Veterans and fallen of the ‘forgotten war’ remembered at annual Korean War service memorial in Albany

The Albany RSL will honour veterans and fallen servicemen and women at the annual Korean War remembrance service at St John’s Church on York Street on Sunday.

The service will commence at 2pm and all members of the community are welcome to attend.

The Albany RSL is extremely proud of two of their patriarchs, Ivan Tilney and Ken Morrison, who both served in Korea after the 1953 ceasefire.

Mr Tilney served as a member of the British Army Engineers and Mr Morrison as an Australian Army paymaster.

Mr Tilney served for seven years in the British Army and immigrated to Australia.

Mr Morrison served until 1976.

Both were awarded the Korean Ambassador for Peace Medal in 2023 for the 70th anniversary of the 1953 Korean ceasefire.

The United Nations was formed in October of 1945 shortly after the end of WWII with the intent of global stabilisation assisting world peace.

Its first deployment was to the Sinai desert in 1947, but it was the invasion of South Korea by the communist North Korea, heavily backed by communist China, that saw the biggest United Nations deployment in history.

In 1950 North Korean and Chinese forces stormed across the 38th parallel intent on capturing Seoul and in turn South Korea, turning the Korean peninsula into a unified Korea under communist rule.

A hastily organised United Nations force, under the control of the USA, was rapidly deployed to South Korea to halt the communist advance.

This force included Australian, New Zealand and British Forces.

Three years of bitter fighting in harsh conditions followed before a cease fire was agreed to on July 27, 1953, now 72 years ago.

Many are unaware that the two Korean countries are technically still at war.

There is no doubt that the presence of strong US forces based in Korea with backup close by in Japan are a deterrent to the North Koreans.