![]() ![]() Snipers were issued with a modified version of the venerable Lee-Enfield. To survive, diggers had to beg, barter or steal extra gear - woollen caps, gauntlets, mittens, waterproofs - from the Americans, who had plenty of everything. If an enemy bomb or bullet didn't kill you, the standard-issue Australian uniform might: it was hopeless for northern winters. ![]() Days were crisp but nights freezing, a taste of the cruel winter ahead. It was like being picked for the school sports, but more dangerous. In Japan, Robertson had been working as the battalion photographer, but with war looming he was made a sniper because he was one of the 10 best marksmen among the battalion's 600 troops. Once China joined North Korea, the UN "police action" would become a three-year war costing more than a million lives, including 33,000 Americans and 339 of the 18,000 Australians who served there. But when the United Nations agreed to immediate retaliation by its members, led by the US, Australian troops were among the first sent to Korea to join a thinly veiled struggle between the world's Cold War superpowers. If communist North Korea, tacitly backed by the Soviet Union and China, had not invaded South Korea in June 1950, Robertson might have served out his time without firing a shot in anger. He finally enlisted when he was 18, missing the end of the war, and was sent to the occupation of Japan in 1946. In 1943, at 16, he almost bluffed his way into the army - which would have meant fighting in New Guinea - but the recruiting sergeant told his father, who told Robbie that if the Japanese invaded he should be home to protect his mother and sisters. Robertson went to Northcote State School, then left Collingwood Tech at 13 to be a carrier's "jockey" on a truck, working around the boot trade. Two Diggers bring in a wounded Korean child for medical treatment. The family was self-employed but not wealthy. One uncle was killed at the Anzac landing in 1915 another won a Military Cross as an airman in France. His father had been a teenage rifleman and bugler wounded at Gallipoli. His mother toiled over a boot-stitching machine from age 14 to 74. Ian "Robbie" Robertson was born in Melbourne in 1927. No one knows just how many dozen enemy soldiers he killed in eight bone-chilling months in Korea, except the man himself. In fact, in all of modern warfare, few were more fatally efficient than this kindly grandfather. In his other life, healing wasn't part of the job description. "He's very good - and never charges," says Florence. Others chorus agreement, and line up between dances for his famous neck massages. Florence, the Chinese woman who runs the dance with her husband, beams at him and sings his praises. The regulars greet the old digger by his nickname, Robbie, when he arrives with Miki, his wife. Bradley Cooper as US soldier Chris Kyle in the film American Sniper. ![]()
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