At Remembrance Day two-minute silence in Belfast, a cameraman thinks of the Korean War veterans
Hundreds of people attended the cenotaph in Belfast yesterday for a short service on Remembrance Day.
Among them was Albert Kirk, who remembered his dad, also Albert, a veteran of the 1950 to 53 Korean war, who lost his hand in an explosion in the 1950s.
The annual service, which involves the playing of the Last Post and a two-minute silence is held on thedate of the 1918 Armistice, and is shorter than the Remembrance Sunday service. Hundreds of members of the public gathered round the Garden of Remembrance in Belfast City Hall for the ceremony.
Mr Kirk then went to the Korean War Memorial at the edge of the garden. He said: “The reason I come here is my father was in Korea and I come here to remember my father and all his fallen comrades.”
After the war, Albert Kirk senior was stationed in Preston Barracks in Brighton, where one day two children went horse riding in an old artillery range. They were killed by old ordnance, and Mr Kirk had to clear the range after the tragedy when a mortar went off and blew his hand off.
“I am lucky to be here today,” said Mr Kirk, who was born in 1955. “He coped very well because of SSAFA (thhe Soldiers', Sailors', and Airmen's Families Association) worked in a workshop in Lord Roberts’ Memorial Workshop on Montgomery Road. He ended up dying of asbestosis in 2000, aged 72.”
The Belfast service was one of many such services on Armistice Day around the UK. It came a day after Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill attended the Remembrance Sunday service.