Nobody will ever know what was going through Second Lieutenant Dennis Fielden’s mind as he trudged up the steep slope to join A Company, 3 Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR) on Hill 504, near Kap’Yong, on the 23rd April 1951. No doubt he would have been mentally and physically tired. The previous 24 hours had been particularly hectic for 16 Field Regiment (Fd Regt). They had fired their 25 pounder guns continually in support of the Republic of Korea’s 6th Division, which had collapsed under the assault of the Chinese spring offensive, before rapidly pulling back to avoid being overrun by the Chinese troops themselves. Almost certainly, Dennis would have been feeling apprehensive, the gnawing in the guts soldiers feel prior to action, as would have been the rest of his Forward Observation Officer (FOO) party.

His FOO party represented a cross section of New Zealand society. Dennis was a relatively recent arrival from the UK. Although he had only been gazetted as a Second Lieutenant less than 6 months before, he had spent seven years in the RAF and Royal Artillery. With him was Gunner Richard Kemp, a dairy farmer from Te Pahu, and Gunner William Mulligan from Tokomaru Bay, who had seen service with 28th Maori Battalion during World War II. The 4,700 New Zealanders who volunteered to serve in Korea were a mixture of young men looking for adventure and veterans who had found it difficult to settle back into civilian life.

As the FOO party joined A Company, they would have taken comfort from joining fellow ANZACs as being amongst friends has always provided comfort in times of trouble.  The battle did not start well for them. They could not make radio contact with the guns positioned a few kilometres away and the soldiers laying communication lines for the field telephones reached A Company, but in the confusion of the battle, were unable to find Dennis. As the successive waves of Chinese assaulted the Australian positions, they became embroiled in the fighting. In the early hours of the 24th, Dennis was killed, 16 Fd Regt’s first fatality of the war, and both Richard Kemp and William Mulligan were wounded.

As the pressure mounted on 3 RAR, they were forced to withdraw to a new defensive line supported by the guns of 16 Fd Regt and the 213 American Field Artillery Battalion.

The extraordinary aspect of the Battle of Kap’Yong was that it was fought by a composite brigade. 27 Infantry Brigade consisted of infantry battalions from the UK, Australia, and Canada, supported by American armour, with New Zealand and American artillery support. Creating a multinational brigade like this, while more common today, was a solution borne out of necessity. In their rush to de-mobilise and rebuild after the Second World War, which ended some five years before, Governments had stripped their military forces of workforce and equipment. The result was disastrous. On the outbreak of war, the American forces sent to Korea from Japan were poorly equipped and trained as well as psychologically not ready for combat, so were quickly routed by the North Koreans and pushed back to the Busan perimeter.

New Zealand was no different. Only five years previously, it had raised divisions to support the Allied war effort. Now, despite wanting to support the UN in its first test of the post-World War II era and also demonstrate its support of the USA, it hastily organised Kayforce, consisting of 16 Fd Regt, a logistics company, some ancillary units and naval support. It was not able to commit a full brigade, let alone a division, nor was there the political will to do so.

It is worth noting that, in military terms, a division (3 or 4 brigades, armour, artillery, engineers, signals logistics etc) is considered the smallest organisation capable of conducting independent military operations. In World War II, all the commonwealth nations fielded one or more complete divisions, commanded by a Major General, who answered to their normally British corps commander but also had a direct reporting line to their national governments. For instance, General Freyberg commanded the New Zealand 2nd Division: he strenuously opposed any attempts to split up his division and at times referred decisions back to Peter Fraser, the New Zealand Prime Minister if he felt that his orders were counter to New Zealand’s national interest.

Regardless of organisational size, multinational operations are notoriously difficult. The armies of different nations have varying command philosophies, doctrine, and tactics. Logistics is complicated by the different vehicles, rations, uniforms, equipment and types of ammunition. On top of that, different nations often impose restrictions on how their forces are to be used. Sometimes simple communication is marred by the nuances of language and different terminology. All of these factors make commanding multinational forces complicated, and these difficulties are exacerbated by the combination of fear, uncertainty and confusion of combat. For example, at one stage during the battle of Kap’Yong, the US tanks opened fire on the Canadians mistaking their unfamiliar uniform as being that of the Chinese. Such misunderstandings can have even more serious consequences. The fate of the Gloucestershire Regiment was partially due to British understatement being taken at face value by the American divisional commander, who did not recognise the gravity of their situation until too late.

The April battles, south of the Imjin River, exposed some of the weaknesses of the multinational framework. To mitigate the situation all of the Commonwealth governments agreed to form the 1st Commonwealth Division - a unique experiment to bring together troops from across the Commonwealth - which was established on the 28th July 1951. Comprising three brigades (25th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 28th Commonwealth Brigade and 29th British Infantry Brigade) with supporting units, the Division had forces from five nations: the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India, plus a small number of officers from South Africa working in the Divisional Headquarters.

Today most New Zealand forces operate in some form of multinational framework. We take it for granted. Military forces have become more proficient at doing so but it remains difficult and requires understanding and compromise on all sides. The initial stages of the Korean War highlighted why. The formation of the 1st Commonwealth Division was a neat solution to resolve some of these issues by bringing together troops from across the Commonwealth who had more in common than the issues that divided them. According to Brigadier MacDonald, the commander of 28th Brigade, ‘the intense but friendly rivalry that existed between the units… in the division produced a remarkable esprit de corps and standard of efficiency.² It provided a framework within which 16 Fd Regt was able to flourish and to make an even more effective contribution that, I am sure, would have made Dennis Fielden proud.

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