Author(s): Tom Gilling

Military

The gripping account of Australia in the Korean War and how 3RAR battalion held back an entire Chinese army division to prevent Seoul being overrun We charged and we began to get shot down . . . there were so many bullets coming that it was like walking, running into a very stiff breeze. Most of the section had been knocked out and I'm within ten foot of the Chinese trench when bang, something hit me. It just blew the legs out from underneath me. April 1951. After ten months of fighting, the Korean War hangs in the balance. A single Australian battalion, backed by Kiwi gunners and American tanks, is dug in on a barren hilltop overlooking the Kapyong Valley, north of Seoul. Together with a Canadian battalion on a nearby hill, they are all that stands between Mao's army and the South Korean capital. Since pouring across the North Korean border to support Kim Il Sung's communist fighters, the Chinese have launched offensive after offensive in an attempt to drive General MacArthur's UN forces off the peninsular. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides have been killed and many more have frozen to death in the cruel Korean winter. On the barren hills above the Kapyong Valley, the heavily outnumbered Diggers of 3RAR wait in darkness for a battle that could decide the war's outcome. Told through the eyes of the soldiers, The Diggers of Kapyong is the compelling account of the mateship, sacrifice and heroism that defined Australia's role in a bloody war whose bitter legacy still resonates today.