Arthur H. Hazeldine

[Beginning of Transcribed Material]

 

A:        Arthur Herbert Hazeldine.  ARTHUR HERBERT Hazeldine, HAZELDINE.

I:          How do you pronounce it again?
A:        Hazeldine.

I:          Hazeldine.  Alright, so what is your birthday?
A:        Twenty-fourth of May 1934.

I:          Twenty-fourth of what?
A:        May.

I:          May.

A:        Nineteen thirty-four.

 

0:00:28

I:          Thirty-four.  So, how old are you now?

A:        I’ll be 85 in May this year.

I:          You are one of the youngest Korean War veterans.

A:        Well, it’s a miracle I survived.

I:          And where were you born?
A:        I was born in a place called Reefton on the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand in the South Pacific.

I:          Could you spell that place?
A:        Reefton is REEFTON.

I:          FTON.

A:        It was a gold mine town at one time.

 

0:01:00

I:          Um.  So, when you were a child, was there any gold mining businesses around?
A:        There was what they called a stamp mill there, a crushing mill that crushed quartz to get the cold out of.  Most people called them what you call a white elephant.  In other words, there wasn’t a heck of a lot of gold coming out of it.  But they are still mining gold there today.

I:          I see.  And tell me about your family background, your parents and your siblings when you were a child.

 

0:01:32

A:        Well, my hero was my mother’s brother who was a Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain.  And he later came out, he flew Spitfires in the Battle of Britain.  Then he came out and fought against the Japanese and (INAUDIBLE) in Burma.

I:          What about your siblings?

 

0:01:59

A:        My family was, I had two sisters, three sisters, Suri is the younger one, and one brother who’s the late brother.  I’m the only boy alive in that family.

I:          And what about the school you went through?

A:        I started school in a little place called Cape Fairwinds which is south of Westport on the west coast of the South Island.  And I went to school when I was actually still four years of age.

 

0:02:31

I:          Four?
A:        You had to be five, yeah.  But the Master of the school, it was a one-teacher school, he said I was advanced enough to go to school. So, I ended up going to school a year early.

I:          At the age of four?

A:        Yeah.

I:          What did you learn there?
A:        I learned how to draw pictures on a blackboard, count beads and stuff like that.

I:          There was only one teacher in the school?

A:        Yeah.

 

0:02:58

I:          How many students were there?
A:        Oh, maybe 18 or 20, something like that.

I:          And all mixed ages, right?

A:        Yeah.

I:          So how come all these different grades are learning together in one classroom?

A:        Well, that’s what it was like in New Zealand in those days.  So at these country schools, which was a country school, and just incidentally talking about that now, some of the boys in that school used to make toy ships and everything for me went away in the Second World War.

 

0:03:30

I:          Second World War.

A:        Yeah.  Not many of them came back.

I:          Yeah.

A:        You know, this comes up when I’m thinking about that.

I:          So then, when did you finish your school?
A:        Oh, let’s see.  I can’t remember.

I:          How old were you?

A:        I was 15.

I:          So that must have been in 1949.

A:        Forty-eight.  Yeah, 48, 49.  That’s when Joined the Navy.

 

0:04:04

I left school to go straight into the, well I signed up for the Navy and went in the following year.

I:          Why did you join the Navy?
A:        Well, it was because after the War, the New Zealand Navy sent ships around the country.  And I’d been to one of the Corp Vets that had come back from the War, being shone over by the Navy fellas, and the Captain of that ship was later recruiting in my hometown.

 

0:04:33

And that was quite funny actually because it was in the Town Hall in Westport, and they had this sign there recruiting for the Navy.  And I just stuck my head in to see what was going on, and I recognized this Captain who was Captain of this Corp Vet.

I:          Um hm.

A:        And he sort of saw me and asked me what I wanted to do, what I was looking for, and I said I’m just wondering what’s going on.

 

0:05:01

So not very long after that, we got talking, and I ended up signing up for the Navy.

I:          So where did you get the basic military training?

A:        At a place called Motahi in the Gulf in Auckland.
I:          Could you spell it?
A:        It’s MOTAHI.

I:          Okay.  And

A:        And then at the Devonport Naval Base, Philomel.

 

0:05:32

I:          What kind of training did you get?

A:        Well, it was all the basic training, learning marching and all that physical training. And then we started going into our special jobs like learning about gunnery and navigation. I went literally back to school.

