PREPARATIONS are today under way to create a new memorial to recognise the sacrifice made by soldiers from the Ipswich area who were killed in the Korean War.

PREPARATIONS are today under way to create a new memorial to recognise the sacrifice made by soldiers from the Ipswich area who were killed in the Korean War.

A piece of stone from Korea, which will be engraved and transformed into a memorial, is being shipped to England ready for a ceremony next month.

Members of the Ipswich and District branch of the Korean Veterans' Association are organising the memorial to act as the first official reminder of the sacrifice of soldiers from the area.

A ceremony is planned for April 27 when the stone will be unveiled at Ipswich's Millennium Cemetery in Tuddenham Road.

Fifty five years on from the end of the conflict, the stone's simple inscription will read: “For all those who served in Korea from 1951 - 1953.”

John Juby, chairman of the Ipswich and District branch and a Korea veteran who served with the Royal Norfolk Regiment, said soldiers from the Ipswich area served within regiments from Norfolk and Essex.

He said the Korean War remained the “forgotten war”, with many not realising the level of sacrifice made.

He said: “There's so many people aged 30 and 40 years old who don't even know the Korean War existed.

“There's 1,300 graves of Englishmen over there and an awful lot more who were wounded and died afterward.”

Recalling his time in Korea as a 21-year-old, Mr Juby, from Grundisburgh, said; “It was rough out there. The temperatures were unbelievable and I can't explain the way we lived.

“It was more like the 1914 war in lots of ways than the Second World War. You fought in trenches in lots of cases and didn't move a lot.”

The stone for the memorial, measuring 42in by 18in, was sourced from Korea and is being shipped over by Hanjin Shipping's Felixstowe operation.

It will be engraved by a Woodbridge-based mason before being installed at the cemetery.

The April 27 dedication ceremony will begin at 11.30am and will feature representatives from the Korean Veterans' Association's eight East Anglia branches.

Are you pleased about the new memorial? Are you a Korean War veteran? Send us your thoughts. Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk