The Korean War VeteranInternet Journal - March 27, 2012

They fought… They held...

Hill 355, Bravery, Tragedy

The sharp end of Hill 355 looking toward Vancouver Outpost and Hill 227.Taken on October 24 by Lt Brian F. Simons, RCCS, RCR signals officer (laterLieutenant Colonel).

Canadian Ambassador Denis Comeau adjusts small Canadian Flag after placinghumble wreath at summit of Hill 355 in 2003 before ending his tour of duty inKorea. It was something he wanted to do to pay homage symbolically to allCanadians who fell in the Korean War. From the summit, as all who served thereknow, when the sky is clear, as it was that day, one can see all the way down thevalley to the Saimichon River, where just beyond to the East lies the infamousHook position. There was no fanfare, no release of photographs on this occasion.It was just something that Ambassador Comeau wanted to do. Shown with him isColonel Jules Wermenlinger, then the Canadian Defence Attache in Seoul. Thesign welcomes UN inspectors to the summit of Hill 355 and OP/CP of the ROKcommanders.

Farewell to Korea Painting FundCanadian veteran/artist Ted Zuber is undertaking a huge canvas that will depictHill 355 and be dedicated to all Canadians who served in Korea. It will bepresented to the People of Korea as a final farewell gift of the Canadians whoserved there. The freedom Koreans enjoy today is their real gift, left there by thesuffering and the wounded and the shell shocked and the thousands who served.The painting will be a reminder to future generations in Korea that the Canadianswere there and that they gave them that freedom.

Donations to the $30,000 project can be made by cheque to

Sandra Delorme ElliottTreasurer KVA Unit 12108 Islandview DriveAmherstview, ON K7N 0A5

Funding is needed and the appeal is made to all Korean War Veterans, and otherswho may wish to contribute.

The fund is under the oversight of Terry Wickens, past national president of theKorea Veterans Association of Canada and now president of the association’sOntario Region.

Kindly send an E-mail message to advise of donations that have been made to theKorean War Veteran publication koreavetnews@aol.com

The painting will be presented in memory of ALL Canadians who served.

It will be permanently displayed in the corridor foyer leading into the UnitedNations Room of the expansive War Memorial of Korea in Seoul.Liaison with the War Memorial of Korea is being kindly provided by the CanadianDefence Attache in Seoul, Colonel Jacques Moreau.

Main building and entrance to the indoors portion of the War Memorial of Korea

There are a few pieces of the great Kowang San, Hill 355, located in various placesto commemorate that huge hill. It is symbolic in the minds of tens of thousands ofCanadians who served in Korea during the last two years of the Korean War.

Sometime in 2001, the then Canadian Defence Attache in Korea undertook apersonal mission.

Colonel Chip Bowness, who is a professional engineer and was commissioned inthe Royal Canadian Engineers, went with ROK officers onto the high summit ofHill 355. Some of them were skittish of land mines and stayed precisely on thetrack they followed.

Chip Bowness, who spent two years inCambodia in charge of mine clearingoperations, was respectful but less waryof those hazards, though Hill 355 remainsheavily mined and is filled with oldincoming rounds.

Bowness selected two suitable multi-tonboulders that had temperature fissuresand could be easily extricated with theright equipment. He made arrangementsfor ROK Army engineers to undertaketheir removal at some later date.

Bowness, serving as mine clearancespecialist in Lebanon, returned to oparticipate in dedication andConsecration of the Monument toCanadian Fallen in Ottawa.

He then took up an empty sandbag and moseyed around the position, mindful thatmany Canadians and soldiers from other countries had been killed on those veryslopes half a century before. He painstakingly selected rock chards and dug outshrapnel that had been there all through the years, and many bullets as well, thatwere bent and distorted from striking.

Bullet cartridges were mostly corroded away and there was not a metal bulletcharger one, though in many places the trenches used to be filled with them andtheir clinking could be heard as soldiers inadvertently kicked them while movingby night.

That was the on-site, open air, active part of the mission.

The follow-up included supplications to Korean governmental environmentauthorities, for though it is in the DMZ, Kowang San is on the South Korean side,or considered so, and its territory is protected by all of the bureaucracies. Then, too,the governmental groups in Korea must approve the movement of soil or faunafrom one location to another, to prevent possible contamination or other ill effects.

A couple of months after the vigil the ROK Army, without fanfare, delivered twohuge boulders at the sculpting studio of artist Yu Young-Mun, located near aquarry in Pochon, near the old Canadian 25th Brigade headquarters.

Vince Courtenay with newly delivered monoliths from Hill 355, extracted bythe ROK Army. Yes, that is the rear of the studio where artist Yu Young-munmodeled and made the plaster splashes for the Monuments to CanadianFallen. Proud to have worked there with him. One monument today stands inthe United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan, and a second, slightly largerversion is sited in its own park on Slater Street in Ottawa.