I:          What do you mean?
A:        Well, they took us back.  And we had to learn mathematics and everything like that.  And I learned quicker there than I did when I was actually at school.

 

0:06:01

I:          So, that was better?
A:        Yes.

I:          Yeah.
A:        Cause everything we did had a purpose, you know.

I:          Yeah.

A:        Cause we had to learn to navigate.

I:          Yes.  That’s why you have to learn so that you can learn about navigation.
A:        Yes.

I:          Exactly. That’s a very good point.  You have to be practically oriented, right?
A:        Yes.

I:          So, from there, where did you go?
A:        Well, I got my first shirt, this was in the early 1950’s, and there was a General Striking museum.

 

0:06:34

I:          General Strike?

A:        Yes.  The drivers, the railways, the seamen, the coal miners, had a general strike, all on strike.  And the Prime Minister of the day, Sydney Holland, he called a state of emergency and brought the military in.  At that time, I was taken, I got my first ship called Action Men at Esbolona.

 

0:07:01

She was a daughter-class cruiser working the wharves in Wellington.

I:          That’s a frigate.

A:        No.  It was a cruiser.

I:          Cruiser.  Sorry.

A:        And we were taken by rail down to Wellington.

I:          Um hm.

A:        We were only seamen boys at the time.  And we looked after the ship while our crews worked the ships coming into Wellington.

 

0:07:30

Cause all the Navy and the Air Force and Army were loading and unloading ships and running the railways and the trucks and all that sort of thing.  And my ship later was (INAUDIBLE) get to that.

I:          So, when did you leave for Korea?

A:        In late 1951.

I:          And where did you arrive in Korea?

A:        That’s, within a couple of months.  We went straight

 

 

0:08:00

I:          Where did you arrive?
A:        Where?
I:          Yeah.

A:        Kurae.

I:          That’s Japan.  So, from Japan

A:        Oh, we went to, we patrolled the east coast of Korea.

I:          Okay.  So that was in late 1951 or ’52?
A:        No, fifty-one, late ’51, before Christmas.  We had Christmas up there in the snow.

I:          And you were patrolling the Korean seas?

A:        Oh, the Korean coast from

I:          West.

A:        The Lettivostok in Russia, Sonjin and right down the east coast.

 

0:08:32

That was our first patrol.

I:          And?

A:        Well, we were stopping, do you know being Korean, that there’s a railway line that comes down from Manchuria

I:          Yes.

A:        through Sonjin down the coast.  Well, we were beating up trains and knocking down bridges and stuff like that all along there.

I:          So, by bombing from the sea?

 

0:08:52

A:        Yes.

I:          Ah.  Tell me about it.  Tell me the details.  When did it happen, and how did it happen?

A:        Well, the actual dates, I’m pretty vague on.  But our job was to stop ammunition trains and stuff heading south.  And my job on the ship was to direct the gunfire. I had a set of headphones, and I received messages from the gunnery officers on the bridge.

 

0:09:31

And I’d relay that to the guns.

I:          So, what do you call that?  Navigation?
A:        Gun direction.

I:          Gun direction.

A:        I can drop two (INAUDIBLE).  They fire 120 rounds a minute, 40 mm.

I:          So, you were good at it?  Gun direction?

A:        Well, all I had to do was say P1, engage that same pin or engage that junk.

I:          I see.

A:        Or kill that man.

I:          And how successful was it?

 

0:09:59

A:        Very successful. I think we’ll come to that.

I:          Tell me.

A:        We had Yangdo, where Yangdo is? That’s one of the arms on the west coast.

I:          Hangyungdo.

A:        Hangyungdo’s on the west coast.

I:          Yeah.

A:        This is on the east coast.  It was Yango.

I:          Yangdo.

A:        We were patrolling one night off Sonjin, and we got a radio message from Yangdo that they were expecting imminent invasion.

 

0:10:30
They were being shelled from the mainland, and they were expecting to be invaded.  So we had to, our ship wasn’t a very fast ship, it was a frigate. I actually meant it was (INAUDIBLE) what it was called.

I:          So, you were in the cruiser, but later you changed to a frigate?
A:        Yeah.  Well, I went from there to (INAUDIBLE) We’ll wait till we work on the wars.  In Westport, that’s another story.  Got a bit sidetracked there.  I got back there because I think it’s important.  The ship I was on was the (INAUDIBLE).

