Korea

We used to provide support for the Republic of Korea Islands around the place.  There was one island off North Korea which was known as Yangdo and that was manned by the South Korean Military and populated by the South Korean people.  This island was in the progress of being invaded by North Koreans and we went in during the night and in the early morning, at daybreak, we detected a large flotilla of small craft of North Koreans coming over to make a landing on it.  We got in and broke the invasion up, but came under heavy gun fire ourselves from the shore batteries.

From Yangdo we took, I think it was 13 wounded and, I forget, about 5 who died of wounds.  They were buried at sea from HMNZS TAUPO.  I remember Able Seaman Paul De Jong was in the Boatswain's Party and it was his job to have them sewn up in a hammock down in the Boatswain's Store which was in the Starboard Boiler room flat.  As this is not a nice job Paul was given some rum and we left him to it.