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The Canadian Historical Review 85.1 (2004) 195-197



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Far Eastern Tour: The Canadian Infantry in Korea, 1950-1953. Brent Byron Watson. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 2002. Pp. xvi, 256. $34.95

From 1950 to 1953 the Canadian armed forces took part in the United Nations 'police action' in Korea - the largest Canadian military commitment [End Page 195] since 1945. The Canadian contribution consisted of naval units and an infantry battalion, later increased to a full brigade. Of the sixteen un members that provided combat forces, Canada made the third largest effort, after the United States and Britain.

Unprepared for involvement anywhere but in Europe or for anything but a replay of the Second World War, Canada was not well placed to meet a sudden, limited war commitment in Asia in 1950. With the Canadian Army a mere 25,000 strong in 1950 - down from half a million in 1945 - a special force had to be recruited, a process that quickly descended into chaos when a flood of volunteers inundated personnel depots.

Focusing on the battlefield, popular historians have been positive in their treatment of the efforts of this special force in Korea. Brent Watson, with impressive mastery of the documentary sources and using a range of interviews with veterans, paints a very different picture. Canadian infantrymen, he argues, arrived in Korea insufficiently prepared for the conditions they would encounter, poorly equipped and inadequately trained. Far from being highly effective, their performance at the front, especially in the static conditions of the latter stages of the war, was 'decidedly lacklustre.' In committing the cardinal sin of allowing the Chinese to dominate no-man's land, they put themselves at a tactical disadvantage and suffered unnecessary casualties.

Off the battlefield, Canadian soldiers were forced to live 'like beggars without even the most basic comforts and amenities,' in conditions that were 'far more difficult and unpleasant' than they need have been. Nor had adequate steps been taken to counter the dangers to their health in Korea: 'improper planning and preparation' left them susceptible to malaria, hemorrhagic fever, and other deadly diseases. The soldiers made things worse by turning to alcohol and prostitutes. They achieved a 'staggering VD rate,' which peaked at 611 infections per thousand men per annum.

The iniquities of their own military administration reinforced the existing negative attitudes among the Canadian soldiers, and these views were confirmed from the moment they set foot in Korea by the conditions they found. Among the Koreans, they had grudging respect for the porters ('rice burners') of the service corps who kept them supplied, but they reacted unfavourably to the incorporation, late in the war, of Koreans in their units, the so-call Katcoms. They had a 'tendency to treat all Korean women as prostitutes.' In general, apathy and contempt dominated Canadian attitudes to the Korean population.

To cap off their discontent, Canadian infantrymen returned to a country largely indifferent both to the war and to their part in it. The condescension many of them received from veterans of the world wars [End Page 196] rankled, as did the lack of official recognition of their efforts. When this respect was eventually accorded forty years later, it was, Watson suggests, 'the final chapter in a story of governmental neglect and high command imprudence.'

Watson's indictment of the Canadian military authorities' response to the Korean conflict is unrelenting - and convincing. But Canadian troops were not alone in Korea. A number of other contingents, among them Australian, New Zealand, Belgian, and French, shared many of their attitudes and tribulations. These contingents had also been dispatched by military authorities unprepared for war in the Far East. Did these other UN troops also regard their participation as 'twelve-month journeys through hell,' as Watson suggests the Canadians did? More comparative treatment would have helped to put the Canadian experience in better perspective.

In laying bare the problems that Canada's infantrymen faced in one of the twentieth-century's bloodiest wars, Watson makes a substantial contribution to Canadian...

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