N.Z. DRIVERS COME TO KNOW KOREAN PEOPLE

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27675, 3 June 1955, Page 10

N.Z. DRIVERS COME TO KNOW KOREAN PEOPLE

(N.Z. Army Information Service)

KURE, May 18.1 A pathetic people watching with incurious eyes as Army convoys pass by, small groups of heavily made-up girls, and an occasional skilful thief who makes away with Army Equipment and personal belongings during the night. These are among the first impressions of the New Zealanders when they come to serve ill Korea. They could lead to a false evaluation of the Korean people as a whole were it not for the example of the Koreans with No. 10 Company of the Royal New Zealand Army Service Corps.

Since their arrival in the theatre more than three and a half years ago, men and vehicles have travelled more than 5,000,000 miles on task details. They have had ample opportunity to study the rugged countryside, bald and withered in winter and green and coloured in summer.

They have seen ancient farmworkers in baggy, white clothing guiding lumbering oxen over terraced paddyfields, women stolidly beating away at clothing in village streams, and men staggering along under tremendous burdens of firewood or salvaged Army materials. But apart from some attempts at bargaining with roadside storekeepers the New Zealanders have not come into very close contact with the people on their excursions.

Back in camp it is a different story. The Koreans help prepare the meals, cut hair, repair boots and carry out other services essential to the efficient running of the unit. Good workers, willing to tackle any job, they are rapidly dispelling the notion that the Korean is a lazy rogue.

Like the Japanese (although the Koreans would probably resent the comparison) they make a fetish of physical fitness. Parallel bars have sprung up around the camp and are put to frequent use. Once the work for the day is over the soccer ball takes a thrashing on the sports field and the Koreans join with the New Zealanders in a game of softball.

None of the Koreans working with the No. 10 Company has really escaped the effects of war. Some are refugees from the north. Others were parted from their families when the tide of war forced them south and many come from families dispossessed of their [lands by the fighting and subsequent occupation.

! A number are in similar plight to Chung Tae Un who helps with the [cooking in B Platoon, or Kim Song Chull —known as Cuthbert to everyone in the officers’ mess where he works. War put a stop to Chung Tae Un’s schooling when he was 13 and he is now saving hard to go back to Sepul to continue his education. Kim Song Chull lived near the

present capital of North Korea, Pyongyang, where his father was a factory worker. He left home when the Communists overran the area and in the. confusion he thought that his family was among the thousands fleeing with him. He has since heard that they did not escape in time and are probably still in the north. Another kitchen-hand was more fortunate. Parted from his mother at the age of 12 he spent four years trying to trace her. He was sure she was dead when he came to No. 10 Company several months ago but hope was revived recently with a report that she was almost certainly identified at Pusan on the south coast. A fortnight’s search through the overcrowded city was finally successful. With a colossal pool of surplus labour in the southern cities after the wartime arrival of thousands upon thousands of refugees, many Koreans have gradually crept up the peninsula in search of work. Passed by the Commonwealth Division’s Labour Office and screened by the Field Security Section, successful applicants are paid standard wages. The foreman of Ten Company’s Korean personnel draws 14,000 hwap (about £11) a month and a man on the lowest scale of light labour gets 6700 hwan. An interpreter earns 12,000 hwan and the highest paid is a cobbler who gets 15.000 hwan. Age is apparently no bar. The youngest with the company is 17 and the oldest 53. With an army of 20 divisions to support, the South Korean government has a compulsory military service scheme, under which every youth has to register at the age of 18. Some are called up almost immediately to serve in the army from two to three years while others just have to wait until they are drafted —several No. 10 Company Korean boys expect the call-up next year. Mu h of the labour required for digging drains, carting building materials, loading trucks and general road maintenance work is supplied by the Korean Service Corps. Men in this section of the army may be normally factory hands, farmers or any type of manual worker and range in age from 31 to 43.

They are called on to serve in the service corps for only six months. Poorly paid, poorly fed and having little or no interest in their unglamourous role, they work under the supervision of the New Zealand drivers, who, unable to'speak more than a few words of Korean, have developed a language of their own—a peculiar mixture of English, Korean and Japanese.

They threaten, cajole and badger their gangs with an amazing string of promises or warnings. Somehow, they get results.