 

0:11:00

My uncle owned the Reefton Coal Mine, and I was sent down to instruct people on how to put coal tubs on clips and all that.  That was all part of the working of it.  And if anybody wanted to know anything, they would ask Old Bill which was my uncle, or Young Bill which was me.  And from then on, the Navy, even from the Admiral down, they all called me Young Bill.  But to get back to the actual action there,

 

0:11:31

They were being shelled, and we traveled down there, and we arrived about two in the morning, middle of winter, and there was breaking ice through there at the time.  And an invasion force had come across the Channel, and they were being held on the beach by the ROK troops.  But when we got there, we couldn’t do much about it because if we’d have started firing in there, we’d be killing our own people.

 

0:11:59

So, we spent a couple of hours just firing star shells that were coming down so that the ROK troops could kill these people that had come ashore.  And the firing stopped for a while.  And we moved out a little bit in between the Channel and the mainland until it was just brightening day when a whole fleet of these sand pants towed by trucks full of troops tried to get back to the mainland.

 

0:12:30

And we caught them in the middle of the Channel.  Remember I said the bofa fires 120 rounds a minute.  Forty (INAUDIBLE) There’s a time you gotta touch something it explodes.  So, imagine what it was doing to those people in those boats.

I:          Yeah.  So that should have been very critical because by bombing them so that there is no logistic supply to the North Korean soldiers, right?

 

0:12:58

A:        Well, the thing was they’d just come out and tried to invade the island, but they couldn’t get ashore.  And when we came along, we were just illuminating it.  But the South Koreans must have been pushing them back because they got in their boats, and they’re trying to get back.  We caught them in the middle of the Channel.  And I’d never seen a dead body up until that time.  And then I saw bodies that I wouldn’t want to see again.  They gave me nightmares.

 

0:13:30

Cause those shells just blew everything to pieces.

I:          Yeah.  So, it must have been very powerful bombs.

A:        Yeah.  The sun was coming up.  It was becoming daylight.  They had flashes from their sure batteries that they’d been using to bombard, they wouldn’t be easy to detect.  So they started firing at us.  And the shells started to come over us.

 

0:13:57

And a lot, because the tide was taking the current through the Channel, it was bringing a lot of these junks and sand pants there towards us.  And the first thing we sort of noticed was it was bullets bouncing off the pipework because the soldiers in the junks were firing at us.  And once they killed most of the troops in the sand pants are being towed by the junks, there was just a few left in one particular junk that got close to us.

 

0:14:32

And it had, oh I don’t know.  There must have been about 20 or 30 soldiers on the deck.  And they were firing rifles at us.  But a few more shells went into them and killed a lot of them. One particular man

I:          How did you know that actually the bombing killed so many people?
A:        We could see them.

I:          Could you see them?
A:        They was just blowing them to pieces, yeah.

I:          Oh.  It was so close then.

A:        Yeah, it was close enough for rifle fire to bounce off their pipework.

 

0:15:03

But we hadn’t had any incoming at that time in the early part.  And I remember one particular soldier was standing up on the wheelhouse of this junk, and he had a rifle in his hand and was firing a round, and one of my gunners put another round into the junk, and the man on the wheelhouse put his hands up with his rifle above his head.

 

0:15:37

And the gunner stopped firing.  I got a message on my headphones to kill him.  And of course, the guy on the gun, he said I can’t, he’s got his hands up.  Then a voice came over the loudspeakers.  It was our Captain.  And he sailed like a pirate Captain.  He just says kill him, kill him.  The next thing, one of the rounds hit this soldier in the middle, and he just evaporated.

 

0:16:06

That was

I:          Wow.  Must have been awful.

A:        Oh, it was terrible because it’s a lot of, in the water at that time that you’d have done it, you only last about five minutes and you’re frozen to death.  And a lot of these people had been blown out of the boats, and they’ve been blown to pieces, you know.

I:          Did you know anything about Korea before you left Korea?

0:16:27

A:        I knew that there was things happening because my grandmother used to read out of the paper. She said, she came in one day and she said, shows the headline on the paper, U.S.A. says hands of South Korea.  That’s before they actually, before the Chinese came into the War.  And that’s what, I didn’t know a lot about it. And when I signed up to join the Navy, I sort of, it was big.  The only thing I’d known about war was our family in the War in Britain and around there.

 

0:17:00

I:          So, when did you leave Korea?
A:        I left in, a couple of years later.

I:          Couple years?  Nineteen fifty-three or ’52?

