In Korea: Mosquitos Can Be Your Friend

They were a curious collection of  Canadian soldier-flyboys; heroes you’ve probably never heard of.

This handful, who fought in the dangerous skies above Korea six decades ago, flew in American planes,  were in an American unit, but wore Canadian uniforms.

And they weren’t technically airmen at all, but were infantry soldiers.

They were called “The Mosquitos.”

Lieut Bud MacLeod, 2PPCLI, (left) with his USAF pilot Capt Bud Doane Jr, prior to conducting air strike on enemy positions. August, 1951. (Photo courtesy: Bud MacLeod)

Yet, somehow their harrowing experiences day-after-day as their aircraft blistered along often only a few feet over enemy positions, are scarcely known.

These men, are not to be confused with the 22 RCAF fighter pilots who were attached to USAF squadrons. These men, the Mosquitos, were different: they were combat riflemen, who flew.

Early in the war, 17 British troops were accidentally killed and 76 injured by US air attack in a friendly fire incident. To avoid such tragedies again, the US set up an outfit called the 6147 Tactical Control Group. Their job was to circle the battlefield, identify friendly troops, direct air strikes, mark out enemy forces with smoke rockets for incoming fighters and bombers, and then finally, assess damage by making low passes over the fighting zone.

Seventeen Canadian soldiers flew on such missions. They were the spotters, and sat behind the pilot in the two-seat Harvards (known to the Americans as Texans).

It was harrowing work.

Four Canadian Mosquitos received Distinguished Flying Crosses, five received Air Medals, and one received the Military Cross. Three men were casualties, including Lieut. Neil Anderson of the Queens Own Rifles, who was killed.

When Bud MacLeod, then a 21-year-old lieutenant with the 2nd Battalion, Prince Patricias Canadian Light Infantry (the unit that fought at Kapyong only a month earlier), reported for duty at his American airbase, his new poker-playing tent-mates had a radio turned on, ominously playing “So long, It’s Been Good To Know You.”

He was told just to toss his kit bag on that cot in the corner over there.

But, MacLeod said, there was already someone else’s gear there.

“Oh George won’t been needing it any more,” he was told. “He was shot down today … Graves Registration will pick it up in the morning … Pull up a stool. Got any money?”

His first flight was so terrifying he remembers nothing about it, except it was terrifying.  Later, he says, he graduated from terror into being “just scared.”

Lieut. Bud MacLeod 2PPCLI (right) just returned from a mission directing US Marine Corps air strikes, with his pilot USAF Capt. Harry Hauser. July 1952. (Photo courtresy: Bud MacLeod)

Sometimes, MacLeod recalls, the Mosquitos flew in so low, coming over the brow of hill they scattered enemy soldiers having their morning coffee … so low in fact hand grenades could be tossed up at the plane.

In one  mission, MacLeod and his pilot were flying up a valley, looking for an entry to an adjacent valley. He mis-read his map and sent them into a re-entrant that was both narrower … and — shudder — had higher sides, which got closer and closer by the second. Soon there was no room left to turn.

As MacLeod relates sardonically: “So we had to struggle on. I pulled up on my seat in hopes of making the aircraft lighter. As we approached the pass, we could see two soldiers  cooking breakfast right in the pass saddle. We cleared that mountain pass by about ten feet and the enemy dove for cover.

“So there were four who required a change of laundry that day.”

One of MacLeod’s pilots once went up with a rifle and a bag of grenades. Over the target, he blazed away, while tossing his grenades out the cockpit. MacLeod cringed at the thought of flying with that guy ever again.

A few days later, MacLeod was late arriving at the flight line .. only to be told his aggressive pilot had already taken off with a last-minute replacement spotter. The plane MacLeod was assigned to be on, never returned from the mission and the bodies never recovered.

Then there’s the out-of-Hollywood story of Capt. Pat Tremblay of the Royal 22nd Regiment. On his very first flight, his plane was hit and the pilot knocked unconscious. Tremblay was a trained parachutist, and could have bailed out. He did not. Rather than leave the wounded pilot to a certain death, he stayed on board, maneuvered the stricken plane back over friendly lines and crash-landed at a friendly airbase, saving the pilot’s life. Tremblay had never piloted a plane in his life before that moment.  He received the Military Cross for bravery.

They were a remarkable group of young men. One of the best known was Peter Worthington, who went on to become a widely-read journalist and war correspondent who wrote often and passionately about Korea and the valour of the men who fought there. Peter passed away this weekend.

