대한민국 재향군인회 영국지회

The Korean Veterans Association (KORVA) was formed in Busan, Korea in 1952 during the Korean War by around 30,000 discharged soldiers and became a legal entity under the Veterans Association Act enacted by the Korean National Assembly in 1963.

The headquarters of the Korean Veterans Association is located in Seoul, Korea and there are many branches in Korea and overseas. It is a legal entity with a membership of approximately over 10 million members.

All 24 overseas branches of the Korean Veterans Association are active locally mainly in the United States, which dispatched the largest number of soldiers to the Korean War in 1950. In Europe, a German branch was established first, and then on 02 May 2011, a British branch was established at the New Malden Centre, Surrey, England. Currently, three branches in Europe are actively operating: the UK, Germany and France.

The Korean War is the first and only case in which the UN recruited regular troops from each country to support only one country, South Korea, and dispatched them under the name of the UN forces to protect world peace. According to data researched by Yonhap News Agency in 2020, the United States dispatched around 1,800,000 combat troops, and the United Kingdom, where we now live, sent the second largest number of soldiers, around 56,000. The countries that supported the most troops in terms of number dispatched were Canada with approximately 26,000 and Turkey with around 15,000.

The Korean Veterans Association UK regularly hosts events on behalf of the Korean government and the Korean people in South Korea to express gratitude to the British veterans who fought in the Korean War along with Korean residents in the UK and plays an important role as a vanguard of private diplomacy.

However, the Korean War veterans are now over 90 years old, so we can no longer invite them to South Korea or request them to attend any remote events. The headquarters of the Korean Veterans Association is accordingly planning a project to visit and express gratitude in person from this year, and our UK branch is also planning to actively implement ways to visit and hold small concerts to express gratitude in response to the headquarters’ policy change.

We who live in the UK today enjoy peace because of the 56,000 British soldiers who sacrificed themselves in a foreign land 8,000 kilometres away and we should never forget this and always have a grateful heart.

I hope that all of you who support the Korean Veterans Association UK will be at peace and have a happy life in the UK.

Thank You As Always