A:        Yeah, beginning of ’53.

I:          Beginning of ’53.  And before you left Korea, were there any other episode that you remember?
A:        Oh well, we’d been taking over, one of our other frigates took over from us, and we went down to Hong Kong.

 

0:17:31

I:          Um hm.

A:        And we went down to Hong Kong, and we took all the ammunition off our ship which turned out to be quite funny later, to come back to New Zealand.  And we left Hong Kong and were heading out to New Zealand, we got a signal that a ferry coming from Macao, from Hong Kong, had been boarded by pirates.  So, we went out there to help.

 

0:18:01

Anyway, we found the ferry.  And apparently people had been taken off.  These pirates have taking some people off the boat.  And a gunboat from Taiwan arrived on the scene. And of course, remember, we’ve got no ammunition on the ship.  They’re training their gun on us, and we’re training our gun on them.  And we don’t even have any ammunition.  So, we got a signal from this Taiwanese gunboat,

 

0:18:32

And it read go home, English dogs.  Anyhow, we sent a signal to them, we’re not English.  We’re New Zealanders.  Right away it came back, go home sons of English dogs.  So, we went home.

I:          So, when did you go back to Korea?

A:        Three years ago.

I:          So, it must have been 2016?

A:        No, it had to have been a year before that.

I:          2015?

A:        Yeah.

I:          Did you go back to Korea?

A:        Yeah.

 

0:19:00

I:          Who invited you?

A:        Oh, we were invited by South Korean Patriots I think they are.

I:          South Korean government, right?

A:        Yeah.

I:          Yeah.  So, when you went back to Korea, what did you see?

A:        A whole new country.

I:          Tell me about it.

A:        Well, when we left there, there was no trees or anything standing. The whole place was

I:          Did you see some cities?  You were in the sea, right?  You never seen the cities?

 

0:19:28

A:        We used to see quite a bit from the shore.  We had big powerful binoculars up above the bridge.

I:          Ah.

A:        I used to say they would see people changing their mind 20 miles away.  We used those to look at the bridges and the tunnels and stuff and to find the trains.  Actually, we went right into Sonjin Harbor one night.

I:          Yes.

A:        Darkened ship, no lights, right into the harbor. I think we sunk a little freighter at the wharf there.

 

0:20:00

Knocked down a big factory chimney and got out.  And there was gunfire going on for quite a while after we left.  So, I think they might have been shooting at each other across the harbor.

I:          And when you went back to Korea, what did you see?
A:        Well, I saw all the new buildings and all the gardens.  I’ve never seen so many plastic planters in my life.  I went on the bullet train

I:          Um hm.

 

0:20:33

A:        From Seoul right down to Pusan or Busan.

I:          Yes.

A:        I think we reached a speed of about 330 km an hour at one point.  What a fantastic railway.  And in Seoul itself, there’s a big hill in the middle of the city there, isn’t there?  They told me that’s a rubbish dump that was covered over and planted in trees.  Fantastic.

 

0:21:03

But the thing that impressed me was the railway line.   Where there was a hill, they went through it or they moved it into the galleys.  And they made a high-speed railway line.  And we just keep our rail going here.

I:          So, when you left Korea, had you imagined that Korea would become like this today?
A:        No, I wouldn’t have a clue on it.  But there’s a vast difference between South Korea and North Korea.

 

0:21:32

I:          Yes.

A:        When you go over to the demilitarized zone and see what’s happening over there on the other side.

I:          What do you see is the difference?

A:        Yeah.

I:          So, you never imagined that Korea would become like this today.

A:        No, I didn’t.  I had no idea.

I:          You didn’t have any idea.

A:        No.

I:          Do you know the rank of the Korean economy now?

A:        I know it’s pretty high.  And you don’t import much.

 

0:22:01

You manufacture.

I:          Yeah, we export.

A:        That’s right.
I:          Yeah, export, export, export.

A:        And you grow food where everything’s right into the cities.

I:          Yes.

A:        Everywhere.

I:          Yeah.

A:        There’s a bean plant or corn plant.  And do you still have that holiday to plant a tree, each family to plant a tree?

I:          Yeah.  Singmogil, Day of Tree Planting.  And we do that.  And we are one of the most successful countries that implemented successful reforestation.

 

0:22:38

So, there were not may trees when you were there, right?
A:        I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.  It’d make your dog nervous that they piddle on a tree.

I:          That’s funny.

