"Now We're Piggin' It"

Recently a top U.S. commander was asked which were the best line divisions in the Eighth Army. Without hesitation, he answered: the U.S. 1st Marine Division and the British 1st Commonwealth Division. In a valley north of Seoul during the dark days of December 1950, a British lieutenant colonel had just ordered a necessary counterattack during a withdrawal action. The officer (who was killed a few months later) was holding a mess tin with some scraps of food in it, and weeping as he watched his men fall. He turned to a U.S. correspondent beside him. "You'll forgive me for saying so, sir," he said, "but the British soldier is the finest fighting man there is." Then he tucked his swagger stick under his arm and strode off to lead the second wave up the ridge.

Last week security finally allowed it to be said that the 1st Commonwealth Division has been pulled out of the line, for the first time in nearly two years. The first British troops in Korea--Middlesex, Royal Ulster Rifles, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders--were rushed up from Hong Kong in the summer of 1950, the first summer of the war.

Shared Battles. Since then, Commonwealth troops have shared most of the U.N. triumphs and setbacks, and the long sitdown that followed. When Britons at home think of the Korean fighting (as they rarely do), they are most likely to remember the heroic stand of the Gloucesters on the Imjin, when one battalion was almost annihilated. On less spectacular occasions, Commonwealth troops have plugged holes in a crumbling U.N. line. When things go badly they are calm, solid, effective.

The division rotates battalions instead of individuals, and most military men believe this is a better system than the U.S. scheme of individual rotation. Now, the division is preparing to integrate Koreans into their units, in the same fashion as the American KATUSA (they will be called KATCOMS). In the present resi-and-training phase, the division is composed of three brigades, one Canadian, one Scottish-English, one mainly Australian, and other smaller units, including a New Zealand artillery regiment. The Canadians and Anzacs are all volunteers. They are commanded by Major General Michael Montgomerie Alston-Roberts-West, who prefers to be known as Mike West.

The Political Blokes. Not all of the division's officers and men are enjoying their life back of the lines. Said a junior officer: "It was really pretty thick of them, taking us out of our nice battle line. We had permanent buildings right up to brigade, and commodious bunkers, right up to battalion. The Black Watch officers' mess was in a bunker big enough to seat 30. Now we're piggin' it in these bloody training area tents." An Australian gunnery sergeant indicated he would like some fighting: "Our political blokes don't like us to say so, but we don't like sitting on our duffs any better than you do."

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