Korean War Honour Roll Quilt
Over two years (2001 - 2003) a small group of women from the Coleraine district in western Victoria had been stitching a quilt to commemorate Australian participation in the Korean War. The Korean War Honour Roll Quilt records the names of the 340 Australian servicemen who died during that conflict.
The quilt was the brainchild of Mrs Olwyn Green. Mrs Green is the widow of Lieutenant Colonel Charles H Green DSO, Commander of the 3rd Royal Australian Regiment during the Korean War, until he died of wounds in November 1950.
A co-incidental network brought Mrs Green and the Coleraine quilters into contact with each other. Then the quilters suggested the Honour Roll quilt might be designed by Ms Meredith Rowe, a leading Australian textile artist now living in London. (Meredith is originally from Coleraine, and had studied Korean textile design in Korea with the support of Asialink and the Australia-Korea Foundation.)
The quilt comprises three sections: a list of the names of all those killed during the Korean War; the musical notes of the Last Post; and a topographical map of Kapyong, the site one of the major battlefields of the war.
The quilt is both an article which commemorates the sacrifice of Australian soldiers and a work of art. It uses Korean fabric as well as Korean thread, and was inspired by Korean design techniques. The quilt brings Australia and Korea together in a unique manner.
The quilt was launched in Grafton on Saturday 26 July 2004 as part of a range of activities to mark the 50th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice. In August 2007 the quilt was transferred to the Infantry Museum at Lone Pine Barracks, Singleton and is on public display.
Photograph taken by Mr Terence Bogue and supplied by Ms Lynn Gunning
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