A:        Yeah.

I:          So, how about Korean people when you were there?  How did they treat you?
A:        Oh, excellent.

 

0:22:59

I:          Tell me.

A:        Well, they’re very friendly.  And of course, we didn’t associate with them much when we were in the War because we were on the sea.  But I did, you were talking about Poyangdo. That had a beach they used as an airstrip there because there’s a big high tide there.  And there was a big, long clear area.

 

0:23:27

But such a lot of the people were there because it was a fishing, Yangdo, there was a fishing village, and we used to tow the boats back there to keep them out of the War zone.  And at the Yango action, we took 13 wounded off there.  One of them died during the night, and we buried him at sea.

I:          Oh.

A:        Those young people only, much younger than me, with guns fighting for their country.

 

0:24:03

And our job was to look after these fishing boats.  And they don’t seem to understand law.  They just go where they want to.  And if night comes, they just let the boat drift, and they go to sleep.  We used to have to wake them up by firing a machine gun around the boat.  I know we took about, oh I think about half a dozen in tow in one day.  And we thought they were either North Koreans or enemy.  But we towed them back to Yangdo.

 

0:24:31

And when they got to Yangdo, all the families were cheering and shouting because they belonged there.  We thought they were North Koreans.
I:          So, there were many actions in your ship.

A:        Yeah.

I:          Yeah.  What was the most difficult thing?  If I ask you to pinpoint one thing that really bothered you during the War, what is it?

 

0:24:56

A:        Well, it was that action at Yangdo because there were so many people killed and blown apart. I mean, when you’re firing at an enemy a distance away, they’re not really people, are they?
I:          Um.

A:        But when you see them blown to bits in the boat with phosphorus burning in the flesh and some of them still alive, it’s terrible.

I:          You still remember those. Does that appear in your dreams, nightmares?

A:        (NODS HEAD)

I:          Oh.  How often?

A:        Oh, I have it quite often.  I still get it.

 

0:25:34

I:          So, you have PTSD?
A:        I which?
I:          Post Traumatic

A:        Well, I suppose because I don’t know what you’d call it.

I:          So, what is the symptom when you have that nightmare?  Do you just wake up or do you yell or what do you do?

A:        Sometimes when I yell, I don’t really know.  But I’m telling people way before of that.  I found myself waking up telling the gunnery where to shoot.

 

0:26:06

I:          So, looking back all those years, what do you think about what happened to you?  You didn’t know anything about Korea well.

A:        No.
I:          But now you are a Korean War veteran.  And what do you think about this whole thing?

A:        Well, since then, I’ve been in another War. I was in the Suez Crisis.  But I think it was a waste of life.

 

0:26:29
That’s basically what I think.  There’s no really, I don’t feel a lot about it. But

I:          Um hm.

A:        I’d say I’m glad I helped the little people.

I:          Yes.  Because of that, now we have a chance to rebuild our nation.  We are 11^th largest economy in the world.  Can you believe that?  It’s larger than, bigger than and stronger than New Zealand’s economy.

 

0:27:02

A:        Of course it is.  We’re only a little pimple.

I:          So, that is the importance of the Korean War.  But still, it’s been known as the Forgotten War.

A:        Yeah.
I:          Why is that?  I mean, South Korea’s strong economy, strong democracy, came out of that after the War.  So, there is a successful outcome.  But we still don’t talk about it.  Why is that?

 

0:27:30

A:        I don’t really know. I think when you think about it, you just follow the money.  A lot of the soldiers in the demilitarized zone, when they salute, what do they say?  Unification.

I:          Um.

A:        When are they gonna get there?
I:          I don’t know.

A:        I thought we were getting there a while back.  I’ve been to that place where they crossed over there.  It’s just a little piece of concrete.  Yeah.

I:          Panmunjom.

 

0:28:01

A:        Yeah.

I:          Yes.  What were you thinking?  The War that you fought for is still going around, never finished and replaced by the Peace Treaty at all.  So, what do you think about that?

A:        We’re still at war as far as I’m concerned. New Zealand is still at war with China.  We’ve never signed a Peace Treaty.

I:          Um hm.

A:        And to see people, families separated like that is wrong.

I:          Yes.  That’s right.

 

0:28:30

So, you have your grandson, right?  His name is Jeremy.

A:        Yeah.

I:          Can I ask him to join this interview?
A:        If you like, yeah.

