Former national serviceman and Korean War veteran Ron Roberts is appealing for people to remember the soldiers who died in that war, as the nation focuses on its First World War losses.

He made the plea after he was one of a number of veterans who attended their annual reunion at the Tower of London on July 12.

The 81-year-old, who lives at The Butts, Westbury, was sent to the front line during the Cold War, from 1950-1953, as a soldier with the Royal Fusiliers.

He said: “It is known as the forgotten war, like other lesser-known conflicts such as the Malayan Emergency, but it was fought by National Servicemen who were only 19 or 20.

“Spare a thought for those young men who gave their lives a long way from home who are often overlooked in the season of commemorations.”

A front page article in the Tooting and Balham Gazette of June 5, 1953, reports how the young sergeant and his patrol were attacked by “waves” of Chinese soldiers when they went into no-man’s-land – an action he and his colleagues luckily survived.

Altogether the British forces suffered 1,078 killed, 2,674 wounded and 1,060 missing in the conflict.

More than 33,000 American soldiers were killed and estimates put Chinese deaths at over 400,000.

Mr Roberts was born in Bermondsey, South London. He moved to Westbury in 1979 and became a director of Peradin Rubber Company.

He retired in 1991, the same year in which his wife, Betty Irene Roberts, died, aged 57.