This week a book I have long been waiting for has been released.  The book, “To the Last Round” was written by Seoul based British journalist Andrew Salmon. The book describes one the greatest defensive actions in Britain’s long and proud military history during the Korean War’s Battle of the Imjim.  The commander of the British Gloucestershire Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel James P. Carne is one of the ROK Drop’s Heroes of the Korean War.

Lieutenant Colonel James P. Carne

The author Andrew Salmon was even nice enough to cite the ROK Drop in the book.  So if you liked my posting about the Glorious Glosters then you should definitely check out this book.  Below is the book’s official press release and I will have more about this book in the coming days.

“Rorke’s Drift – Against Attackers With Submachine Guns”

58 Years Later, Book Details Britain’s Bloodiest Post-World War II Battle

Seoul, 21 April, 2009 – On the night of 22 April, 1951, the biggest communist offensive of the Korean War jumped off. At its epicenter on the Imjin River, stood Britain’s over-stretched 29^th Infantry Brigade.

For three nights the brigade, outnumbered 7-1, stood fast. On the morning of the 25^th, cut off, it was ordered to break out. Tanks of the 8th Hussars and infantry of the Belgian Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers and Royal Ulster Rifles battled south down a four-mile gauntlet of fire. But for one battalion, it was too late. The Glosters, having expended all their ammunition in a last stand on Hill 235, attempted to break out. Only 63 men escaped the trap.

“This was desperate, close-range fighting: all-round, all-out defense against mass assault,” said Andrew Salmon, the Seoul-based author of To The Last Round: The Epic British Stand on the Imjin River, Korea, 1951, published this week by Aurum London. “Think of it as Rorke’s Drift – against attackers with submachine guns.”

The UK has since fought in Malaya, Suez, Borneo, Oman, Dhofar, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, Gulf War I, Gulf War II, Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Imjin remains the bloodiest battle fought by British soldiers since World War II. The 4,000-man 29^th Brigade suffered 1,091 casualties, including 140 dead – the same number killed in seven years of Afghan fighting.

Yet despite the popularity of the military history genre, Salmon’s is the first comprehensive work on the battle ever published. “The last stand of the ‘Glorious Glosters’ has passed into legend, but the rest of the battle remains largely unknown,” Salmon said. “I hope this book will fill a gap in British military history by keeping alive veterans’ stories – stories that would otherwise disappear forever.” Korea is dubbed the “Forgotten War.” The bloody but eventually indecisive struggle, coming so soon after World War II and lacking the iconic images of the subsequent conflict in Vietnam, is overlooked by authors and filmmakers.

However, UK-based filmmaker Dan Gordon – the man behind award-winning North Korea-based documentaries The Game Of Their Lives, A State Of Mind and Crossing The Line – has optioned the book. Filming began in March; in May, Gordon and Salmon plan to bring Imjin veterans back to the Korean battlefields, then fly them on to China to meet Chinese veterans. “Ever since Andrew told me about his project, I have been intrigued. When I read the men’s personal stories I was blown away by their courage and what they had endured during this battle,” said Gordon. “After a trilogy of films in North Korea, this marks my debut in the South.”

The filmmakers hope the film will be ready to screen by the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War next year. “Despite their sacrifices, UN forces could not win the war, but returning veterans recognize that South Korea has won the peace,” Salmon added. “I hope that government and society will, next year, make a national effort to commemorate this vast human tragedy, for today’s prosperity and democracy can only be fully appreciated when measured against the scale of the war’s devastation and brutality.”

For more about the book you can visit the site’s official webpage.