
Janet Brodie-Murphy

Janet worked in Welfare whilst she served in the WRAC.
From a parochial fisherman to the front line in Korea, Rex recounts his transformative experience of National Service
Rex shares his transformative experience of national service, going from a 'Jack the lad' fisherman in Ipswich, to Section Commander in Korea, all for a boy of 18 who had never left his home ground.
Rex describes traveling on The Windrush from Southampton to 'The Territories', 3 miles from Hiroshima to complete increasingly arduous military training run by Colonel Lonsdale designed to transform the men into “killing machines”.
From here the men were ½ a mile away from the Chinese military camps, where they could, on a clear day, see their enemy training to fight against them.
As soon as he turned 19, Rex was sent to Uijeongbu, to be quickly immersed in front line duty. He was soon to become a section commander, responsible for running patrols in the challenging landscape of paddy fields and mountains, at times coming within 150 yards of the North Korean and Chinese front line.
Rex recounts his experiences of living with Siberian winds, psychological warfare, 'Hill 335' and the brutality and carnage of fighting on 'The Hook', where death was only a whistle away. His story is one of resilience and comradeship.
Michael Fryer’s Korean War journey included defusing bombs by the Imjin River and The bloody Battle of the Hook.