Fallen comrades were remembered at Chipyong-ni, site of one of the war's fiercest battles, involving the French all-volunteer battalion in hand-to-hand combat against invading Chinese forces.

Nearly half the 3,421 Frenchmen who volunteered to fight in the war ended as casualties -- 262 killed and 1,350 wounded.

A group of some 20 survivors were joined by French Secretary of State for Veterans Affairs Hamlaoui Mekachera for the week-long visit that included a trip Thursday to Panmunjom, the truce village where the armistice agreement that ended hostilities was signed on July 27, 1953.

The French battalion that fought in the 16-nation United Nations force was commanded at the outset by a legendary French warrior, Raoul Magrin-Vernerey.

In an unusual step the much-decorated officer better known to his men as Monclar gave up his rank of four-star general commanding an army corps so that he could lead the 3,000-strong contingent into battle as a lieutenant-colonel.

Only 250 of the French combatants who fought in Korea are alive today yet they still remember the battle 60 kilometers (36 miles) south of Seoul at Chipyong-ni in February 1951.

It was there in a shallow bowl of earth surrounded by wooded hills that UN forces began to drive the invaders back into retreat towards North Korea from where they had launched the June 1950 invasion of the South.

Fabienne Dufour, a daughter of Monclar, looking over the battle ground, said the visit was "extremely moving" and she was heartened "by the gratitude of the Koreans for what the French soldiers did here."

Andre Pointet, a major under Monclar, remembers the extreme violence of the fighting.

"It was madness," he recalled as he overlooked the zone where some 30,000 communist troops died under heavy US air bombardment.

"In a few days they used their entire month's supply of ammunition," he said of the Chinese forces.

Neither Pointet nor his comrades recognized much of the landscape that they had defended with their blood. Forests and fields have made way for highways and apartment blocks.

"When you go back to the battle fields, its often the case that the ridge you fought over is a parking lot," said retired lieutenant-colonel Yvon Lassays.

Some 200 UN troops died at Chipyong-ni, among a total of 624,000 allies killed during the conflict, according to Charles de Guine, a French Korean War expert. Some two million communist troops died, he said.

"It was a horrible war," said Mekachera, paying his respects to French soldiers who died at a memorial erected to their memory in Suwon, a town 40 kilometres (24 miles) south of Seoul.

"Rarely have men displayed such magnificence," he said. "Their bravery, heroism, in extreme climactic and operational difficulties, commands our respect even today."

WAR.WIRE