Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

I ask leave of the House to inform Members about Australia's part in the Korean War and about the last veterans' mission to South Korea that I had the privilege of accompanying in October 2016.

Leave granted.

The Korean War has long been overshadowed by the world wars–it came just five years after the Second World War–and by the long war in Vietnam that followed a decade later.

Because of this it has been called 'the forgotten war'. But for those who fought there, for their families, and for the families of those who did not return, Korea has never been forgotten.

Nor should it be forgotten by Australians today.

Fighting in the Korean War ended more than six decades ago. The wartime generation has grown old, but the war remains within living memory.

Last October, I had the privilege of accompanying eight Korean War veterans back to South Korea on a commemorative mission organised by the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Those eight veterans are joining us in the House today. Can I, on behalf of all members of this place, give you the very, very warmest of welcomes and say what a great honour and privilege it is to have you here in the House with us.

Mr Speaker, I am again privileged to welcome them to the chamber today for this statement and I acknowledge their presence on the chamber floor and the presence of their friends and family in the gallery.

These men represent each of the three Australian services who fought in the Korean War. Gordon 'Taffy' Hughes was a naval aviator, flying operations from the deck of HMAS Sydney. Spencer 'Ray' Seaver was a pilot in No. 77 Squadron. Graham Connor and Les Hall served in 1RAR. John 'Jack' Lang, Les Powell, John Murphy and Peter Scott all served in 3RAR. Peter was mentioned in dispatches for his work as an intelligence officer during the battle of Maryang San.

It was a singular honour to accompany these men—the 'magnificent eight'—on their return to the country that as young men they knew only as a theatre of war, a place where they once risked their lives in Australia's service. It was my particular privilege to see these Korean War veterans meeting a new generation of service men and women—the members of today's 3RAR and a contingent of the Federation Guard, who supported the mission. When they meet, veterans of past wars and the men and women of today's Defence Force share a bond that transcends the decades. The veterans' service in Korea added another chapter to Australia's proud military heritage. They are part of a proud tradition that our Australian Defence Force personnel continue to uphold.

For four of the veterans, this mission was their first visit to Korea since the war. Jack Lang mentioned that he wanted to see how Korea had developed over the decades since he had served there. The transformation in South Korea has been remarkable. In the six decades since the war, the country has developed into one of the most prosperous, advanced and successful nations in the world. They have done so on a chance given to them by men and women who did not share their future but shared their values. To the veterans here today, you and every Australian who served in Korea helped make this transformation possible.

In South Korea, the war is not a historical episode, but an ever-present reality. The warmth of the veterans' reception was an eloquent testimony to the gratitude felt by South Koreans towards those who served in their country's defence. Shortly after he arrived in Korea, Ray Seaver recognised the airfield from which he had flown combat operations during the war, at Gimpo outside Seoul. The mountain looming behind was a familiar, evocative landmark, even at night. But many of the familiar landmarks of the war that these veterans knew lie in North Korea, still in a state of war against South Korea. They remain in forbidden territory.

In Korea, the veterans took part in moving commemorative ceremonies to honour those who did not return. Some of these ceremonies—at Kapyong and Maryang San—took place within view of former battlefields. We also travelled to the far south of South Korea, to Busan, home to the world's only United Nations war cemetery and a place where more than 280 Australians lie buried.

The Korean War was the first war between major powers in the Cold War nuclear age and was the first war fought by the United Nations. Twenty-one countries committed personnel to repel the North Korean invasion of the south, among them South Korea, Australia, Britain, New Zealand, and the United States. The Korean War was a major conflict with far-reaching implications for Australia, for our region and for the world.

Australia was involved in Korea from the beginning. Two Australian military observers inspected South Korean forces along the border in the days before the war began. Their report that the South Koreans were deployed for defence helped convince the United Nations that North Korea was the aggressor and was an important factor in the decision to go to war.

When the war began on 25 June 1950, elements of each of Australia's three services, the Army, Navy and Air Force, were nearby, in Japan on post-Second World War occupation duties. By the beginning of July, airmen of the RAAF's No. 77 Squadron were operating in the skies over Korea and the Navy's HMAS Shoalhaven and HMAS Bataan were engaged in operations in the waters offshore.

The 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), arrived at an important moment in the war. The North Korean invasion had made rapid progress. Communist forces had captured Seoul and advanced down the Korean Peninsula towards the southern port city of Busan. But two weeks before Australian ground troops arrived, United Nations forces landed far behind the front line at Inchon near Seoul on South Korea's west coast. The HMAS Bataan and the HMAS Warramunga assisted the landing as part of the screen for the British aircraft carrier, HMS Triumph. The Inchon landing was fraught with risk. But it succeeded in forcing the North Koreans into retreat. After Inchon, United Nations forces liberated Seoul and crossed the frontier into North Korea.

Through October and November 1950, Australian troops fought a series of tough actions against North Korean troops. The names Sariwon, Yongju, Chongju and Pakchon are little remembered today but they rank proudly on the list of battle honours earned by 3RAR in Korea during the war's opening phase. In October 1950, Chinese troops that had begun mobilizing crossed the Yalu River. They struck in early November, when many on the United Nations side believed the war against North Korea would soon be won. Stunned United Nations troops withdrew down the peninsula into South Korea through the bitter winter weather while under relentless attack. In January 1951, Seoul fell to communist forces for the second time in six months.

