Honour at last for soldier - 60 years after the ‘forgotten war’

Her 21-year-old husband Roy, a National Serviceman, died in May 1953 while holding back Chinese communist forces in the Battle of the Hook, one of the bloodiest in the Korean War.

Many of those who fought have called it the “forgotten war” and 60 years on there still isn’t a plaque or war memorial bearing Private Gibson’s name in his home town of Huddersfield.

That omission will be put right on Remembrance Sunday when a wooden plaque with his name and regiment, the Duke of Wellington’s, will be unveiled inside Christ Church at Moldgreen, Huddersfield.

The honour is long overdue, according to his widow, Mrs Cockroft, who remarried four years after his death.

She said the pain had never gone away.

“Never tell anyone ‘you will get over it’ because it has been 60 years and it’s still there. I re-married, had two daughters and learned to live with it.”

“My husband gave his life for his country but it is never mentioned - it is a forgotten war.”

Mrs Cockroft, 82 and now living in Meltham, Huddersfield, said: “I have waited a long time for this. There are memorials in Korea but there isn’t one in Huddersfield which is upsetting. He gave his life for his country and he was treated as a nobody.”

She described Mr Gibson as a “very nice, kind person” who enjoyed sport.

The plaque unveiling has been organised by the Reverend Heather Atkinson and Councillor Terry Lyons. Duke of Wellington’s and Royal British Legion standard bearers will attend.

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