Richard Avery By John Denyer
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HIS month we continue the fascinating story of Richard Avery from Ashleigh Way. Memories of Malaya and Korea In 1949 at the age of 171/2 Richard applied to join the Army as a regular. His father had been in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI), and when asked what regiment he wished to join, being proud of his Cornish roots, he requested DCLI. Off he went to Borden in Hampshire for 10 weeks of infantry training. At the end of basic training, he was still too young to be sent to his regiment for active service, so had to endure what seemed like a never-ending period of 'spud bashing', 'square bashing' and further training.
Image: Richard passing out from Infantry training
Anyone who has ever been in the military will know that to survive you quickly need to develop both resilience and a sense of humour. Both were soon needed when rather than being allowed to follow in his father’s footsteps, Richard was instead sent to join the 1st Battalion of the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI). 28 | Probus News Magazine | Issue 252
Richard quickly made the KOYLI his home and on the 1st May 1950 the battalion was shipped out to Malaya for active service supporting what was known as The Malayan Emergency - a guerrilla war started by proindependence fighters in 1948. In Malaya, the battalion HQ was based in Sungai Petani, 220 miles north of Kuala Lumpur, and each company was sent to a different region of the country. As an infantryman, Richard spent a lot of time on patrol in the jungle. It was difficult and dangerous work and during the three years the regiment was in Malaya, 35 KOYLI infantrymen were killed, mostly by ambush while on patrol in the jungle. Malaya eventually became an independent country, now known as Malaysia, in 1957. After Malaya, the battalion was shipped back to Yorkshire, see below for a link to the Pathe News reel film of their arrival home. They then went to Germany by which time Richard had been made a lance corporal. By June 1952 the war in Korea had been in progress for three years and had more or less reached a stalemate. It was a bitter struggle between communist forces from North Korea supported by China, and the United Nations (UN) forces of South Korea, the United States, the British Commonwealth forces (UK, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and others), and other western nations. The Korean War is often referred to as the 'forgotten war', but it shouldn't be. From a British perspective, the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, the Army and Royal Air Force were all heavily deployed on UN service in Korea and tens of thousands of British servicemen, a large proportion of whom were national servicemen, did one tour of duty there. In 1952, the 1st Battalion, Durham Light Infantry (DLI) were stationed in Berlin