Their group was called Mosquitos, incidentally, because captured enemy soldiers said one of the most aggravating aspects of life at the front was the incessant buzzing of the silver birds that circled above them, and knowing bombs and rockets would soon be on their way.

The Mosquitos have a web site:

http://mosquitokorea.org

This summer at the cottage, when you hear that irritating buzzing, think of those soldier-fliers from six decades ago. Sometimes, Mosquitos can be your friend.

Henry Champ 1937-2012

Henry Champ was an absolutely terrific journalist, and in that old fashioned Victorian sense, a gracious gentleman.

Henry Champ 1937 – 2012

Henry’s career spanned the evolution of modern journalism.

He was born in the Brandon (Manitoba) General Hospital (as was I, five years later). As a teenager, I was a member of something called the High School Militia. It was something more than Army Cadets, but less than the regular Militia. Henry, then a regular Militia Lieutenant, volunteered to be in charge of us. He had that magic that cannot be taught: he was a natural leader. Today it’s called charisma or charm; but that suggests something vaguely artificial. With Henry it was the real thing. Those who knew him will know what I mean.

It was from Henry that I first heard much of the Korean War, and the PPCLI; and Kapyong.

He entered journalism as a sports reporter with the Brandon Sun (as years later did I, only as a summer intern in charge of weddings and seniors’ birthdays and funerals).

Henry went on to cover just about everything a journalist could hope for: wars, summits, elections, disasters, peace conferences, riots and revolutions. Among his many postings: he was with W5 at CTV, for NBC news in Europe, and in Washington for CTV and then CBC Television for many years.

Behind his disarming impish, Mona Lisa-type smile; and his engaging warmth, lurked a razor-sharp mind that raced ahead like a rocket.

He always took his work very seriously indeed, but never himself.

And he never got confused into thinking the reporter was the story. To Henry, The Story was always the story.

Henry was generous with what he knew … and Henry knew a lot. Many times I would call. saying, Henry, I need: a senator (or whatever: lobbyist, or CIA agent, or State Dept official) who was an expert in _____ (file in the blank). Henry always would know precisely such a person and then phone to set up a meeting.

A few years ago, a young student from Brandon University wanted to go to Washington for Obama’s inauguration. I asked Henry to suggest some inexpensive hotels/motels/hostels where the student could stay and any public events he might attend. In a heartbeat, Henry said the student — a complete stranger — could stay at his house, and where ever Henry went that that day, the student could come along. It was a front-row-to-history experience that student will carry in his memory to the end of his days.

In the 1950s, Henry flunked out of Brandon University. I don’t think he got beyond First Year. It puzzled me because Henry was a bright sharp guy. A few years later (when I was a student at the same place), I asked him: “Henry, why didn’t you ever graduate?”

“Bridge,” he smiled. “Too much bridge.”

Henry, the dropout, ended up being Chancellor.

I am making a journalist’s mistake here that Henry would never have committed. I’ve ended up writing mostly about me. But I’m not the story. Henry’s the story. Sadly.

The MASH Heros You’ve Never Heard Of

Is there anyone, anywhere who hasn’t heard of MASH?

When its TV run ended in 1983, the final show was the most-watched television episode in history.

But there’s a remarkable MASH unit hardly anyone here knows of. What a pity. Their raw courage is right out of  the most harrowing war movie.

Except that the heros in this real-life saga never came within a million miles of Hollywood. They were Indians … as in, India.

They were members of the 60^th Para Field Ambulance … medics who were also parachutists, who jumped into combat alongside the fighting infantry. These MASH men of the 60^th were not the boozy, skirt-chasing, wise-cracking cynics of the TV show.

When the Korean War broke out, recently-independent India opted not to send combat forces, but instead would contribute a crack medical team … the 60^th Para, which had served in Burma against the Japanese, It was commanded by a veteran, Lieut-Col A.G. Rangaraj, reputedly the first member of the Indian army to earn his parachutists wings, earlier in World War 2. (The photos below are from India’s official account of the 60th’s Korean War experiences).

60th Para CO, Lt-Col A.G. Rangaraj

The 60^th Para arrived in Korea in Nov, 1950, composed of  346 men,  including four combat surgeons, two anaesthesiologists and a dentist.

When the Chinese swarmed through UN lines in November 1950, the 60^th had to evacuate its position. But they had no transport and were reluctant to abandon their medical equipment. They stumbled across an ancient steam locomotive, formed bucket brigades to fill the boilers with water, and loaded up the train. Two soldiers (with zero previous train experience), got it all running and chugged across the last bridge south  before it was blown. They don’t teach that in medical school or army staff colleges..

