Forgetting Korea: The Korean War in popular memory, 1953–2014

Abstract

This chapter suggests that the awkward nature, purpose and outcome of the Korean War led to its relative neglect in British history and popular culture, unlike in the United States where both its anti-Communist rhetoric and proximity to the Vietnam War gave its veterans greater prominence. Together with its distance from Britain, unclear war aims and the growing dominance of the Second World War in British culture, charted in the other chapters of this book, this final chapter examines the ‘forgotten’ war in the context of post-1953 British history. It first examines the significance of forgetting war in the twentieth century, before turning to Korea’s cultural history in the post-1953 era and the lives and attitudes of its ‘forgotten’ veterans. It suggests that Britain’s Korean War veterans have a unique degree of agency as guardians of this war.