This time the medal is the Korea Medal awarded to 213649 John 'Jack' Henry Pyers. Jack was a member of 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment and served in Korea from 28 September 1950 to 27 September 1951. He was probably part of the original battalion deployment and may have seen fighting at Chongju in October 1950.
After the Korean War, Jack lived with his mother in Grafton and died in 1979. Jack had two brothers, one being Patrick. I have tracked down one of Patrick's sons and will be sending Jack's medal to him shortly.
The returned medal tally is now 2279.
Hi Glyn, this is most certainly my Uncle John Henry Pyers, brother of my father Paul and my uncle Patrick. Uncle John never married and had no surviving children. He died when he was only in his 40s in Sydney. I have recently been doing some family research and just last week-end my brother Bob and I were discussing uncle John. Apparently, uncle John was a sniper in the Korean war. My brother told me that he remembers Uncle John showing him his gun when he was about 10 years old. The gun was engraved with flowers. My brother asked what the flowers meant. Uncle John explained that each petal of the flowers was symbolic of a life taken. Uncle John never got over the war and had a continuing battle with the bottle. Nevertheless, he played the trombone beautifully and even led a brass band in Sydney. I may get in touch with my cousins Kevin and Michael. It would be lovely to see the medals first hand, kind regards Kresha Hodges nee Pyers
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