Colonel Rangaraj’s logic was: they were specifically trained for mountain operations such as they found in Korea, and had first class equipment for such work. It would have been a great pity to leave it all behind. “We would have been of little use without it,” he said later, “ and could not afford to lose it.”

The Indian medics stuck with the troops they were treating during the horrific rearguard fighting that winter. Three times in three days they set up and then closed down their dressing stations as they tried to find safety, refusing to abandon the wounded..

Later, in March ’51, in the second biggest airborne operation in the war, Operation Tomahawk, a dozen medics of the 60^th parachuted in behind the lines with 4,000 US troops. Rangaraj was among them.

Casualties were heavy. A U.S.commander said: “I was immediately struck by the (Indians’) efficiency. That small unit, adapted for an airborne role, has carried out 103 operations. which is quite outstanding for that type of unit … probably 50 of those operated (on) owed their lives to those men.”

60th Para behind enemy lines, with US troops and POWs, Operation Tomahawk

The freezing wounded were lying in the open. The Indian medics dug trenches to shelter them and covered them with parachute silk to keep them warm.

It was typical 60^th Para valour. In September, 1951, while attached to Commonwealth troops, they treated 448 casualties in six days of fighting. A month later they evacuated (under fire) another 150 wounded. In many other clashes later they were still in the thick of  it. The Indians saved hundreds of wounded.

US helicopter picks up casualty treated by the 60th Para

In all, they treated about 200,000 wounded. … which included  2,300 field medical operations … and in the meantime, also trained local Korean doctors and nurses.

The 60^th  Para received many decorations from their own country, and from South Korea, the UN, a US Bronze Star, and a unit citation from Douglas MacArthur. India also issued a postage stamp in tribute to their heroism. (Has Canada ever made such a gesture specifically honouring any of  our army’s Korean feats?)

The 60^th served in Korea for three and a half years, until February 1954, the longest single tenure of any unit in the entire war.

It is quite an outfit with quite the history. Wounded Canadian Korean vets, some from Kapyong,  have told me of their great admiration for the Indian medical teams who helped save their lives. It says something about the myopic way we teach history that this unit’s thrilling story is so little known.

While I’m at it, there’s some disconnect here. Why do so many trained Indian doctors who move to Canada, find it such a tough task getting their expertise recognized?  …. Just asking.

Nukes in Asia

The first and only (so far) use of “atomic” weapons in history was against the Japanese. But we’ll never know how close we came to seeing a second atomic attack, only five years later, also in Asia. In Korea.

The attacks on Japan are still contentious: Was Tokyo on the verge of surrender anyway? Or was it in fact the nuclear attacks that convinced the Japanese to quit?

Who knows? All that’s certain is that with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Pacific war ended. Hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers now would not die invading the Japanese home islands; nor also – it is sometimes forgotten –would hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians – including mostly women and schoolchildren — who would have been forced into hopeless combat by their government.

The Americans had both the capacity and the inclination to reduce Japanese cities one-by-one to radioactive ashes. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US was energetically preparing more A Bombs, dozens of them, if needed. They weren’t.

Here are some remarkable photos of the actual Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs in production. (There’s a link to more photos at the end):

Technician applies sealant to Fat Man- the Hiroshima bomb

Technicians autographing Fat Man

One of the worries generated after the war, was that once a new terrible weapons system has been used, there is less hesitation in using it a second time, or a third, and so on. It’s not novel any more.

The horror is somehow the less because it’s been done before. It’s not exactly more acceptable; but rather less unacceptable.

That’s what happened with gas in World War One and with submarines attacking civilian ships in World War 2.The level for outrage is raised bit by bit and suddenly the unthinkable has become the everyday.

Technicians prepare Thin Man, the Nagasaki bomb

In Korea there was great clamour from some hotheads to use atomic bombs against the Chinese communists. President Truman refused to rule the option out. British Prime Minister Atlee flew to Washington specifically to ask for a promise atomic weapons would not be used in Korea… at least without British agreement. Truman refused to give any such assurances and Atlee went home empty-handed.

It now seems unlikely, looking back from the comfort zone of 60 years, that Truman would have okayed atomic strikes in Korea… unless there was a catastrophe at the front and nuclear hits were the only way of saving Allied armies (including Canadians) from destruction.

