{"id":3528,"date":"2019-01-26T12:52:26","date_gmt":"2019-01-26T03:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nedforney.com\/?p=3528"},"modified":"2019-01-28T22:05:59","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T13:05:59","slug":"australian-korean-war-veteran-un-cemetery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nedforney.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/26\/australian-korean-war-veteran-un-cemetery\/","title":{"rendered":"We Will Remember Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"3rd<\/p>\n

A lot has been written about our brave young boys who went off to many theatres of war and came back maimed or didn’t come back at all, but very little has been written about the effects that these wars have had on Australian families who are left behind to battle on.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0–\u00a0 Louise Evans, author of \u201cPassage to Pusan\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Battle for Hill 410<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Moving up a heavily defended, snow-covered hill near Wonju, South Korea, on March 7, 1951, Sergeant Vincent J. Healy, a 24-year-old machine gunner with the 3rd<\/sup> Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), had no idea what was about to unfold.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, a withering barrage of Chinese machine gun and mortar fire erupted. With bullets and shrapnel ripping through the air, Healy and his buddies became pinned down. What happened to the young Sergeant over the next few hours isn\u2019t clear, but by nightfall, Hill 410, littered with dead and dying men, was secure. The men of 3RAR had taken their objective.<\/p>\n

The victory, however, had come at a high price: Twelve Australians had been killed. Healy, a WWII<\/a> veteran and the eldest of 10 children, was one of them.<\/p>\n

Sgt. Healy\u2019s body was later recovered, moved from the battle line, and interred at the United Nations Memorial\u00a0Cemetery<\/a> in Pusan (today called Busan).<\/p>\n

\"Men

Men of 3 RAR carrying a wounded soldier from the front lines. (PC: www.anzac.online-exhibition.net)<\/p><\/div>\n

A Mother\u2019s Devotion<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When Healy\u2019s mother, Thelma, received the news of her son\u2019s death, she was devastated. “For many families back then, there were no bodies, there were no funerals \u2013 they just got a knock on the door and a telegram,\u201d Thelma\u2019s granddaughter, Louise Evans, told a Brisbane Times<\/em> reporter. \u201cIt was a period of incredible misery and suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Vincent, the \u201clinchpin\u201d of the family, gone, and Mr. Healy, an abusive husband and parent, eventually abandoning them, Thelma and her nine children were now alone. Heartbroken, depressed, and destitute, she suffered through the darkest days of her life. Determined to carry on, she promised herself that before she died she would visit her son\u2019s grave in Korea.<\/p>\n

Over the next ten years, Thelma Healy worked in a factory, did her best to take care of her children, and saved whatever money she could for a voyage to Busan.<\/p>\n

The Trip of a Lifetime <\/strong><\/h2>\n

In 1961, Mrs. Healy purchased a ticket for Korea. Her perseverance had paid off. She was on her way to see her son\u2019s gravesite. “My grandmother was a woman of no means, a very poor woman. It was a trip of a lifetime for her to visit her son’s grave,” Evans told a SBS reporter in 2017.<\/p>\n

\"Vincent

Vincent Healy with him mother, Thelma, before leaving for Korea. (PC: Passage to Pusan)<\/p><\/div>\n

During her grueling trip to the country where her son had fought and died, she kept a diary. In it she recorded every hardship and challenge she faced as the first woman from Australia to make the voyage to the UN cemetery.<\/p>\n

Her trip to Vincent\u2019s grave caught the attention of Korean newspapers around the country and numerous stories were written about the courageous woman from Brisbane, Australia who had lost her son during the Korean War and traveled to Busan to see his grave.<\/p>\n

The Letter<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One of the many people to read the inspiring story of Thelma Healy was Kim Cheung-keun, a Korean War widow who empathized with Thelma\u2019s loss. Over the next few months, Mrs. Kim unsuccessfully tried to contact Thelma. As a last resort, she decided to write a letter to the Korean Embassy in Australia. When the embassy staff received it, they translated the letter into English and forwarded it to Mrs. Healy.<\/p>\n

Thelma cried for days after reading it:<\/p>\n

Dear Mrs. Healy,<\/em><\/p>\n

I pray to God that you receive this letter. I have tried to trace your address in so many ways but I failed. Now I am sending this letter through the Korean Embassy in Australia. The Korean newspapers reported about you were full of sympathy. <\/em><\/p>\n

This Korea only survived because of the sacrifice of your son and is now marching forward peacefully with the birth of the Third Republic. Now Korea can go forward with other free countries. <\/em><\/p>\n

I wished I could have known you when you visited your son’s grave. I lost my husband in the Korean War during the Nakdong River Battle. At that time I had two sons, one aged 3 years and one aged one year. I have kept my two sons and brought them up myself. If Korea had not received sacrifices like your son’s, then Korea would be smashed by Communism this day.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mrs. Healy, I would like to express my deep appreciation once again and I pray to God to comfort you. The necklace [rosary], which you placed upon your son\u2019s grave, is still sparkling bright in the sunshine. Please let me have your son’s date of birth and the date he was killed in action. I would like to place a bouquet of flowers on your son’s grave, as you, his mother, would like to do. Please convey my messages of sympathy to any other bereaved families you may know. I sincerely wish to have further correspondence with you.<\/em><\/p>\n

A Lasting Friendship<\/strong><\/h2>\n

“Words cannot express my feelings when I received Mrs. Kim’s note – it was so beautifully worded,\u201d Mrs. Healy told the Brisbane Courier-Mail<\/em> in 1964.<\/p>\n

Thelma and Cheung-keun became close friends, frequently writing to one another and sharing their life-long experiences. Good to her word, Mrs. Kim visited Sgt. Healy\u2019s grave every year on his birthday and on UN Memorial Ceremony Day until she passed away in 2014.<\/p>\n

\"Mrs.

Mrs. Kim Cheung-keun at Sgt. Healy\u2019s grave. (PC: Passage to Pusan)<\/p><\/div>\n

Remarkably, the two women\u2019s granddaughters Louise Evans and Gracie E. Kim met and became friends, continuing a family connection started nearly sixty years ago. \u201cOur late grandmothers would love it,” Louise said in a SBS News story.<\/p>\n

Postscript<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A few years ago, Thelma\u2019s red leather-bound diary was given to her granddaughter, Louise. \u201cThe diary had been at the bottom of an aunt\u2019s draw, not hidden \u2014 just forgotten. Its pages were a revelation, recounting in graphic page-turning detail her brave self-funded journey,\u201d Louise recounted in the Daily Telegraph<\/em>.<\/p>\n

After reading the journal, Ms. Evans, who never knew her uncle and was only eight when her grandmother died, began researching the story. In 2016 she published, Passage to Pusan<\/a>, <\/em>a book about Sgt. Healy and her grandmother\u2019s 15,000-kilometer odyssey to Korea.<\/p>\n

The book received critical acclaim and has spawned a documentary film by the same title, Passage To Pusan.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nearly 18,000 Australians fought in the Korean War, and 339 made the ultimate sacrifice. We will remember them.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Sgt.
\n\t\tSgt. Healy\u2019s younger brother, James, serving in the Australian Army in 1956, pays tribute to his fallen sibling. (PC Australian War Museum)<\/p>\n

Top\/Feature Photo<\/strong>:\u00a03RAR attacking an enemy position in Korea, 1951. (PC Australian War Museum)<\/p>\n