On this day 1953 The 1st BATTALION and TROOP C.

 Korean war hero Maurice Micklewhite Jr.

Maurice Micklewhite Jr., the future Academy Award winner AKA Sir Michael Caine was drafted into the British Army in May 1951. In August 1952, he arrived in Korea as a member of the 1st Battalion Royal Fusiliers.

 

Stationed on the front lines along the Samichon River, Caine saw extensive combat and participated in dangerous nighttime patrols into no man’s land. 

Mickelwhite was sent to the front along the Samichon River Valley, where he fought the Chinese and North Koreans in raids and patrols, often at night. In 1953, he would contract malaria and get sent home. 

Three years later, he earned his first acting credit playing a British Army private in Korea under the stage name Michael Caine.

Military service wasn't a foreign concept to the young actor. His father served during World War II and, like many Britishers, Caine and his family felt the war every day.

 Even though the family fled London to escape the German Luftwaffe during the Blitz, Caine would return to work odd jobs for the film industry at age 16.

In 1951, he was called up to serve in the British Army. After a quick stint in the forces occupying Germany, he was sent to combat training in Japan and eventually landed in Korea.

 Caine and the 1st Fusiliers operated near what is today the border between North and South Korea. He was just 19 years old.

His experience gives him a lot of sympathy for today's soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, he wrote in his 2010 memoir, "The Elephant to Hollywood."

"I know what it feels like to be sent off to fight an unpopular war that no one at home really understands or cares about," he wrote. 

And then to come back and meet a complete lack of understanding. Or worse, indifference."

Caine didn't know anything about Korea or the war or why the two sides were fighting. His entire experience in the military before training to go to Korea had been at the firing range with an obsolete Lee-Enfield .303 rifle.

Nothing, he says, could have prepared him for what happened during his first watch on guard duty during the absolute darkness of the Korean night.

From his trench, the night was split open by enemy flares lighting up the battlefield and by the hordes of the enemy charging towards him.

The first time he heard a Chinese trumpet break the stillness, he barely had time to ask his buddy what that was before hundreds of trumpets joined in

"There in front of us, a terrifying tableau was illuminated," he recalls. "Thousands of Chinese advancing toward our positions, led by troops of demonic trumpet players.

 The artillery opened up but they still came on, marching toward our machine guns and certain death."

Caine describes the minefield they'd constructed to defend themselves from such a human wave as "suddenly irrelevant.

 Wave after wave of Chinese infantry committed suicide, throwing themselves onto barbed wire so their bodies could be used as a bridge.

"They were eventually beaten off," the actor says of the Chinese soldiers. "But they were insanely brave."

After getting sent to war so early in his life, Caine came to believe that war ages kids well beyond their years. 

He and his mates were approaching 20 years old when they went to the front lines of Korea. On the way back, they encountered the units who would be replacing them.

"They were 19-year-olds, as we had been when we went in," Caine says. "I looked at them and I looked at us, and we looked 10 years older than they did."

The actor recalls the closest he came to death during the war, on a night time patrol in no man's land. It was a moment that he says still haunts him to this day.

Three British troops covered themselves in mud and mosquito repellant in order to make their way deeper into the valley, an area they had been fighting to take for weeks.

 They were headed for the Chinese lines to try and gather information. On their way back to their own lines, they suddenly smelled garlic in the air.

"The Chinese ate garlic like chewing gum," Caine says. "We realized we were being followed."

The fusiliers threw themselves on the ground as a unit of Chinese pursuers began searching the brush for them. Rather than die in the weeds, the trio decided to charge the enemy, guns blazing.

This incident comes back to the actor when others try to attack him or bring him down. He thinks about what happened on that hill in Korea, and realizes that no one could ever make him feel hopeless again.

"I just think, as I did on that Korean hillside, 'You cannot frighten me or do anything to me and if you try, I'll take as much or as many of you with me as I can.'"

Photo of Caine from the movie, "A Bridge Too Far."

The Giant Killer book & page honors these incredible war heroes making sure their stories of valor and sacrifice are never forgotten. God Bless our Vets!

Story by Blake Stilwell

The 1ST BATTALION GLOUCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT, BRITISH ARMY and TROOP C, 170TH INDEPENDENT MORTAR BATTERY, ROYAL ARTILLERY, attached, are cited for exceptionally outstanding performance of duty and extraordinary heroism in action against the armed enemy near Solma-ri, Korea on the 23rd, 24th and 25th of April, 1951.

 The 1st BATTALION and TROOP C were defending a very critical sector of the battle front during a determined attack by the enemy. The defending units were overwhelmingly outnumbered. 

The 83rd Chinese Communist Army drove the full force of its savage assault at the positions held by the 1st BATTALION, GLOUCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT and attached unit. 

The route of supply ran Southeast from the battalion between two hills. 

The hills dominated the surrounding terrain northwest to the Imjin River. Enemy pressure built up on the battalion front during the day 23 April. 

On 24 April the weight of the attack had driven the right flank of the battalion back.

 The pressure grew heavier and heavier and the battalion and attached unit were forced into a perimeter defence on Hill 235.

 During the night, heavy enemy forces had by-passed the staunch defenders and closed all avenues of escape.

 The courageous soldiers of the battalion and attached unit were holding the critical route selected by the enemy for one column of the general offensive designed to encircle and destroy 1st Corps. 

These gallant soldiers would not retreat. As they were compressed tighter and tighter in their perimeter defence, they called for close-in air strikes to assist in holding firm. 

Completely surrounded by tremendous numbers, these indomitable, resolute, and tenacious soldiers fought back with unsurpassed fortitude and courage.

 As ammunition ran low and the advancing hordes moved closer and closer, these splendid soldiers fought back viciously to prevent the enemy from overrunning the position and moving rapidly to the south.

 Their heroic stand provided the critically needed time to regroup other 1st Corps units and block the southern advance of the enemy.

 Time and again efforts were made to reach the battalion, but the enemy strength blocked each effort. Without thought of defeat or surrender, this heroic force demonstrated superb battlefield courage and discipline. 

Every yard of ground they surrendered was covered with enemy dead until the last gallant soldier of the fighting battalion was over-powered by the final surge of the enemy masses.

 The 1st BATTALION, GLOUCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT and TROOP C, 170th INDEPENDENT MORTAR BATTERY displayed such gallantry, determination, and esprit de corps in accomplishing their mission under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions as to set them apart and above other units participating in the same battle.

 Their sustained brilliance in battle, their resoluteness, and extraordinary heroism are in keeping with the finest traditions of the renowned military forces of the British Commonwealth, and reflect unsurpassed credit on these courageous soldiers and their homeland.