But there were a few excited voices around Truman counselling nuclear strikes, as there were around Kennedy during the Cuban crisis in 1962. Both leaders – we should be eternally thankful for this – remained calm and listened to the prudent, and not to nuclear fanatics and their frenzied calls for unleashing a slide into Armageddon.

More Fat Man-type casings in background.
Thin Man casings in foreground

Korea was the nuclear war that did not happen.

Here’s that link to more of those riveting photos of the manufacture and assembling of those first atomic weapons. Korea was only five years in the future.

http://www.alternatewars.com/Bomb_Loading/Bomb_Guide.htm

The “ordinariness” of the scenes is chilling.

The Civil War, Korea, and Jews

The American Civil War. Canada in Korea. And Jews. What could these three themes possibly have in common?

Something to ponder this Easter/Passover weekend, as Christians and Jews each celebrate a major event in their faiths.

First, the Civil War: In December, 1862 Ulysses S. Grant issued “General Orders No. 11,” which called for the expulsion of  “Jews as a class” from his area of operations. It was designed to crack down on smuggling. Smugglers were in fact a real problem for Grant in his fight against the Confederacy, and some smugglers were in fact Jews. But Grant’s order seemed to single them out, implicating all Jews.

The order came only two weeks before the Emancipation Proclamation and the Southern press howled with delight at the hypocrisy of  the North: freeing Blacks but expelling Jews; while in the South, a Jew – Judah Benjamin – had risen to become one of the Confederacy’s most powerful leaders as  Secretary of State and later Secretary of  War.

In the North, Jews appealed directly to Lincoln. Lincoln had a word with Grant – to put it mildly — pointing out that the General had slurred an entire religious group, many of whom were in  his own army dying for their country. Within days the order was rescinded, and Grant meekly later tried to explain that it had been given “without due reflection” and in a letter to the B’nai Brith he declared he “had no prejudice against any sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit.”

And that seems to have been the “real” Grant. A modest, liberal, compassionate man. Still,  after a century and a half of study, Order No 11 remains deeply baffling. There had been not a hint of anti-Semitism in Grant before or after. So where does this  spring from? No one knows. To add to the bizarreness of it all,  Grant as president appointed more Jews to public office than any president before him (one of them was the American consul in British Columbia). He made human rights part of America’s foreign policy, and was the first President to attend a synagogue dedication.

This story has now been re-examined in “When General Grant Expelled the Jews,” a wonderful new book by Professor Jonathan Sarna, an historian at Brandeis University.

It can be found at:

http://nextbookpress.com/books/248/

or

http://www.amazon.com/When-General-Grant-Expelled-ebook/dp/B005PRJGUS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1333718653&sr=1-1#_

In Korea, not quite a century later,Canada had its Grant-like moment. And it’s just as enigmatic.

At Kapyong, in Canada’s first major battle in the war, about 700 soldiers in the 2^nd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry narrowly escaped annihilation in a ferocious fight against thousands of Chinese,  61 years ago this month.

There were many heros. One of them was a young lieutenant, Mike Levy, who called in artillery fire on his own positions when they were about to be swamped. Five men were (quite rightly) decorated for bravery. Levy was not among them. His omission baffled all who were there that night. Levy was an admired and effective combat leader. And by any standards, heroic.

Mike Levy / right foreground (photo by Hub Gray)

A half century later, Hub Gray, a Kapyong hero himself and author of  a book on the battle, solved the mystery. He tracked down a soldier from the Intelligence Section that night, who’d overheard the commander, Colonel Jim Stone say that Levy would get no medal because “I will not award a medal to a Jew.”

Gray fought for years to get recognition for Levy and in 2003 the then Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, granted Levy a coat of arms for his valour at Kapyong. (Clarkson was a 12-year-old school girl at the time of the battle and today is  PPCLI’s  colonel-in-chief.)

Remarkably, Levy bore not the slightest grudge against Stone (who died in 2005). Stone was a superb commander, much decorated and a brilliant tactician. Levy said in later years he would have followed the man anywhere. After Kapyong, Stone appointed Levy to be his intelligence officer, a post of great trust, which may have been Stone’s way of saying “I’m sorry.”

Levy died in 2007. Sixty years after Kapyong the whole incident still remains an unsolvable mystery, even to Levy’s family.

As Christians and Jews this weekend celebrate Easter and Passover, it’s a moment to ponder  the often baffling nature of prejudice. These two particular and apparently momentary, “outbreaks” in otherwise great and compassionate men remain as inexplicable today as when they occurred.

