Weather On The Front Line

It was just a series of moving up, moving here, moving there, and if you were really lucky, you got out of the lines for 24 hours and got a, a hot shower at the mobile bath unit and a change of clothes and a hot meal, and that. They tried to get rations, hot rations, to us as often as they possibly could and they had what they called ‘gook bearers'. They were a labourer battalion, and that, and they would come up carrying them old hay boxes on their back that they'd put hot water in around the outside and then put the food in the centre. But by the time they got to you, I mean, it was cold. But still, it was better than sea rations.

Interviewer: What do you remember about the weather conditions when you were first there in Korea?

Well, the weather conditions were a lot like Canada: cold. It could get real cold up in the hills, 40 below, and that, snow, and that, and wind. Very windy around the mountains, and that, the hills. Quite, quite windy, and that, and it would just bite right through you. And we were lucky enough that, like I say, most of the guys were, was used to cold. I mean, you know, they were from the Prairies and from back East, and that, so, you know, in that sense, we were very lucky. And we had decent parkas and, and that, that the winter, winter issue was, was quite good.