In the 2014 Old Cranleighan we reported that John Bowler (West, 1945-49) won the Military Cross in the Korean War and was in London for the unveiling of a memorial to those who served in the conflict.
John has recently written this: When I received the first issue in 2014, I took it with me on a hospital visit and, whilst my wife was having an x-ray, I was working through many old friends in the ‘Deaths’ section when I turned the page and came upon my own name! It was some moments before I realised the page heading had changed to ‘News of OCs’.
The reference was to the Korean War Memorial. My wife and I had been involved in that in a modest way. I was a Trustee of the British Korean Veterans’ Association and the President, Major General Mike Swindells, asked me to be responsible for the wording on the Memorial. I agreed.
The task turned out to be more complex than expected. Not only were the number of words under two headings ‘British Forces’ and ‘United Nations’ strictly limited but the wording had to be agreed with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the MoD, the British Korean Veterans’ Association executive, and the Korean Embassy in London who had to clear it with Seoul. The politics meant we could not mention China (now our friends) although I had spent a year fighting them, nor mention the Russians who armed and trained the North Koreans. The South Korean constitution meant we could not put South and North Korea in the same sentence! For instance, we could not say ‘When North Korea invaded South Korea’. That all took us some four months and more rewrites than I care to mention.
I would very much like to see the new Cranleigh School War Memorial and the Chapel renovations so am planning to join in on July 1st.