I:          Jeremy, come down.  Have a seat right beside your grandfather, great-grandfather. Grandfather or great-grandfather?

Male Voice:  Grandfather.

I:          Grandfather. And let me ask you.  Come toward me.  Toward me, yes.

 

0:29:00

That’s it. What is your name.

Male Voce:  Jeremy.

I:          And, how old are you?

Male Voice:  I’m 25.

I:          Twenty-five.  While you were growing up, had you heard anything from your grandfather about the War that he fought for?  Did he tell you?
Male Voice:  Yes.

I:          What did he tell you?
Male Voice:  Um, he told me that when he first joined the Navy and then how he went off to Korea, and he eventually (INAUDIBLE)

 

0:29:31

I:          Um hm.  Did he tell anything about the battle experience to you?

Male Voice:  Yeah.

I:          Um hm.  And do you know about South Korea right now?

Male Voice:  Yeah.  I’ve got a rough idea about what’s going on there, yeah.

I:          What is your rough idea?

Male Voice:  Um, still pretty much at war with each other, aren’t they?

I:          Um hm.

Male Voice:  Not allowed in each other’s countries and stuff like that.

I:          Still divided.

Male Voice:  Yeah, still divided, yeah.

 

0:29:59

I:          And President Trump and Kim Jung Un, the North Korean leader, are talking about, you know, having a breakthrough.

Male Voice:  Yeah.

I:          Yeah.  What do you think?

Male Voice:  Um, Trump, I think he, it’s hard to say really cause I’m here in New Zealand.  So, we only hear a little bit of it.  But President Trump, I think he’s just trying to sway that sort of.

 

0:30:30

But um, he’s proud at the same time. I believe he’s trying to make a name for himself, a bit more than what he’s really got.

I:          Yeah.

Male Voice:  But um, yeah.

I:          What do you know about the Korean economy, South Korean economy?  You don’t know?

Male Voice:  No, not really, no.

I:          You know that South Korea has Samsung which produces Smart Phone?

Male Voice:  Yeah.

I:          Yeah, you know about it, right?
Male Voice:  Yeah.

 

0:30:58

I:          And Hyundai producing vehicles, automobiles.

Male Voice:  Honda, yeah.

I:          Yeah, Hyundai.

Male Voice:  Oh, Hyundai, yeah.

I:          Yeah.  Not Honda.  Honda is Japanese.  So, are you impressed with the Korean economy?

Male Voice:  Yeah, well you know, Hyundai, yeah.

I:          But as you just overheard from your grandfather’s interview, there was nothing in Korea in 1953.

Male Voice:  Yeah.

I:          Nothing.  Virtually nothing, right?

A:        (SHAKES HEAD)

I:          Are you, completely nothing.

 

0:31:30

A:        Absolutely nothing. As I said, there wasn’t even a tree standing that I could see.

I:          And then now it’s the 11^th largest economy in the world, stronger than New Zealand’s economy.  What do you think about this whole transformation?
Male Voice:  I think it’s good, yeah.  It’s positive.

I:          Very positive.

Male Voice:  Yeah.

I:          But when you were growing up in your school, did you learn anything about the Korean War from the school?

Male Voice:  At Primary School, we were more focused on the first and second World War.  We never really heard anything about the Korean War.

 

0:32:02

I:          You never?

Male Voice:  Well, yeah.  I wasn’t really good in school.  But yeah, from what I can remember. It was more the first and second World War that we spoke about, yeah.

I:          So, what do you think about this?  Arthur, we don’t teach.  So, your own grandchildren are not learning from the school about the War that you fought for.

A:        Well, it doesn’t surprise me that even the national people who were in government last year

 

0:32:32

Still deny anything about those sort of things.  And we’ve had, in the meantime we’ve had nuclear bomb tests that have killed most of my friends.  And the Suez Crisis which our government still says we were never there.  Well, I was there because I fired the guns to drive off motored torpedo boats that was trying to torpedo the ship we were escorting with all the fuel on it and ammunition and everything.

I:          Yeah.

 

0:33:03

A:        That’s another story.

I:          So, the history text doesn’t cover about the Korean War, right?
Male Voice:  Right.

I:          Jeremy, how many sons do you have?
Male Voice:  Two.

I:          What’s their names?
Male Voice: Safira and Noah.

I:          Ah.  Do you think that they will learn about the Korean War from their own school?

Male Voice:  Not from the school, no.  But they’ll hear about it from me.