China's intervention changed the war's character, pitting the two great communist powers, China and Russia—whose pilots flew against United Nations airmen and which provided material support to the communist cause—against the combined forces of the United Nations, including the United States. With vast reserves of manpower and more powerful weaponry than the North Koreans, China was a formidable adversary.

In the air, Chinese MiG-15 jet fighters outmatched the propeller-driven Australian Mustangs in every respect. Their arrival signaled the end for the RAAF's Mustang operations. In April 1951, 77 Squadron began converting to Meteors—a British jet aircraft—and the Royal Australian Air Force entered the age of jet combat. The squadron returned to a ground attack role, a dangerous occupation the Australians carried out with great courage and dedication until the end of the war.

On land, the Chinese advance lost momentum. In April 1951, 3RAR went into reserve near the ruins of Kapyong village after a period of hard fighting. But the battalion's rest was short-lived. Within days a Chinese attack directed at Seoul swept into the Kapyong Valley. After a difficult fight, 3RAR, with other British Commonwealth and United States troops, stopped the communist advance. The Battle of Kapyong proved one of the war's most significant actions. The South Korean capital was not threatened again.

The front was beginning to stabilise along a line that corresponded closely to the pre-war border between North Korea and South Korea. Senior United Nations military and political figures agreed that the war in Korea could only be settled by negotiation. The communists had to be convinced that neither side could triumph on the battlefield.

To gain the advantage in a war that was bound for stalemate, United Nations forces determined to occupy a strong defensive line. In October 1951, 3RAR took part in a series of assaults on Chinese positions in the Maryang San range. The Battle of Maryang San ended in a communist withdrawal and with United Nations troops occupying this important high ground. The victory at Maryang San was, said the official historian, 'the greatest single feat of the Australian Army during the Korean War'.

For the Army, the war's most dramatic phase was over. From then, until the end of the war in July 1953, the three Australian infantry battalions—1RAR, 2RAR and 3RAR—fought a defensive war, no less fraught than the war of movement but very different in character. This was a war of artillery and mortar barrages, the endless labour of maintaining trenches and defences, dangerous night-time patrols into no-man's-land, probing enemy positions and gathering intelligence.

At sea, the Royal Australian Navy's operations off Korea's coast were equally full of hazard and discomfort. The navy sent an aircraft carrier, five destroyers, four frigates and three naval air squadrons to Korea. Australian sailors weathered heavy seas, freezing cold, snowstorms and were at considerable risk from mines during their time in the waters off the Korean Peninsula. Some Australian ships came under fire from shore based batteries. HMAS Murchison, in perhaps the most well-known example, was fired on regularly during her 60 days in the Han River estuary in late 1951.

Korea's estuaries proved particularly testing for Australian sailors. Strong currents and tides, ice floes 'as big as trucks', as recalled by one sailor, shoals, mud flats, narrow waterways and the close proximity of shore based enemy guns threatened every operation that required naval vessels to navigate tight coastal channels.

Farther out to sea, in October 1951, HMAS Sydney lost an aircraft, a truck and other equipment overboard in a typhoon. But, with her complement of naval aircraft flying operations over North Korea, Sydney's seven-month presence in Korean waters from August 1951 until February 1952 added an important dimension to the Royal Australian Navy's war effort.

Three hundred and forty Australians lost their lives during the combat phase of the Korean War and sixteen more in the post-Armistice period to 1957. For every man killed in the fighting, many more were wounded.

More than 100 Australian military nurses cared for casualties in the British Commonwealth hospital in Kure, Japan. Royal Australian Air Force nurses also served on the Korean Peninsula, preparing casualties for evacuation to Japan and tending to them on the flight from Korea, giving specialist and often lifesaving care to Australians and soldiers of other nationalities.

The Korean War veterans who I have had the pleasure to meet and know were young men at a significant moment in Australia's and the world's history. They served in an era when traditional ties to Britain and empire were fading while growing bonds with the United States were reshaping the way Australia considered its place in this region and the world.

For the world, the Korean War was seminal. Alliances were cemented, critical territory was held, communism was tackled fiercely and front on and the resolve to take up arms for the values we hold so dear was clearly reinforced.

The people of the Republic of Korea understand this. They remember and honour those who left their loved ones, their children and their country to fight and to die for someone else's loved ones, someone else's children and someone else's country.

As was demonstrated so many times during this visit, the Korean War will always be remembered by the people of Korea. For them the service and sacrifice of our men and women in Korea shall never be forgotten.

Equally, it will always be remembered and never forgotten by our grateful nation.

For those of us who accompanied the veterans and tried to imagine something of their experiences in Korea, these were solemn occasions of respectful reflection. But for the eight gentlemen who remember the war and who knew the cost at firsthand, this was a time of recalling friends and comrades, men they knew and with whom they shared the profound experience of wartime service, some of whom never came home.

At Busan the veterans placed poppies on the graves of fallen friends in a moving and deeply personal gesture of remembrance. They made sure their sacrifice shall not be forgotten. In this House today and every day, we should make a commitment to do the same.

Lest we forget.

See this speech in context