The Korean War Goes to the Oscars

The Oscars are almost here.  South Korea’s submission as best foreign film is The Front Line …

For heart-pounding combat, it’s tough to beat. It’s sort of a Private Ryan Goes to the Korean War.

The Front Line is a version of the Korean War we rarely reflect on: the story of  South Korean and Chinese/North Korean  troops battling to control a hilltop during the final hours before the ceasefire. (The 1959 Hollywood movie, Pork Chop Hill, starring Gregory Peck dealt with the same theme.)

But in  Front Line, several nail-biting subplots tick away in the background.

After a South Korean officer gets fragged, a young Lieutenant is sent up from Seoul into the war zone to investigate. He finds mysteries.

Some of  the men, he discovers,  wear Communist winter uniforms —  for warmth, we’re told (Yeh, sure). And the unit has worked out a very  unauthorized local arrangement with the enemy in which mail is exchanged between North and South families.

There’s a lot going on this vital but useless hilltop on the edge of nowhere. The men are in a ROK unit called  Alligator Company because like baby alligators they have a low survival rate. Don’t pin your hopes on a happy ending.

I have no idea if the acting is Shakespearean or Saccharine (it’s in Korean with English sub-titles). But the combat sequences are convincingly harrowing. There’s an anti-war undercurrent running throughout the depiction of the savagery of combat.

Movies are a big deal in South Korea (their first cinema opened in 1903). Google “South Korean movies” and you’ll get 52 million results. So, apparently South Korea has a thriving movie industry and Front Line was a blockbuster on the home front. Around 2 million movie-goers bought tickets in just ten days.

Here’s a promo (in Korean) to give you a feel of the thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n63Lfrs4UsI

And here’s another, in English:

http://www.thefrontlinemovie-us.com/

Here’s the New York Times glowing verdict: “On the long list of international films depicting war as a hellish, senseless enterprise “The Front Line” is one of the more compelling.”

The New York Post says it has “breath-taking battle sequences.”

Hollywood Reporter says it’s first rate, having  “the right measure of humanist anti-war sentiment and personal heroism, turning the fates of a small company of men confined to one hellish location into an expose of how impersonal military operations literally makes mountains out of molehills.”

Its full review can be found here.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/frontline-film-review-220991

Near the end, there’s an Alamo-type battle to control The Hill. Kapyong must have looked and sounded very much like this and it would be interesting to hear what Kapyong vets make of it.

The Forgotten War ? Well, definitely NOT forgotten in the land where it was fought. It was a desperate struggle for national survival.

ROK infantryman

South Korean casualty estimates vary wildly. The “low” calculation is around 50,000 while the high hovers at 400,000 (!).

ROK infantryman 1950 approx

Front Line  is a chilling reminder that  while Canadian and American and other UN troops  were killed defending South Korea, South Koreans themselves also died in staggering numbers, fighting for their country.

ROK bazooka crew

Quietly reflect on that on Oscars night.

Ernest Shackleton … and other thoughts on leadership

Ninety years ago this January marked the death of one of the most remarkable leaders of modern times. And believe me, no one noticed the anniversary.

Ernest Shackleton died January 5^th, 1922. His lonely grave in a remote, godforsaken whaling station in the South Atlantic is seldom visited, but he once had the fame of  an international rock star. However, Shackleton’s fame was not based on a hyper-ventilating PR machine. He was real-life hero; a figure of  real substance and character.

Ernest Shackleton

In 1914, he launched an expedition to cross the Antarctic coast-to-coast, via the South Pole. He never made it. But he did make a legend.

Sailing to his base camp, his ship became trapped in the ice. He ordered it abandoned. For the next two months, Shackleton and his men lived on a series of  drifting, shrinking ice floes. He finally ordered everyone into their lifeboats and after five harrowing days, the exhausted crew landed on the deserted ice-covered Elephant Island, having drifted 350 miles. And this saga is only beginning.

He then selected five men, and set sail in one of the lifeboats (an event actually photographed) to try to make it to South Georgia, an isolated island in the South Atlantic where he knew there was a whaling station.

Launching the "James Caird"

It was 800 miles away. Six men. In the open boat. For two terrible weeks. Exposed to freezing storms and in constant danger of capsizing.

Finally, reaching South Georgia, in a storm, they barely made it ashore. Shackleton and two of his crew then climbed and crossed a mountain chain and after 36 hours made it to the whaling station on the north shore. Then, he sent a boat to rescue the men who’d remained on the south shore. Then he appealed to Chile to loan him a naval vessel to return for the rescue the 22 men still back there on Elephant Island. He never abandoned his trusting crew who’d been patiently waiting for him for almost five months.

