[UNFORGOTTEN HEROES] French Korean War veteran recalls day the guns fell silent

Seventy years after hostilities on the Korean Peninsula ended, French veteran André Datcharry stood before Arrowhead Ridge, where artillery shells rained down in the hills around him hours before the armistice came into effect on July 27, 1953.

French Korean War veteran André Datcharry, left, stands before the memorial to members of the United Nations French Battalion who died defending Arrowhead Ridge at a ceremony in Cheorwon County, Gangwon, on Tuesday. Next to him stands Patrick Beaudouin, president of the French Korean War Veterans Association. [REPUBLIC OF KOREA ARMY]

The Korean War, which raged from 1950 to 1953, was a crucial Cold War milestone as a fratricidal war between the two Koreas that evolved into an intense proxy battle between the world’s superpowers. Some 2 million personnel from over 20 countries came to South Korea’s aid, risking their lives fighting on the frontlines and tending to the fallen. As Korea marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, the Korea JoongAng Daily interviewed veterans, their relatives and government ministers about efforts to commemorate the conflict, the war’s geopolitical consequences and its relevance in today’s politically and militarily polarized world. — Ed.

Seventy years after hostilities on the Korean Peninsula ended, French veteran André Datcharry stood before Arrowhead Ridge in Cheorwon County, Gangwon, where artillery shells continued raining down in the hills around him hours before the armistice came into effect on July 27, 1953.

“The soldiers on the ground seemed unaware of the armistice going into effect within a few hours and were bombarding each other as though all hell had broken loose,” said the 91-year-old Datcharry, who served as a corporal with the French Battalion of the United Nations forces during the war.

When the sound of gunfire gave way to an eerie silence, he remembered the soldiers just didn’t know what to make of it.

“We had gotten so used to the sound of artillery shots in the air,” he said.

French Korean War veteran André Datcharry speaks during an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily during a Tuesday evening reception for veterans and their relatives at the French Embassy in Seoul. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Now on his seventh visit to Korea since 2000, Datcharry first arrived in Busan on March 9, 1953, aged 21. His brother Pierre, older by two years, had arrived in Korea in December the previous year. Reunited, they served together for a while in the same unit of the French Battalion.

“On the train from Busan to Seoul, you could hear the sound of nonstop bombardment,” he told the Korea JoongAng Daily at a reception for veterans and their surviving relatives at the French Embassy in Seoul on Tuesday evening. “I felt fear, of course, but also excitement, because my brother was already fighting in the war, and within a few hours I was finally going to see him again.”

André and Pierre Datcharry were two of 3,421 soldiers deployed from France to serve in the war.

Some 300 Frenchmen fell in the war, and 1,350 French soldiers were wounded in action, according to the French Ministry of the Armed Forces. Seven soldiers remain missing to this day.

Both Datcharry brothers served through the end of the war, and the two made many harrowing escapes amid fierce trench warfare on the ground that persisted even as armistice talks continued between the U.S.-led United Nations force and the North’s Korean People’s Army and Chinese People’s Volunteer Army.

Once, Datcharry’s bunker was bombed with shells fired by the Chinese forces. All he recalls is waking up wounded before he was carried away for medical treatment.

But still, he chose to stay in Korea.

“I was given the option to return to France, but I wanted to stay on and fight,” he said.

Speaking at a Tuesday ceremony at a hillside monument to French troops who fell in battle at Arrowhead Ridge, French Secretary of State for Veterans and Remembrance Patricia Miraillès said the wartime service of people such as Datcharry safeguarded the freedom of South Korea.

“Great history is forged when individual histories come together,” she said, adding that the sacrifice of the French forces who fought alongside South Koreans “should never be forgotten.”

French Korean War veteran Jean Plazy, seen in an undated photograph provided by his grandson Jerome Plazy that was taken in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi, during the Korean War. [JEROME PLAZY]

Also present at Tuesday’s ceremony were Roger and Edouard Quintard, son and grandson of late veteran Robert Quintard; Louisette Breuil, widow of late veteran Robert Breuil, who served as a commander at Arrowhead Ridge; Jerome Plazy, grandson of late veteran Jean Plazy; and Vincent Fauvell-Champion, son of late veteran Vincent Fauvell-Champion.

