Australia to commemorate its role in Korean War with plaque

SEOUL, Oct. 10 (Yonhap) -- The Australian Embassy here will commemorate this week
the participation of the Australian Navy in the 1950-53 Korean War, the embassy
said Friday.

A ceremony will be held Saturday at the Gangwha Educator Center, where a plaque
dedicated to the role of the Australian Navy during the war will be presented, it
said.
Eleven Australian warships, including the country's only aircraft carrier at the
time, the HMAS Sydney, were mobilized to fight in defense of South Korea against
invading North Korean forces.
"The specific relationship with the Ganghwa Educator Center stems from an action
in September 1951 when HMAS MURCHISON was participating in Operation Han," which
occurred in the waters directly to the northeast of the education center, the
embassy said in a press release.
Participants of the ceremony will include Vice Adm. Russell Crane, the chief of
the Australian Navy, who arrived here earlier in the week for the International
Fleet Review and a regional forum of Navy officials, the Western Pacific Naval
Symposium, both held in the southern port city of Busan.
About 17,000 Australian troops fought in the three-year Korean War, in which 339
Australian troops were killed and some 1,200 others were injured.
The plaque, sculpted by Ross Bastiaan, a colonel in the Australian Army Reserve,
is part of a set of three that will commemorate the roles of the Australian Navy,
Army and Air Force during the Korean War, the embassy said.