Abstract
Sir Willie Purves, a second lieutenant in the King’s Own Scottish Borders, won the Distinguished Service Order. The only national serviceman to earn the award, Willie extracted his platoon and another platoon from a firefight. Leadership is a central theme of his recollections, and when contrasted with his youth—Willie was nineteen when he arrived in Korea—it makes his narrative particularly unique. He joined the war in 1951 and was demobbed in 1952.
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Notes
- 1.
This sentence was clarified in later correspondence.
- 2.
In later correspondence, Willie did mention General Jim Cassels as “a great leader.”
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Purves, W. (2023). Second Lieutenant Sir William Purves. In: Cullinane, M.P., Johnston-White, I. (eds) A Forgotten British War. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10051-2_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10051-2_15
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