Korea Vets Win Partial Victory for Memorial

The Chosin Few, a veterans group supporting a proposed International Korean War Memorial, won a partial victory Thursday when the city’s Cultural Affairs Commission accepted their redesign of the memorial but said it must be moved away from the Korean Friendship Bell to another site in a San Pedro park.

The 3-1 vote, with one abstention, approved a bronze sculpture of a battle scene with soldiers in combat but not poised in firing positions.

A group of San Pedro residents who argue that any battle scene in Angels Gate Park would shatter the serenity surrounding the bell also considered the decision a partial victory. The commission sided with the residents when they moved the statue site to what the veterans called a second-choice location, south of the Osgood-Farley Battery.

“I’m not quite sure we won the battle,” said Colleen Clement, head of the citizens group fighting the memorial, “but it’s much better away from the bell.”

Memorial committee Chairman Jack Stites said, “I think we prevailed,” but he refused to predict whether the veterans group would accept the new site or seek a location in another city.

Ruling in April

The decision follows an April ruling by the commission that deemed a design with 12 soldiers in the heat of battle inappropriate for the bell site.

The bell, a gift of the South Korean government to the city of Los Angeles in 1976, is suspended from a colorful pagoda-shaped belfry high atop a bluff in the sprawling city park at San Pedro’s southern tip.

A task force appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley said the war monument would have to undergo a “major redesign” and “reflect a non-aggressive image of war” to fit in that setting. Or, they told the veterans, they could slightly alter the battle scene and build the monument elsewhere in the park.

The redesign of sculptor Terry Jones’ 20-by-35-foot bronze work is similar to the veterans’ original statue, but guns are repositioned and a hand grenade is removed from a soldier’s hand. The veterans also agreed to have the 10-foot-tall soldiers depict various ethnic groups.

The commission majority maintained that the new design is still a battle scene and would conflict with the bell.

Commissioner Roori J. Rodriguez abstained, saying she disagreed with a related proposal to have women in the war represented by a statue of a nurse 40 feet away from the main memorial. But she added that she respects the veterans’ right to represent the war their way.

Bell Defended

Before the vote, opponents pleaded for the commission to preserve the spirituality of the Friendship Bell site.

“Do the people of Los Angeles really want to put a statue of war and warriors next to a statue of peace?” asked Alan L. Tolkoff, a San Pedro resident. “What are we telling the world if we do?”

But veterans scoffed at the criticism and said the bell and the war memorial enhance each other.

“The monument depicts what agony and suffering our Allied forces went through to bring the bell here,” said Lawrence Fitzgerald, 67, a two-time Purple Heart recipient whose Navy career spanned three wars.

The veterans must come back to the commission with final plans for the monument and the surrounding area. The memorial must also be approved by the state Coastal Commission and the city Recreation and Parks Commission.

The monument was conceived by members of the 1st Marine Division, who fought in the 1950 battle of the Chosin Reservoir. More than 3,000 American, British and South Korean troops died along with 25,000 Chinese soldiers.