds by simply dabbing mercurochrome over the point of entrance.

And such was the American regard for the Turkish fighters that their bakers made them heavier bread that was more to their liking - using wheat, rice flour and olive oil. After one savage action in mid-1951, Gordon reported that an American supply depot received this message from the Turks: "Enemy attacked. We attacked. Send more bread."

Anzac Day of 1951 had been planned as a day of commemoration in Korea, with the Turks rehearsing songs and arranging an elaborate barbecue, but the party never happened because the Australians were caught up in the battle of Kapyong. Even so, the bonds were such that many visited each other's country after the war.

Ali Batman, 80, still feels the bond keenly. His grandfather died at Gallipoli and he was injured in Korea. He has been back to Korea twice and to Gallipoli more than a dozen times, piecing together his grandfather's story and discovering in 2005 where he was buried.

In his breast pocket when we meet, he has the casualty list from Korea. The stories need to be told, he says, so that the sacrifice of those now ''sleeping in the same soil'' is honoured, and is not in vain. ''War is brutal,'' he says.