In the relative warmth and comfort of the bridge of a New Zealand warship 50 years ago, John Dallow often congratulated himself for joining the Navy and not the Army.
As the New Zealand Navy's Loch-class, anti-submarine frigate HMNZS Taupo bombarded North Korean positions with the four-inch gun on its foredeck, Leading Signalman Dallow did not envy his Army colleagues on shore in the bitter cold of the Korean winter.
"At least after a four-hour watch you could return to a warm messdeck," Mr Dallow, 71, said.
The Army's 16th Field Regiment also pounded the North Korean positions with their 25-pound field guns, but as the frost penetrated the ground the gunners had to keep lifting the base plates so they would not freeze immobile.
In their early days in Korea, the New Zealand soldiers had no bunks and slept on the frozen ground.
Their Army greatcoats and tunics did little to ward off the bone-numbing cold.
But like most resourceful Kiwis in a war zone, they made scavenging for gear into an art and a robust black market - often whisky or beer for boots, stretchers or warm clothing - soon developed between the New Zealanders and the well-equipped Americans they fought alongside.
Tomorrow, Mr Dallow will be back in Korea to mark the 50th anniversary of the July 27 signing of a ceasefire between North and South Korea.
He will be joined by 29 other Navy and Army veterans, Prime Minister Helen Clark, several school students who won an essay competition, and a Defence Force honour guard.
Mr Dallow went ashore once in Korea during his nine-month tour, when he and several other Taupo ratings were given 9mm Lanchester submachine guns and sent to help a party of Americans on the island of Yang Do off the east coast of Korea.
"The island was under attack. We went ashore to assist the Americans who were holding the island.
"We were a clean-up party. The ship's doctor came ashore to help the wounded."
As the party landed, Taupo came under fire from the North Korean shore batteries. The shells caused minor damage but no casualties.
Mr Dallow left Auckland on HMNZS Rotoiti, another Loch-class frigate, and transferred to Taupo.
New Zealand had six Loch-class frigates and two Dido-class light cruisers after World War II.
The frigates - Taupo, Rotoiti, Kaniere, Tutira, Pukaki and Hawea - served off Korea between 1950 and 1953.
For the duration of the war, New Zealand always had two frigates on patrol, based in the Japanese ports of Sasebo and Kure.
On July 27, 1950, the first frigates, Pukaki and Tutira, left the Devonport naval base in Auckland 48 hours after the Government decided to support the United Nations campaign to repel the North Korean invasion of the south.
The Navy asked for volunteers, and within an hour or so of posting the notices at Devonport had enough men for both ships.
Initially the frigates were on convoy escort and general patrol work.
Pukaki was also part of the naval force which supported the landings at Inchon and Wosan.
From the middle of 1951, the ships operated close off the west coast of Korea and often well up the Han River, giving gunfire support to the shore units.
During its 14-month deployment, Taupo fired more than 16,000 rounds from its four-inch gun, wearing out the barrel.
The frigates also undertook many gunnery missions with their 40mm Bofors quick-firing gun.
To do this, they had to be close in-shore, often well within range of shore batteries.
The World War II Loch-class frigates were not built for comfort, Mr Dallow said.
On Taupo, the crew of 120 had comfortable hammocks but some of the other ships in the class were so crowded that many of the crew slept on tables or stretchers.
Leading ratings got no privileges, and lived in the same messdeck as the rest of the ship's company.
If the accommodation was spartan, the food was worse.
"Mostly it was bloody awful," Mr Dallow said. "We drew from the Royal Navy supplies and we weren't looked after."
The poor food changed the Navy tradition of sailors heading for the nearest pub when they got shore leave.
"We were more inclined to go to the nearest restaurant and have a good feed."
In spite of the hardship on board, the ship's company was very happy.
"It was very good, great comradeship," Mr Dallow said.
When he returned from Korea, Mr Dallow served on the cruiser Black Prince and left the Navy in 1955.
For Army gunner Ray Pocock, who served 22 months in Korea with the 16th Field Regiment, the Army-issue "choofers" - small petrol-fuelled cookers - were a Godsend in the bitter cold of the Korean winter.
"We were in tents. The choofers were a small, round drum-shaped affair. You dripped petrol into them and it burnt on sand.
"We called them choofers because they went 'choof' when you lit them."
The Kiwi soldiers were issued four or five bottles of Japanese Asahi or Kirin beer every day, and they soon learned the tradeable value of the beer in a country where effluent ran into the rivers and made the water undrinkable.
But as the heat and humidity of summer replaced the chill of winter - and the New Zealand equipment improved - the Kiwi soldiers were more reluctant to give up their beer.
"You had to have it in the summer," Mr Pocock said.
"We could get up to five bottles a day. In the heat you had to have liquid. You couldn't drink the water because it was poisoned."
Drinking water was supplied, but its strongly chlorinated taste made beer the drink of choice.
For Mr Pocock, 72, the 25-pound field guns were the best in the world.
"They had a maximum range of about 10 miles (16km) - that's on a super charge."
New Zealand used the 25-pounder throughout World War II and it quickly became known as one of the best field guns of the war.
Ceremonial military funerals still use a 25-pound gun carriage to transport the casket.
Mr Pocock also had to deal with the emotion of losing an old Hastings school friend, Brian Cook, who was attached to a British tank regiment.
"They started to fire on him. He dived under a tank and a shell went under the tank.
"At that age, it didn't take effect."
Mr Pocock said he now believed more than 60 per cent of the South Korean population did not remember the war or had very little knowledge of it, and he did not know how the New Zealand veterans would be received this weekend.
Bob Pollard, 72, of Paraparaumu, was also with the 16th Field Regiment.
He said that when he left in 1954, Seoul was a run-down city pockmarked with shell holes from the North Korean artillery.
"It is now a big and very modern city. I am looking forward to seeing Seoul but it won't be the Seoul I knew."
Mr Pollard spent most of his time north of the 38th Parallel, the line which still divides North and South Korea.
"The areas I want to see are where our gun positions were and where the front line was."
He said the 25-pound field gun was very mobile, and could be brought into action very quickly.
At night, the regiment would take two guns several kilometres forward of its lines to shell deeper into enemy positions and return at daybreak.
"In winter the ground would freeze to about 14 inches (35.5cm) deep," said Mr Pollard.
"The road back into our positions was very steep and because it was frozen the wheels had no traction and we had to winch the guns back in.
"In the summer there was the intense heat and every time you moved the perspiration poured off you."
Mr Pollard said although he had relatively little to do with the Koreans during the war he believed the veterans would get a very warm welcome.
"We had a Korean batman for a short while. He was a 16-year-old boy and we used to pay him out of our own pockets 30 shillings a month. That was the same pay as a brigadier in the South Korean army."
- NZPA
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