'At 19, I brushed with death': Glasgow soldier and football scout Bobby Dinnie shares Korean War diary

It was a brutal conflict, in which five million people died, including 1100 British servicemen.

Glasgow man Bobby Dinnie, well known in the city as a famous football scout, will never forget his time in the warzone.

“We were told we were going to Singapore, so it was quite a shock to find out we were going to Korea,” he explains.

“We knew it was a dangerous place – but we had no idea it was going to be so terrible.”

Bobby, from Possilpark, was already a big football fan in Glasgow when, at the age of 19, he was called up to serve in the army.

He has kept his diary of his time in Korea in 1952, which he has shared with Times Past. The first entry reads: “It all started round about the end of April, when we were told we were going to Korea.

“It came as quite a shock to some of us as we were just celebrating our nineteenth birthdays….”

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Later, he describes the moment he and his fellow soldiers arrived in Korea off the boat.

“When we docked we were played off by a band to the tune of ‘If I Knew You Were Coming I’d Have Baked a Cake’ and on leaving the ship, we soon discovered Korea is what they all say it is – a filthy, mucky, hole…”

In his book, Scout: The Bobby Dinnie Story, Bobby recalls being taken to the camp which would become his home for the next few months.

“The journey was exceedingly uncomfortable, the seats on the train were hard wood…the camp wasn’t too bad, mind you, consisting of typical rows of tents and camp beds. We settled for a few days just breaking into our rhythm and way of life so far away from our homes in more ways than one.”

The worst moment, however, came one night when he and another young man, Robert Marshall, were on watch-duties in a trench when suddenly a huge bang rang out.

“It was very close and I didn’t have to think how near we were to immediate danger,” says Bobby. “The bullets hit me and my friend, both in the neck.

“I was one of the lucky ones. I was just wounded. They couldn’t save Robert.”

Bobby adds: “I was taken to the medical place, they gave me brandy to drink, and I saw all the body bags – that image has never left me. It was a shocking time. We were all so young.”

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Bobby returned home to Glasgow six months later.

“The end to hostilities was agreed and we found ourselves on a very welcoming trip back to Hong Kong and to safety,” he says.

“Korea was indeed a black hole of a place. I lost some young friends during the conflict in Korea, many were thankfully only injured and thankfully survived.

“At just 19 years old I brushed with death but swept cleanly by luck, and of course, thanks to God, I am living to this day to tell of that awful time.”

Bobby, who was born in 1933, went on to work at the White Horse distillery in Port Dundas for 26 years, ending up as a manager, then became head commissionaire at Strathclyde Police HQ in Pitt Street.

He is married to Betty, and has two sons, Robert and Russell (named after the Rangers player Bobby Russell), five grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. He retired from scouting for Partick Thistle at the age of 80.

Bobby’s memories of life in Maryhill and Possil, and of his time as Glasgow’s most famous football scout, have been turned into a book. The Scout: The Bobby Dinnie Story, is available on Amazon.