Chip held meetings with the architectural firm designing what would be the newCanadian embassy building in Seoul, and asked them to incorporate the Hill 355stones in some way into the new structure.

The architects pledged they would work them into the foyer atrium in suitablefashion.

Until the new building was built, the Canadian embassy had operated from tworented floors of the old Kolon Building near Seoul City Hall, in the heart of thecity's downtown sector.

Chip also made good on two promises. He somehow (I believe he snuck it home inhis luggage) delivered a large chunk of one of the monoliths to the Royal 22eRegiment and I believe that it is now respectfully displayed at the Citadel inQuebec City.

He also delivered one to the Royal Canadian Regiment’s headquarters.

Later, when he returned to Canada, Chip’s assistant, Warrant Officer JerryTummillo, brought back a sack filled with the Hill 355 fragments, bullets andshrapnel. These were distributed to veterans who had served on the huge hill,including one who had been wounded there and grabbed onto a chunk of theshrapnel like it was worth a million dollars.

To him, it probably was! The others held the little stone chips respectfully, distantlooks on their faces. No doubt all of them could see that great hill once again.

Chip had left Korea when they built the new Canadian embassy in Seoul.

He had retired from the Canadian Army and was a mine clearance specialist for theUnited Nations. He had worked covertly in Lebanon and some other Middle Eastlocations, then moved to Bangkok where he was the United Nations mineclearance administrator for continental Asia.

Had he been there in Korea and able to influence use of the stone, there might havebeen a much more impressive result.

The designers cut one of the monoliths and utilized only a small portion, a sectionless than one meter wide and only a few centimeters deep. They planted it in thearboretum.

It had taken a long time for that project to be completed. Another attaché, ColonelJules Wermenlinger, also an engineer, had come and served a two-year assignmentand was gone.

Still a third engineer, Colonel Steve LaPlante, a spark plug like Bowness, tookover as defence attaché.

He could not influence the final design and completion of the expansive foyer, butdid provide inputs and he gave the arboretum an appropriate name, “The StoneGarden.”

This signifies both the stone withdrawn from the great Hill 355 and also dedicatesthe place to the venerable Colonel Jim Stone, who led Canada’s first unit to servein Korea, the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.

The 2nd Patricias had been in the war when the line was moving. Hill 355 andother positions along what today is the Demilitarized Zone were captured andoccupied in September and October of 1951.

Thereafter the great Hill 355 was defended seamlessly by a procession of proudregiments from England, the United States, Canada (in chronological order) andother nations.

Canada’s The Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) held the position from earlyAugust, 1952 through early November, a three month period in which the fightingwas intense and allied forces for the first time were feeling the new might ofmassed artillery fire that the enemy could deploy.

The shells killed and wounded throughout the three months. One officer,Lieutenant Cyril Harriott was fatally wounded by shellfire within a few hours ofstepping foot on Hill 355.

Another, Lieutenant Dan Loomis (later major general) was wounded leading afighting patrol against the enemy, but returned again to Hill 355, refusingevacuation to Canada. He served in the lines at night and underwent medicaltreatment and rehabilitation therapy behind the lines by day.

Loomis was one of the June, 1952 graduates of the Royal Military College ofCanada. To fill vital junior officer positions, the entire graduating class had beensent to Korea, right out of the school door!

With Loomis in 1 RCR on Hill 355 was Lieutenant Andrew King. Both of themwere awarded the Military Cross for bravery.

Also serving with them was another RMC June, 1952 graduate, Lieutenant BrianSimon of the Royal Canadian Signal Corps, who was assigned as RCR signalsofficer.

The RCR experienced incoming shellfire from an initial barrage of 1,000 rounds,then it dropped but recurred from time to time until the barrages were escalated towell over 1,000 rounds in a single day. On the night of October 23-24, the roundsthat came in were uncountable, but were estimated at more than one thousand in

seven to ten minutes minutes. The count for the full day was six thousand roundsof all types.

Lieutenant Dan Loomis, whose company was in a position adjacent to the forwardGibraltar position then held by the few men of B Company, said it was a beautifullate autumn evening with a mellow sun turning everything bronzen and the nightair was calm and cool.

Suddenly the entire summit of Hill 355 rose in flame that extended ten feet or moreinto the air and pulsed like some wicked fiery dragon was devouring it. The ragingfire never stopped for a full ten minutes!

Even when the main barrage slackened the entire area was shrouded with a pall ofchoking black gas from the explosives. Visibility was at zero on many parts of thehill.

Imagine the war those good soldiers fought on that hill. Some survived theunparalleled barrage and fought the enemy. Some disappeared from this Earth.

Some World War Two veteran officers and senior NCO's who were there said theshellfire was worse than anything they had seen in the battles in Europe.

Canada’s defence department should have been turned out for the travesty ofshortages that was never publicly reported. The entire battalion had less than fivehundred soldiers holding the vast position. One company was made up of cooks,clerks, drivers, administrators and men like Lieutenant Loomis who had beenwounded and still was receiving medical treatment by day.

