Australian journalist Harry Gordon: The Turks were small and shy and gentle ...

Gordon recalled a particular meeting in Korea of Australian and Turkish soldiers:

“ If the seeds of this joint respect were planted at Gallipoli; it ripened in the dust and snow of Korea.

The Turks' relish for hand-to-hand fighting, their first-class leadership, their discipline under fire… these were attributes the Australians in Korea possessed themselves and admired in others.”


“I went, and found Norm O'Neill, whose pals in the Field Ambulance used to call him Peggy, entertaining a bunch of stocky, dark-jowled young men. They stood and listened as O'Neill (with the help of a young Lt. who could speak a few words of English) told them about his father, who had been a machine-gunner at Gallipoli. We gave them packets of chewing gum, and they handed in return hunks of something that looked like a pancake and tasted like rubber… Their ready acceptance of us, their eagerness to make us feel at home among them, weren't just standard behaviour for newfound allies. They, too, had had the Gallipoli story drummed into them during their childhood.

“For the Aust'ns, many illusions were shattered. Somehow the ANZAC Day speeches of their youth had built the Turks up in their imagination as massive, heavily moustached fighters who carried daggers in their belts and remained sullen and aloof. Nothing could have been further from the truth; the Turks were small and shy and gentle … sometimes even a little comical in their oversized greatcoats. There were moustaches, certainly, but they were soft, boyish, kitten-tailed affairs with the texture and quality of those that 19-year old Australian soldiers were managing to cultivate.”

The Turks proved tough soldiers. Gordon continues:
“The Turks continued to fight with a ferocity which made them something of a legend in Korea. In one action they are on record as having complained bitterly that the artillery barrage put in to soften up an enemy before their charge was too heavy … there weren't enough live Chinese left to make a decent fight. "

Harry Gordon, another Australian journalist who frequently worked alongside Alan Dower, was one of the youngest Australian reporters in Korea.
http://www.awm.gov.au/korea/faces/journalists/journalists.asp

see the pictures of Tirkish soldiers in Korea..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXX1Y_X9ZUs&feature=related