You’re in Korea my son: Experiencing battle

Abstract

This chapter uses letters, diaries and under-explored ‘battle experience’ forms produced by British servicemen to understand the everyday lived experience of fighting the Korean War. But it also traces how, through the repeated discussion of ‘experience’ and collective memories of the Second World War, the seeds for Korea’s subsequent cultural obscurity were sown. Korea lacked the moral virtue of the 1939-45 conflict, despite the harsh toll it exacted on its participants. Constant comparisons often concealed the unique elements of the Korean War, including the unfamiliar and often inhospitably landscape to the physical and psychological demands of both rapid movement up and down the peninsula. These forgotten elements of British military experience in Korea are vital to any social history of the conflict.