Hundreds of Korean War veterans march for 60th anniversary Colin Thackery, 83, of Norwich, who served with the Royal Artillery, got frostbite in one leg and was also partially deafened by artillery fire during the war. He said: "My memory of it first of all is the extreme cold. I was up in the mountains and that's where we really learnt the meaning of wind chill. Jim Wilkinson, 80, who served with the Royal Fusiliers, said: "You could drown in the monsoon, freeze to death in the winter and die of sunstroke in the winter." Mr Wilkinson, of Croydon, lost the tips of several fingers and was sprayed with shrapnel when a member of his combat patrol stood on a mine. The conflict has been called Britain's Forgotten War and veterans said it had been eclipsed by the Second World War, or by subsequent conflicts elsewhere in the world. Mr Wilkinson said: "The only people who haven't forgotten are the Koreans. They haven't forgotten us. They are so grateful. We get invited to all sorts of functions. In a message to the veterans, Park Geun-hye, the South Korean president, said: "Your noble sacrifice laid the groundwork for the development of the Republic of Korea and has served as a foundation for mutual trust between Korea and the United Kingdom." An Armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, but the peninsula remains divided, with the North and South Korean armies glaring at each other across a strip of no man's land. Mr Thackery said: "It's never finished has it? They are still at it, more's the pity. I often wonder what it was all about.