I:          Yes.

Male Voice:  Yes.

I:          And they will hear directly from their great-grandfather, right?
Male Voice:  Yeah.

 

0:33:30

I:          Why?  Because we did this interview.

Male Voice:  Yeah.

I:          And Jeremy, we’re going to make this interview into curricular resources like this. This is the lesson plan book for the teachers.  Could you read it?  What is it?

Male Voice:  Korea’s Place in Teaching World History.

I:          Yes.  Could you show the book to the camera?  Yes.  Korea’s Place in Teaching World History.

 

0:33:58

We made it for the teachers in the United States.  But we hope that we can make the same thing, The Korean War and Its Legacy, using this interview here in New Zealand.  So, I’m in contact with scholars and professors and teachers who can write it up, okay?  What do you think?

Male Voice:  I’m happy.

I:          Yeah.  So that your children can learn from.

Male voice:  Yeah.  I’ll buy it.

I:          Yeah.

 

0:34:28

I:          So, could you make sure that you teach your children about the War that your grandfather fought.

Male Voice:  Yeah, definitely.

I:          Yes.  Anything you want to say, Jeremy, to your grandfather?

Male Voice:  Thank you.  And I’m happy to have a grandfather that can talk to me about this sort of stuff because not many guys my age are privileged enough to have a grandfather or a grandparent who’s fought in a war.

I:          Um hm.

Male Voice:  So, I can pass it down to my kids.  And this, (INAUDIBLEP I want you to know that it’ll continue because things like this just get pushed off the side as time goes on.

 

0:35:07

They just get forgotten about, and then people don’t realize, you know, what really went on there and that sort of thing.  It’s still going on now.  But things like that shouldn’t be forgotten about because it is a big thing.

I:          Beautiful, isn’t it?  Arthur,

A:        You can call me Bill, too, if you like.

I:          Bill, aren’t you glad that you brought your own grandson, Jeremy?

A:        I only hope he doesn’t have to do what I did.

I:          Exactly.  We don’t want to promote the War.

 

0:35:35

But we want to learn from the War, okay?  And that’s why we are doing this.  And I’ll give you my business care, Jeremy.  You can find lots of Korean War veterans’ interviews from the website.

Male Voice:  Yes.

I:          And your grandfather’s interview will be uploaded to the same exact website.

Male Voice:  That’s right.

I:          Okay?

Male Voice:  Yeah.

I:          Alright.  Is there anything else you want to say to me?

 

0:36:01

A:        No, I think we just about covered it.  But as I said, there was, from my point of view, in ’53 I went to Britain and then came back again and went again to pick up a new ship which it was one of our last ships.

I:          Um hm.

A:        The Royalist which was, I think that was, at the cease fire.  The Royalist.  Well, I got hurt when we were, she was (INAUDIBLE)

 

0:36:30

And commissioned her to the New Zealand Navy, left Britain and went into the Suez Crisis.

I:          Um.

A:        And we were pulled out of there.  But I think they were frightened; our government was frightened of being taken to the world court for aggression with the British.  But that’s another story.

I:          Yeah. So, next year will be the 70^th anniversary of the breakout of the Korean War. It’s never been replaced with the Peace Treaty either.  What would you say to the Korean people?

 

0:37:04

Do you have any special message to the Korean people?

A:        I was at the 1960, the 60^th year.

I:          Um hm.

A:        I was at that, we went there

I:          60^th anniversary of the Armistice, yes.

A:        Commemorate the Armistice.  But I would say just keep going.  You’re doing well.  And I wanna see that reunification.

 

0:37:32

I:          Great.  Excellent, Bill.  Thank you so much for your fight.  And this is a great day because you talked to your grandson about the War that you fought, okay?  So, we’ll make sure that we’re getting back to New Zealand and educate our own history teachers here in New Zealand so that they can talk about the War that you fought.

A:        Well, while I was there, I didn’t mention, but I had an uncle who was in the Artillery on the land while I was on the sea.

I:          Oh, really?

A:        Yeah.
I:          Ah.  That’s great.  The whole family was there.

A:        Well, before that, I had an uncle, he flew a Spitfire in the Battle of Britain.

I:          Yeah.

A:        And Hurricanes in Burma I was also gonna tell you.  But they more or less sent me to join the military.

I:          Great.  That’s a great tradition in your family. Thank you so much.

A:        You’re welcome.

 

[END RECORDED MATERIAL]