The Monument to Canadian Fallen commemorates more than 30,000 Canadians who served in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 and as peacekeepers in Korea until 1957. It was erected by the National Capital Commission and dedicated on September 28, 2003.
The monument was designed by Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Korean War Veteran Vincent Courtenay and created by Korean artist Yoo Young Mun in 2002. It is a slightly larger replica of the monument at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan, Korea, where 378 Canadians are buried.
There are three elements to the monument - a statue, a dedication plaque and an arrowhead made of dark granite bricks that extends outward from the statue and plaque. The arrowhead points towards Busan, Korea. The arrowhead was not part of the original design. The monument was carefully placed so that the figures looked along an accurate GPS setting to Busan. The National Capital Commission had a professional geographer make the calculation two times to ensure the exactness. The arrowhead is in line with those calculations.
The statue is an unarmed Canadian soldier holding a young Korean girl and guiding a Korean boy. At the feet of the soldier are the crests of the Royal Canadian Air Force (left), Canadian Army (center), and Royal Canadian Navy (right). The children represent the generations of Koreans who live in freedom thanks to those who served and those who made the supreme sacrifice. The girl is holding a bouquet of 21 maple leaves, representing the 16 Canadians with no known grave and the five Canadian sailors lost at sea. The boy is holding a bouquet in which maple leaves are mixed with roses of Sharon, the national flower of Korea, as a symbol of the friendship between the two countries.
The oval bronze base has two rings - the top is inscribed with the names of fallen soldiers and the bottom ring has a patriotic inscription. The bottom base is made of Korean granite.
The monument is inscribed with the names of 516 Canadian soldiers who died during the Korean War. One soldier was too young for service in Korea and enlisted under his older brother’s name. Both names are recorded on the monument. Another soldier often used a pseudonym and was known by that name among friends, so he is identified by two names as well.
There was no machine to produce the words for the monument, so every letter - more than 6,000, was hand cut from rubber sheeting. The hand-cut names were glued to the plane of the base, a plaster splash was made and the raised letters were formed on the casting. The process distorted many of them and they had to be hand tooled to perfection. This was done for both the Canadian and Busan monuments!
Both Monuments to Canadian Fallen were cast in a hillside foundry in Korea, which was actually a tent rigged over a melting pot on one of the hills where Canadian soldiers once fought. The formed components were laid out on sand in their plaster splashes to cool, formed in the open air by artisans who had done the work all of their lives and lived there in the hills in huts.
Vincent worked with Yoo Young Mun in his small studio in Pocheon, near the Demilitarized Zone. Vincent designed every element and sculptor Yoo Young Mun translated them into a three dimensional form in composite. He then cut it in sections, made his plaster splashes, poured the bronze, welded the components together, treated the bronze with acid, painstakingly hand carved the granite plinth, then directed the workers who set the assembled bronze in place on the plinth in the Canadian Graves Section in the United Nations Memorial Cemetery.
When they shipped the bronze components for the second monument to Canada, he flew to Canada and assembled it. He then carved a second granite plinth that was shipped to Canada and flew to Canada again to supervise the placement of the bronze on the stone.
The unveiling and consecration of the Monument to Canadian Fallen took place on October 23, 2003, in Confederation Park, Ottawa. Prime Minister Jean Chretien officiated and remained with the Veterans throughout the two-hour ceremony, which was telecasted live by CBC.
Students from the Suk-po Elementary School, located near the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan, sang a song of praise to the Fallen Canadians. The 25-student choir, their teachers and chaperones were flown from Busan at the expense of Chung Mong-koo, the chairman of Hyundai Motor Co., as a gesture of respect to Canada’s Veterans and to the Canadian public.
The crowd was well over 1,000 people with Korean War Veterans from all across Canada.
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