Maj-Gen. Mike Reynolds CB

"Major General Mike Reynolds, who has died aged 85, served in Korea and subsequently ran battlefield tours as well as writing a number of books of military history.
In late 1951, Reynolds, an officer serving with the Queen’s Royal Regiment, was posted to Korea on attachment to the 1st Bn The Royal Norfolk Regiment (now 1 Royal Anglian Regiment). They were deployed on a hillside overlooking the Samichon river. When he took command of his platoon, he was told that the Chinese were about 1,000 yards away across flat paddy and rice fields with no one in between.
His two-man bunker was dug into the side of a hill. It was dank and smelly. A blanket served as a door, the bunks were made of logs and it was lit by candles. Temperatures at night often fell to minus 20 C. The Officers’ Mess was known as the Pigsty. Rats fed on the waste in the refuse pits and on the dead Chinese and North Koreans who littered the battlefield.
Within his first week, he was ordered to take a fighting patrol across the river and find out how close the Chinese were. Nobody had done so before. In the darkness, he missed the ford and soon found himself up to his chest in freezing water.
They had not advanced more than 50 yards beyond the far bank, when Reynolds smelt garlic and heard Chinese soldiers chattering. He had accomplished his mission but on the way back across the river they came under heavy fire from an unseen enemy firing from the “home bank”. One of his men was killed. After reporting to his company commander, he hacked off a block of ice encircling his lower chest and back.
In August 1952, leading an ambush party, he was involved in a fierce firefight at night and was badly wounded in the leg. His orderly, Bob Ketteringham, was shot dead trying to carry him to safety. He made a tourniquet with the strap of his Sten gun to try to staunch the flow of blood.
He lost consciousness several times during the nine hours in which he was lying there. At first light, a rescue party appeared. On the way back to their lines, they were mortared and dropped the stretcher. Reynolds rolled down a steep slope, which added substantially to his injuries, and he spent a year in hospital before rejoining the Queen’s.
Michael Frank Reynolds was born in Birmingham on June 3 1930 and educated at Cranleigh. He was called up for National Service in 1948 and, after winning the Infantry Prize at Sandhurst, was commissioned into the Queen’s Royal Regiment (QRR)."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12035846/Major-General-Mike-Reynolds-obituary.html