By Vincent Courtenay
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The counterattack and subsequent defense of the Hook was horrid, virtually indescribable. We literally walked on bodies in the trenches, were under machine gun, sniper, mortar and shell fire. There were bodies all over the hill, all over the slopes ― bodies of British and Canadian soldiers, our Korean Service Corps porters and of our Chinese enemy.
We held the Hook position for three days and nights with virtually no sleep, no letup in the tension. We sent out small three-man patrols by night to locate the enemy, then called shellfire onto them. Sometimes we shot it out with them, both sides fighting on open ground in darkness.
That action stayed with me for decades, no doubt still does, but is now subdued. For many years after I returned to Canada, I was given to crying. It was uncontrollable. I would think of the fallen, of my comrades and I freezing on the open slopes and I would begin to cry.
I had spent three years in the Canadian Army and was discharged at age 19 ― still too young to be able to enter Canada's beer halls or saloons at the time. When I first went to college, it was virtually impossible to read a textbook.
The words bounced off the pages. I would not finish a full page before my mind had gone back to Korea. Then I would have to read it all over again and hope that I could stay focused. It sometimes would take me two hours to read just seven or eight pages.
The Korean War and the Battle of the Hook is still with me today. I am now 88 and I cannot walk without the assistance of a cane, and then only for short distances. It is very painful when I walk, but I do it, like we took the pain and the hardships in Korea.
Still, if I get the call to return to Korea again this year, to visit with my fallen comrades who are buried in the United Nations Memorial Park in Busan, I surely will be there.
It gives me great pride that the park continues to evolve as a very well-kept resting place for our fallen soldiers. I can remember the horrors of burying some of our foe in the hills where they fell, and some of our comrades on the various positions could not be recovered. In some cases, there was nothing left to recover, and they were mixed with the soil where they died.
It gives me enormous pride to see the great metropolis of Busan blossoming all around them, and hopefully destined to become the host city of the World Expo in 2030! Such a contrast with the way things were more than 70 years ago when our troopships arrived in this port city.
The humble surroundings, the poverty of the people, the rusted hulks of scows and packet ships in the harbor were all a depressing sight.
I hope that I will be able to meet again with my many living friends in Busan, which made me an honorary citizen two years ago.
If I come to Busan once more, as I have nearly every year for more than the past 20, somehow or other I will visit once again, maybe for the final time, the graves of the 12 comrades from my regiment whose grave markers I have visited and saluted over in each of those 20 some years.
If I cannot, please salute them for me, when the sirens go off once again at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, and thank them, please, for their sacrifice long ago. Among the 378 Canadians who were buried there during the war, one of them, believed to be the first Canadian to fall in action, was just 17 when he fell. He had falsified his age and served in the name of an older cousin.
Both of their names are embossed on the bronze tablet that marks his grave. He, too, was a proud member of my regiment.
In Canada's capital of Ottawa, at 9 p.m. on Nov. 10, when it is 11 a.m. on Nov. 11 Korea time, veterans will hold a memorial ceremony for our Korean War fallen servicemen. They will turn toward Busan once again and say a prayer for our comrades whose graves you honor and safeguard so well.
Vincent Courtenay had just turned 16 on the day that Canada raised a special force to serve in Korea. He enlisted in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and fought in Korea. His wartime injuries classify him as seriously impaired by Veterans Affairs Canada. He served for seven years (2007-2014) as an official consultant to Korea's Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, for which service he was awarded the Order of Civil Merit.
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