Datcharry, his daughter Françoise and surviving family members of the other French veterans came to Korea this week at the invitation of Seoul’s Veterans Ministry and were escorted to the memorial site by officials from the French Embassy and the 27th Regiment of the Korean Army’s 5th Infantry Division, whose base oversees the section of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that includes Arrowhead Ridge.

The ridge, whose high vantage point on the front made it a repeated target of Chinese forces, was the site of four major engagements during the war.

During the third battle in October 1952, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army sent a battalion every night from October 6 to October 10 to take Arrowhead Ridge, but the French Battalion defended the position using close-range combat tactics with artillery support.

“The worst memory [that my father recalled] was the uninterrupted artillery bombardment that lasted 24 hours during the Battle of Arrowhead,” said Roger Quintard, who heads the French Korean War Veterans Association, in a previous interview.

“[He said] it made an infernal noise and [they] wondered when it would end. During this time, it was estimated that 20,000 artillery shells had fallen on the French position. Most surprising was the silence that followed the bombardment; almost as deafening.”

Sgt. Quintard served in the war from Dec. 26, 1951, to Dec. 5, 1952. Like many in the battalion, he was a career soldier who had experience in the Indochina wars. He died in 1995.

The French Battalion’s successful defense of Arrowhead also aided in the defense of White Horse Ridge located to the east, which the South Korean 9th Infantry Division successfully held alongside the U.S. 7th Infantry Division despite repeated Chinese human wave attacks from Oct. 6 to 15, 1952.

But fierce fighting at Arrowhead Ridge continued through the last month of the war, up until the moment the armistice came into effect.

There, eventually, the front stabilized, and today the ridge lies behind barbed wire and lush green hills covered in mines within the DMZ.

While Pierre left Korea on Oct. 23 of the same year that the armistice was signed, André joined a symbolic detachment of the French government, which gave him an opportunity to visit different parts of South Korea.

This was when he was able to take dozens of photos on his Nikon camera — a prize he had won in a bingo game hosted by the U.S. forces earlier.

His photos, many of them in full color, have been donated to both the Korean Cultural Center in France and the French Embassy in Seoul. To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War this year, the Korean Cultural Center hosted a special exhibition in Paris with 20 of his photos earlier this year.

André Datcharry, second from left, sits alongside two other French soldiers on the porch of a shop in Korea in this photograph taken on his Nikon camera. Twenty of Datcharry's photos were displayed in a special exhibition at the Korean Cultural Center in Paris from June 16 to July 15. [NEWS1]

“I remember being surprised by how some young Koreans would walk about in dashing styles in the streets of Korea, even as the country was just emerging from a devastating war,” Datcharry said.

The veteran got married upon his return to France, had three children, and worked as an architect, a job that brought him to many more places around the world including Senegal, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

Not all veterans are able to return to a life of normalcy after taking part in war. Many also prefer to stay away from any places or objects that may remind them of their experiences.

It is same for Datcharry, but like his choice to fight on despite being injured in battle, his decision to come back to Korea time and again is not for himself.

“When somebody remembers you, it means you are cherished,” he explained.

Others, like French veteran Jean Lehoux, wanted to remain close to Korea, where their compatriots fell in battle.

After his death in 2016, Lehoux was buried in a simple grave on the same hill as the French memorial that faces Arrowhead Ridge.

His tomb as well as the French monument were honored with bouquets of white flowers and chrysanthemums laid by Datcharry, Miraillès, relatives of French veterans, current officers of the 5th Infantry Division and representatives from the Korean Veterans Ministry during Tuesday’s ceremony.

A woman holds a toddler in a photo taken by French Korean War veteran André Datcharry during his posting in Korea after the armistice. [NEWS1]

Later, standing atop a South Korean fort inside the DMZ, Datcharry continued to gaze back at Arrowhead Ridge, now covered by a thicket of trees and bushes except for small, denuded patches where teams from South and North Korea have previously exhumed the remains of soldiers from both sides who fell in battle.

“I want to see where my friends have gone to rest,” he said in an almost-whisper, adding that he would like to walk on the hills where they fought together “once a permanent peace returns to Korea.”

As Datcharry and the French veterans’ delegation departed the 27th Regiment’s base on Tuesday afternoon, the regiment’s commander, Col. Lim Seong-il, made them a promise.

“This soil that you and your forebears defended with their blood and the blood of their brothers-in-arms, we shall carry on protecting now and forevermore.”

BY MICHAEL LEE, ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]