William Vlaanderen
Bill enlisted in the service on March 27, 1951, at Ft. Douglas Utah, and was stationed at Camp Roberts, California for basic training. Shortly after entering the war, he and a fellow soldier were situated on a slight incline of a hill in some brush, thinking they were well out of danger. They were preparing some powdered eggs for breakfast. He said that as soon as they were ready to eat, he lifted a forkful to his mouth and suddenly felt a terrible pain in his leg. When his buddy pulled him back to the ground, he immediately tried to stand, only to find that the bullet (shrapnel) had traveled through his torso before it passed through his leg. After recovering from his wounds, he returned to duty until he was honorably discharged on March 3, 1953.
Korean War - Key Events
April 25, 1951
Vastly outnumbered UN forces check the Chinese advance on Seoul at the Battles of Kapyong and the Imjin River. Two Commonwealth battalions—the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment—rebuff an entire Chinese division at Kapyong, and 4,000 men of the British 29th Brigade stage a successful delaying action against nearly 30,000 troops of the Chinese 63rd Army at the Imjin River. Some 650 men of the 1st Battalion, the Gloucestershire Regiment (the “Glorious Glosters”), engage in a Thermopylae-like stand against more than 10,000 Chinese infantry at Imjin. Although the overwhelming majority of the Glosters are killed or captured, their sacrifice allows UN forces to consolidate their lines around the South Korean capital.
These events are taken from the Encyclopedia Britannica
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