Kapyong: The Forgotten Battle of The Forgotten War (Korea) – John Lewis

John Lewis, a documentary film maker, runs Arcimedia which produces Australian historical documentaries. His most recent is Kapyong, the story of the remarkable feats of Australian diggers in a crucial battle during the Korean War. Kapyong premiered on the Fox TV’s History Channel in April 2011. On Wednesday 20 April, 2011, John Lewis joined war historian Cameron Forbes  to discuss the Battle of Kapyong during the Korean War.

KAPYONG: THE FORGOTTEN BATTLE OF THE FORGOTTEN WAR (KOREA)

JOHN LEWIS

As Cameron foreshadowed, I want to talk to you about the dilemma of presenting history on television.

This is the dilemma. Here we have Cameron’s book of 534 pages and his chapter on Kapyong alone is 25 pages. The written script for Kapyong is about 6000 words. If printed in the same way, that would be about 15 or 16 pages. But to write it, our scriptwriter Dennis Smith drew on, literally, a stack of references. There are three good Australian books just on the battle itself and another very useful one from the Canadian perspective. Then there’s Robert O’Neil’s official history of the Korean War and, as we were trying to make sense of all of that, along came Cameron with his own take on the events. And we shot 35 hours of interviews ourselves.

So, that was the dilemma. How were we to reduce so much material about such a big, sprawling, complex, intricate storyand do it justice? And, most important, get it right.

On one hand,

 we needed to find a way to shorthand almost every aspect of the story. On the other, in order to hold an audience, we had to include as much detail as the storyteller’s art demands.

In this, as in all struggles, there were casualties.  The old maxim says the first casualty of war is truth. But truth also takes a bit of a battering at the hands of documentary film makers – no matter how careful and conscientious we are.

So let me count the dead.

The first casualty is argument. By and large, you draw your conclusions, then lead your viewers to them by as short a path as possible. There is no time to argue a complex case:  you do your research as best you can, put your case as elegantly as possible – with a sufficient number of escape doors and weasel words – and hope for the best.

In the case of Kapyong, the question at issue was, “Why?” Not why did it happen but why are we making a documentary about it.

What was so important about the battle of Kapyong that anybody should spend part of next Sunday evening watching it on Foxtel?

The simple premise of the film is that the Commonwealth Brigade at Kapyong – a few hundred Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders – and a unit of American tanks –  stopped a huge force of Chinese Army regulars, the main thrust of the Chinese 5^th Offensive determined to retake Seoul.

And if they had failed?  Well, we use a neat and allusive phrase –

a nuclear World War III was waiting in the wings. Our reasoning? And remember we are not historians. While there were more Americans for the Chinese to beat before they got to Seoul, as well as the Middlesex Regiment, there was some suggestion of disarray – and the Chinese were on a roll.

If Seoul was to fall again, another significant American defeat, then Truman – despite having sacked MacArthur just before Kapyong –  against an all-conquering Mao with Joe Stalin whipping everything along from the safety of Moscow, might have felt he had little choice but to adopt MacArthur’s plan and let the bombs fall.

The truth is this is all too glib for words. So much so, that you will hear none of that argument in the film, other than a simple assertion that this was a very important battle with terrible consequences had it been lost – and we stand by that.

Last year, historian Robert Bob O’Neill read a draft treatment of the documentary and warned us against both these propositions. He said that, without taking anything away from the heroism and the achievement of Kapyong, we were overstating its importance. For one thing, he said, there were substantial allied forces between Kapyong and Seoul, and the Chinese were exhausted. He certainly disagreed with the proposition that there was any nuclear consequence at all. Truman wouldn’t have a bar of it.

 

So why did we disregard O’Neill’s advice? Well, we didn’t entirely. But we largely stuck to the thesis for two reasons. Firstly, there were other authorities which provided a reasonable measure of justification; secondly, we needed a clear and compelling –  dare I say, an exciting  –  storyline which would draw people to the whole story. That’s what documentary film makers do.