B Company, then holding the sharp forward end that extended toward the far awayVancouver outpost, had little more than 20 men left at the time. The company hadbeen shelled earlier in the day and many of the Royals had been killed or wounded.The defensive positions had been shattered.

Over in an adjacent position, the Princess Patricias was also greatly below strength.Their D Company was seconded to The Royal Canadian Regiment on the night ofthe attack.

That D Company became the RCR’s “P Company.” It’s total strength was just 40men, including three officers. One of the officers was Lieutenant Herbert Pitts(later major general), also a June, 1952 graduate of the RMC who had beenhurriedly shipped to Korea. He also would be awarded the Military Cross, but forservice on another position.

The Royal 22e Regiment, which earlier had shared the Hill 355 defence with theRCR, had to withdraw its decimated company before the battle. The valiantVandoos were so understrength that they pulled their company off of Hill 355 (The

Bowling Alley position) and combined it with another shot up company, and cameup with one that was still not at full strength.

Instead of four rifle companies the Vingt Deux made do with three.

The RCR formed a fifth company to take the place of the withdrawn R22eRcompany, by pressing to duty all of the echelon and special service troops theycould muster. They called it E Company.

The number two signals officer of the R22eR was Lieutenant Ramsey Withers,also from the June, 1952 RMC class. Years later he would retire as a full generaland chief of the defence staff.

The Canadian Army deployed in Korea was holding a brigade section of the linewith three battalions forward and fully deployed, yet among the three they hadonly enough front line troops between them to constitute what would have beenless than two full battalions at regulation fighting strength.

The soldiers who served on Hill 355 remember that.

Perhaps the reason the Korean War was downplayed and not talked about byCanada’s defence department officials and the politicians that controlled them wasthe horrible mess they had in Korea, with every front line soldier being forced todo the job of two or more.

The senior officers at DND in Ottawa knew all about it. They authorized thebattalions to be committed in their weakened condition.

They were trying to do things on the cheap - the very, very cheap without theircivilian bosses incurring the wrath or disapproval of their voters.

Their shameful rationale was that it had become not such a dangerous war.

It breaks one’s heart to remember.

Yes they fought.

And they held.

And they were forgotten.

Casualties incurred on Hill 355 and by Canadian units on the flanksin the three month period, August 5 through the end of October.

Of the small number of Royals in the trenches who served with the 1st Battalion ofThe Royal Canadian Regiment (Few more than 500 at any given time and alwaysin urgent need of replacements), the following numbers of casualties weresustained while defending Hill 355 from early August, 1952 through the end ofOctober.

Wounded in action 113 (six of them for the second time)Killed in action 35Missing in action 19167

In their three-month defence of Hill 355 the Royals, drastically short of troops inevery front line company, sustained more than 10 percent of the total number ofCanadians who were wounded during the three years of the Korean War.

Of those who went missing in action on Hill 355 or on patrols, the remains of two,Lance Corporal John Fairman, of Hastings, Ontario and Private Joseph Kilpatrickof Montreal, were never recovered.

They are listed on the Commonwealth Monument to Those With No KnownGraves in the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan, along with 14 otherCanadians who fell in other locations but whose remains were never recovered.

In addition to the RCR losses on Hill 355, on October 17 some kind of horrible“training accident” near Kure, Japan, caused another 23 casualties, which are notincluded above. Of them two were listed as killed, 18 were listed as accidentallywounded and three were listed as “dangerously ill.”

The accident was never publicly reported with sufficient explanation.

The Patricias on the eastern flank and the Royal 22e Regiment, (R22eR) on thewest and northwest flank also sustained casualties in the three-month period.

During the three months the R22eR on the “hot” left flank of Hill 355 suffered 54casualties, including twelve soldiers killed in action, 41 soldiers wounded and onemissing in action.

The Patricias, who were fortunate to be positioned on the relatively “quiet” rightflank, opposite Old Baldy, sustained one soldier killed and 17 wounded in action.Earlier, the 2nd Battalion of the Royale 22e Regiment had suffered 13 soldierskilled in action and more than 50 wounded at Hill 355 in November, 1951, whentheir D Company held a saddle of ground between the huge fortress hill and Hill227.

They were positioned between attacking enemy troops and a battalion of the U.S.Army’s 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division, who were undermassive attack on Hill 355 for a sustained four-day period.The Vandoos bravely interceded and fought the enemy in one of the most gallantactions of the war. After the war the committee on honours would fail to awardtheir battalion an honour for their colour for this remarkable action.The 3rd Battalion of the Princess Patricias would hold Hill 355 in June and July of1953 and would also suffer soldiers killed and wounded, through to the end of thewar on July 27.They would see enemy troops in vast numbers emerge from their tunnels andconcealed positions and mill about on the hillsides, cooking, doing their laundry,soaking in the warm summer sun.Hill 355 today provides a vital ROK Army observation post in the west centralsector of the Demilitarized Zone.