Korea during its hot summer months becomes a land of insects and reptiles. In the tents at night, ...

Korea during its hot summer months becomes a land of insects and reptiles. In the tents at night, huge moths with four inch wingspans batter the lights alongside giant mosquitoes, and big rhinoceros beetles that fly in a vertical position, instead of horizontally, and look like fearsome prehistoric monsters against the lamps. Outdoors, the paddy fields are alive with noisy frogs and great horned toads live well on a diet of outsize earwigs and spiders. But the snakes are the big worry. One company of the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), killed 74 snakes in about half an hour in its bivouac area during a recent exercise, and the Commander of 28 British Commonwealth Infantry Brigade, Brigadier I T Murdoch found that two more snakes had elected to slough their skins in his camp bath. One British officer on the Brigade, Captain Alan Thorpe, walked into his tent one morning last week and found the sandbagged wall an or two from his bed, occupied by a pair of grass snakes. Private (Pte) Ernest 'Rick' Harvey of Warrawong, NSW, came to the rescue. Pte Harvey killed one of the intruders, but the other escaped. Here Pte Harvey (left) holding his trophy, while Brigadier Murdoch's driver, 310295 Pte Gordon Kenneth 'Percy' Purcell of Toowoomba, Qld, cautiously looks for its mate. Pte Harvey is 24 and has been in the army for three years. Before that he was a tally clerk and lead miner at Mount Isa. he has been in Korea for six months. Pte Purcell joined the Australian Army in London in 1951 and has been in Korea for four months. (Original British Commonwealth Forces Korea (BCFK) Public Relations caption). Pte Harvey is probably 13420 Pte Ernest Raymond Harvey.