The second casualty is that

history program making is simple accuracy, usually as a result of over-simplication. If an event is very complicated, it is straightened up by leaving most of it out. This happens in many different ways.  In the case of telling the story of Kapyong, there are four quite separate examples.

We wanted to touch on the question (remarkable really) of two commanders who behaved with outstanding bravery and poise, yet were completely and totally overlooked for decorations. Ben O’Dowd, who ran the battle for 3RAR, and Mike Levy, the Canadian whose actions may have saved the day for everybody. Not to mention the New Zealand artillery. While the Australians and Canadians received the first ever presidential citation for non-US units, the New Zealanders got nothing. Yet, without them, neither the Australians nor the Canadians would have survived.

We touched on this – but that is all.  I can speak of it later. It’s a great story, but it was derailed by the bigger Kapyong story.

The same applies to the battle itself.

We found it impossible to adequately describe the defence of three hills by four companies. It was just too intricate. So the truth is, we generalised the action. It became one big battle.

Sometimes, there are things that are irresolvable. Reluctantly, they go out.  In China, Dennis was told a gut-wrenching story. The Chinese, he was told, were meticulous about clearing the battleground of their dead for burial. This was given as one reason why the number of Chinese casualties was difficult to measure. But at some stage, maybe in the depths of winter and sustaining stupendous casualties, they decided that the exhausted troops couldn’t, after a battle, collect the dead and dig graves for so many. So they started digging the graves before the battles. 

Peter Cundall, ABC gardener, arrived at Kapyong three days after the battle and there were hundreds and hundreds of rotting corpses.  We had no idea what to make of any of that and let it go.

The third class of casualty inflicted by the ruthless demands of documentary structure is gorgeous detail, the wonderful anecdotes you would give your eye-teeth to include, but can’t. We have a edit-room term for it – it’s called killing your babies.

One scene we took a lot of trouble with but left out involved Bob Parker, a dispatch rider who rode the wrong way! When Bob saw what he had done, he thought he might shoot it out but realised he was outnumbered about a 1000-to-1. So he stuck his hands in the air in surrender. He thought he was a goner, thinking, “So this is how it ends, just like this, bloody ridiculous!” and burst into loud and hysterical laughter. But instead of shooting him, the Chinese thought he was a great hero, laughing in the face of death and gathered around him, patting him. It didn’t save him from appalling treatment by his captors, but is a great story. Unfortunately, it had to go.

Then there was Bill Chrysler, the Canadian snatching a few winks of sleep between Chinese assaults. His mate shook him awake and insisted he come and listen.

From down the hill, a clear voice was calling, “Bill?  Bill Chrysler?  Today, you die!” To this day, he says, he can’t work out how they knew his name.

You may think after hearing all this that, after years of pushing this project and then months of furious hard work and a lot of money, there is little left to be proud of. Of course, that’s not so. There may be something of the confessional about what I’ve discussed, but not of apology. All these issues were canvassed over and over as we went along and we brought all our intellectual and creative capacities to bear to do the story justice. I would like to think we succeeded, but that’s for others to judge.

There was a remarkable moment after the screening at Parliament House in Canberra last week. It made the whole thing worthwhile all by itself.

One of the Parliament House technicians appeared on the stairs and asked if he could speak – and was immediately overcome by tears. When he composed himself, he said his mother-in-law was a one-day old baby in one of those refugee columns, saying:

…like you just saw in the film, and if it wasn’t for the men here in this theatre, my wife wouldn’t be here nor my children. I went to a family gathering in Seoul last year, and there were four generations and none of them would be here but for the four gentlemen here and all the other like them.

And he shook hands with them all.

As for the film’s contribution to the historical record, well, it’s not a record … it’s a reflection.

Like the spruiker outside the boxing tent at the country showgrounds, if it serves to bang the drum outside the tent to get the crowd in to see where the records are kept, we’re happy to plead to that.