12 FEBRUARY 2005, Page 18

They also served...

From C. Schofield Sir: Max Hastings says in ‘Forgotten heroes’ (5 February), ‘The government decided that it would be politically unacceptable to send 18-year-old National Servicemen [to Korea].’ That is news to me. I was an 18-year-old National Serviceman in 1950–51, and I do not recall anyone telling me or my fellow conscripts that we were a protected species. Admittedly I served in Germany, but two of my grammar-school contemporaries ended up in Korea, and died there.

C. Schofield

Wellingborough, Northants