Out of Asia

While a U.S. Army band tootled Hearts of Stone, 787 Canadian infantrymen trudged down the gangplank of a U.S. Navy transport in Seattle harbor one day last week. They were officers and men of the 2nd Battalion, Queen's Own Rifles of Canada, heading home after a year of exacting but unspectacular service along the Korean truce line.

Unless a new crisis develops, the Queen's Own will probably be the last major Canadian army unit to serve in Korea. A 200-man field ambulance unit and the 900-man crew of the destroyer Sioux are the only Canadians left there of some 33,100* who served during and after the war. Canada is now negotiating with other Commonwealth countries and with the U.S. to withdraw all Canadian forces from the Far East. A Black Watch battalion originally scheduled to replace the homecoming Queen's Own got last-minute orders not to embark. The informal explanation was that Canada's participation in the Korean theater would probably be ended before the contingent could cross the Pacific.

* Casualties: 415 dead or missins and presumed dead, 1,212 wounded and injured.

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