It is a tale almost beyond belief. Shackleton lost not a single man. It seems like something out of the Viking sagas. A century on, the impact is with us still.

A crater at the Moon’s south pole now carries his name. Kenneth Branagh played him in an award-winning movie on the A&E network. A string of  books on Shackleton has been published.  A BBC poll ranked him 11^th in a list of  100 greatest Britons.

In the international corporate world,  he’s viewed as a perfect leadership model. Among his admirers, the Estee Lauder cosmetics company. The US Navy studies his ability to bring unity out of chaos.

One author writes, “Shackleton resonates with executives in today’s business world. His people-centered approach to leadership can be a guide to anyone in a position of authority.”

Nancy Koehn, an historian at the Harvard Business School, is struck by “Shackleton’s ability to respond to constantly changing circumstances … he had to reinvent the team’s goals. He had begun the voyage  with a mission of exploration but it quickly became a  mission of survival.”

Ms Koehn wrote recently in the New York Times that Shackleton realized he had to embody the mission to save it. Each day his presence had a huge impact on the men’s mind-sets, not only in what he said and did, but in his bearing and the energy he exuded.

He understood human nature; the importance of keeping his men’s minds focused on the future.

“The ship was gone; previous plans were irrelevant,” she writes. “His goal now was to bring the team home safely, and he improvised, adapted and used every resource at hand to achieve it.”

It is a remarkable story of the power of a single personality; a story studied by the world. But we too have such a real-life object lesson that from anything I can gather, is ignored.

The 700 Canadians prevailed at Kapyong in Korea against thousands of Chinese when by the sheer arithmetic of battle, they should have perished. Outnumbered and outgunned, they were however, not outfought — in large part because of  the Shackleton style of leadership of Col. Jim Stone. Stone was battle-smart, exuded confidence (which is different than bravado) and convinced his men of 2PPCLI if they just stuck together, they could make it. Sounds like the spirit of Shackleton to me.

Kapyong veterans I’ve talked with tell me if Stone felt they could pull it off, well then they’d pull it off.

You’d think if the American Navy (just for starters) studies Shackleton for insights into successful leadership, and if young American Army officers study Gettysburg– and I’ve seen them there – for the lessons it still contains today, then you’d imagine the Canadian Army would surely study Kapyong. Amazingly, it apparently doesn’t.

This is not the same as studying the last war to fight the next. And it’s not to say that leadership can be taught, exactly. But leadership can be developed and enhanced in soldiers with the genes of  leadership already in their DNA.

But I could find not a single retired or serving Patricia who remembered being taught about Kapyong, either for tips on tactics or insights into leadership.

One very senior, now retired, Patricia, wrote me that he thought Kapyong : “…  was used at one time within the PPCLI as a ‘lessons learned’ battle, largely related to leadership, but I think even that has gone by the way. It is disappointing that only ‘major’ and better known battles are used for leadership (but) it is largely battles like Kapyong that bring out the best of leadership, especially at the levels where it is most important – the platoon, company and battalion levels.”

I wrote the head of the “Department of Military Psychology and Leadership” at the Royal Military College, Canada’s West Point. Presumably future officers would be getting their first insights into leadership from him. I asked for his thoughts on RMC courses or lectures that deal either with Kapyong or imaginative leadership in general. That was a month ago. I still have no answer. Writing RMC, it seems, is like writing to South Georgia. Replies apparently do not come from such places.

No one now lives in South Georgia. It was abandoned decades ago. Shackleton was buried there after he died of a heart attack 90 years ago this month while he was preparing another Antarctic expedition. His pretty little grave overlooks the deserted whaling community of  Grytviken. Ironically this final resting place of  one of the world’s most admired heros is at the edge of the world, visited by virtually no one.

Shackleton's grave: South Georgia

Nancy Koehn says of him, Shackleton had “a deep sense of loyalty and obligation to his fellow crew members. The men themselves understood this and most, in turn, offered him their commitment.”

Which echoes what Jim Stone said after Kapyong: “They were just a wonderful group of men.  I believed in them. They believed in me.”

Sorry, but I don’t get it. If the US military today can still find leadership lessons in Shackleton’s drama in the South Atlantic of a century ago, or in Gettysburg in 1863, then  why can’t the Canadian Army find value in studying our own Korean experiences sixty years ago. Just asking ….