British Commonwealth Forces Korea

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

British Commonwealth Forces Korea (BCFK) was the formal name, from 1952, of the Commonwealth army, naval and air units serving with the United Nations (UN) in the Korean War. Australian, British, Canadian, Indian and New Zealand units were part of BCFK. Some Commonwealth units and personnel served with United States and/or other UN formations, which were not part of BCFK.^[1]

In 1949, Australian units based with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) in Japan were among the first UN personnel to be deployed in South Korea. Prior to 1952, the BCOF commanders in Japan officially controlled all Commonwealth personnel in Korea. When the San Francisco Treaty took effect in April 1952, the BCOF was superseded by BCFK. The position of BCFK Commander-in-Chief was always held by Australian Army officers, the first being Lt Gen. Sir Horace Robertson. Liaison between the Commonwealth C-in-C and the UN high command was provided by a subordinate headquarters in Tokyo.

By the time BCFK came into being, the Commonwealth armies had formed the 1st Commonwealth Division (in July, 1951) and British and Canadian Army personnel predominated at the operational level in the Commonwealth land forces. Lt Gen. William Bridgeford took over from Robertson in October 1951, and he was later succeeded by Lt Gen. Rudolph Bierwirth.

The Royal Navy (RN) usually had at least one aircraft carrier on station during the war. Five British carriers: Glory, HMS Ocean, Theseus, Triumph and Unicorn (a maintenance and aircraft transport carrier) were involved in the conflict. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) provided the carrier HMAS Sydney. The RN, RAN and Royal Canadian Navy also provided many other warships.

The RN carriers provided the only British fighter planes to take part in the war. On August 9, 1952 a propeller-driven Sea Fury, piloted by Lieutenant Peter Carmichael of No. 802 Squadron, based on HMS Ocean, shot down a MiG-15 jet fighter , becoming one of only a handful of pilots of propeller planes to have shot down a jet.

The only front-line unit from a Commonwealth air force to serve under BCFK was Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) No. 77 Squadron, which initially flew P-51 Mustang fighters and later converted to Gloster Meteor jets. British and Canadian aircrews also served with the RAAF. The only Royal Air Force contribution was a wing of Short Sunderland flying boats based at Iwakuni in Japan.