General Curtis E LeMay, who commanded the US's, and thus the UN's bombing strategy, delivered this impression: "We burned down every town in North Korea and in South Korea too".

Sure, the Russian-backed North Koreans and the Chinese inflicted a great deal of material damage, but when it came to the people of Korea it was the American strategy, from MacArthur down, which deliberately failed to discriminate between friend and foe.

This comparatively brief war, which cost the Koreans over two million non-combatant dead, followed thirty years of brutally repressive and economically rapacious Japanese colonisation - which was in turn followed by the dictatorship over South Korea of the American installed puppet, Syngman Rhee.

When the people had had enough of Rhee, he was evidently spirited off to Hawaii by the CIA with a good portion of the country's treasury in his pocket.

South Korea was, in all respects, a basket case - without a basket - and with very little hope of Western help with its rebuilding as all available resources for such a purpose were tied up with the rehabilitation of Germany and Japan.

With no natural resources other than the strength and the will of its people - the population of which was bulging with a massive inflow of refugees from the north - South Korea set about its recovery.

At this time, Australia, truly the Lucky Country riding high on wheat, wool, an emerging abundance of just about every kind of mineral resource, and the security of its remoteness, was thriving.

Astonishingly, and despite the massive ongoing cost of military defences against the bellicose North, South Korea is today ranked (by the International Monetary Fund) the 11th largest economy in terms of GDP - one place ahead of Russia and two ahead of Australia.

With a population now of over fifty million, it is a country full of surprises and very well worth visiting. Over the years since our marriage in Seoul in 1970, when I was a young diplomat on my second posting, my wife and I have visited regularly and have witnessed many stages of the country's remarkable development. A development which, to us, has been built on an as yet unshakable foundation of family and community values, energy and vision.

These days, our visits centre on Suwon, a city of 1.3 million, where some of our family live and others are nearby.

It is about half an hour by fast train - trains which now criss-cross the country at speed potentials exceeding 300 kilometres-per-hour - south of the Capital, Seoul.

Modern day Suwon surrounds the picturesque remnants of the high stone-walled Hwaesong Fortress, which was completed in 1796 preparatory to an intended move of the capital from Seoul.

Hwaesong is just one of a vast array of physical remnants of Korea's ancient civilisation that are scattered throughout the peninsular.

Suwon and its surrounds are representative of modern-day South Korea. At this time of the year, its warming days are still refreshed by cool breezes and its extensive rose gardens are coming into full bloom - in succession to the massive Spring displays of multi-coloured azaleas.

Living is very different to Australia, concentrated as it is in archipelagos of high rise residential developments and bustling downtown malls of eye-popping style and diversity.

The surrounding countryside sweeps down from rugged, heavily forrested hills through tight valleys over clear rivers and streams and, a little later in the year, the richly restless gold of the vast and timeless rice fields - which belie today's highly innovative and sophisticated farming techniques.