Korea - Mr Johnny Love

·1 hr 58 min·5 clips

D-Day brought smoke at night, civilians indoors, and Shermans full of Canadians on Gosport roads.

1. Military Histories from York Army Museum focuses this week on Mr Johnny Love and the Royal Dragoon Guards archive. 2. Lieutenant Colonel Retired Barry Port interviews John Love at his home in Gosport on Monday 28 October 2013. 3. The episode asks how a boy raised around the Duke of Wellington's regiment ended up serving in the Armoured Corps and later Korea. 4. John says he was born in Devonport in 1928 and spent early childhood in Delhi Fort and New Delhi with his family. 5. He says his father was commissioned from sergeant major, went to Malaya, and never rejoined the family in the way his mother expected. 6. John says his mother was officially recorded as a widow, worked in a military hospital in Karachi, and later returned to Gosport in 1943. 7. He describes arriving in Gosport by train in blackout conditions after a journey from Liverpool that took a day and a half. 8. John says he tried the Navy first, trained as a signal boy at St Vincent, and then worked at the Royal Naval Physiological Laboratories in Alverstoke. 9. He says he joined the Army in Portsmouth after being turned away from the Navy role he wanted. 10. A PSO test and his mechanical background on motorbikes pushed him into the Armoured Corps rather than the infantry. 11. John recalls Winchester with the Hampshire Regiment, a return home during the hard winter of 1946, and later failure on a parachute regiment attempt. 12. He says Aldershot Hospital and Catterick Hospital both featured in the unsettled early part of his Army service. 13. He describes Catterick as cold wooden huts, coke stoves, palliases stuffed with straw, and limited comforts. 14. He says his tank training involved Cromwells, American Chaffees, and later Comets, with exercises on the moors above Catterick. 15. John says he expected to join the 42nd Reconnaissance Regiment, but the reconnaissance regiments were closed in the winter of 1946. 16. He later joined the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards at Münster after a holding posting in Bielefeld. 17. He recalls Sergeant Major Gow, Squadron Leader Gilbert Monkton, and a rapid rise from trooper to corporal and then acting sergeant. 18. John describes Münster as devastated, with dead bodies in a lake, Russian prisoners' remains, and V1 ramps in wooded camp areas. 19. He says the regiment's routine included morning parades, strict discipline, sports such as hockey and cross-country, and singing the regimental march in Gaelic. 20. Anyone interested in postwar British Army life, tanks, and Korea will get a clear personal account, while listeners wanting a short, story-light interview may skip it.

As heard by us

A plainspoken Korean War memory where transport, weather, and duty matter.

The episode moves from a late-46 enlistment and a hard winter of training into the uneasy business of getting to Korea, where wooden troop-carriage seats, shutters, and Bren guns at each end tell as much of the story as any broad summary.

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Why you'd press play

You want a Korean War memory told from inside the carriage, not over it.

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