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The No Gun Ri massacre (also known as the No Gun Ri incident) is an event that occurred in the early part of the Korean War. In the South Korean village of No Gun Ri, from June 26 to June 29, 1950, the U.S. armed forces are said to have killed a number of Korean civilians; the circumstances of the killings, and the number of dead, have been matters of dispute. The incident was investigated in a well-publicized 1999 Associated Press report, and subsequently by the US and South Korean militaries.

Initial reports

Associated Press story

A July 25, 1950 Air Force memorandum states: "The army has requested we strafe all civilian refugee parties that are noted approaching our positions....To date we have complied with the army request in this respect." An Army inquiry would later find no source for such a suggestion.

The story was initially reported on by the Associated Press in 1999. In an investigation by reporters Charles J. Hanley, Sang-Hun Choe, and Martha Mendoza, the AP discovered numerous classified documents and interviewed many witnesses, including Korean survivors and members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. Documents retrieved in this investigation, such as a memo (dated July 25) of the U.S. Fifth Air Force regarding "Policy on Strafing Civilian Targets", suggested that there was an official policy in the U.S. Army to confront retreating civilians with force, by strafing, bombing, or shooting. In that memo, USAF Colonel Turner C. Rogers recalls that, "he army has requested that we strafe all civilian refugee parties that are noted approaching our positions," and that, "o date, we have complied with the army request in this respect." The memo says that bands of civilians have either been infiltrated by or are under the control of North Korean soldiers, but recommends that official policy be discriminate in targeting civilians only when "they are definitely known to contain North Korean soldiers or commit hostile acts." A similar naval document was found, an official inquiry later did not find a source request from the army. No documents were found which suggested that an order was given to the regiment at No Gun Ri to shoot at civilians. For this they relied on the testimony of witnesses. Martha Mendoza states:

Some of the veterans recall hearing orders, and we quoted them as hearing those orders to fire on civilians. We also in our reporting described some veterans who did not hear orders. Where those orders came from, we've tried to track down as best we could, and we're looking forward to the Pentagon getting to the bottom of it.

The three reporters were awarded the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, and their investigation later served as the basis for a book on the incident entitled, The Bridge of No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War.

The AP editor of the story, J. Robert Port was demoted to chief computer repairman after arguing for more than a year over whether or how to publish the story. The entire AP special assignment division was dissolved at the same time. Not sure if the AP would ever run the story, Port resigned in June 1999. In September 1999, seventeen months after the story was first found, the AP finally published the story. The Pulitzer Prize was the only investigative Pulitzer in AP’s history.

Media controversy

Soon after the awarding of the Pulitzer, however, a U.S. News & World Report article questioned the credibility of one of the witnesses relied upon in the AP report. Using the same Army records consulted by the AP, the news magazine pointed out the discrepencies which pointed towards fraud on the part of at least one key witness. The person in question was Edward Daily, who had claimed to have been eyewitness both to killings at No Gun Ri and an order to carry them out. The US News story alleged, based on army reports, that he was not in fact part of any unit at No Gun Ri anywhere near the time in question and was not, as he had claimed to have been, a machine-gunner. The AP initially stuck by Daily, who, in addition to his claims to the AP, had reaffirmed his claims to numerous media outlets, including an appearance on a Dateline NBC interview with NBC anchor Tom Brokaw:

Tom Brokaw: You heard that order?

Edward Daily: Yes, sir.

Brokaw: 'Kill them all?'

Edward Daily: Yes, sir.

However, after the expose by other journalism outlets, the AP reinterviewed Daily who, when confronted with army records which conflicted his personal testimony, finally admitted to them that he could not have been at the scene of the incident and instead had heard of it second hand. Daily was in fact a mechanic during the war and did not join the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry until 1951. He later plead guilty to defrauding the government for collecting over $300,000 in benefits for combat-releated trauma over nearly fifteen years.

Other servicemen who had not been interviewed by AP came forward and corroborated that US troops had purposefully fired upon civilians. Lawrence Levine and James Crume, who worked at the headquarters of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, said it was their opinion that the orders to shoot civilian refugees must have come from headquarters, though neither said that he actually saw or heard such an order.

Bateman book

Major Robert Bateman, a former member of the 7th Cavalry Regiment and an academic historian at West Point, authored a book after The Bridge at No Gun Ri was published. No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident is highly critical of the AP team's findings and calls into question both evidence presented to the reporters as well as their interpretation of the findings.

Daily, while having falsely corroborated the AP story and providing colorful descriptions of the incident, was claimed by the AP to not be central to the case and merely one witness of sixty interviewed; he was not mentioned in the AP report until the 56th paragraph. Bateman asserts that not only did the AP reporters refuse to recognize the flaws in his testimony, at Bateman's prodding before its release, but that Daily was more important than they suggested. Bateman believes that Daily, as a prominent member of the 7th Cavalry regimental association, had strong influence over other witnesses and that by virtue of his claims he "contaminated" the views and recollections of other veterans. Leaning upon academic research into memory modification, especially the work of psychiatrist Elizabeth Loftus, Bateman demonstrated the plasticity of memory and susceptibility of some "memories" to outside suggestions from an 'expert' such as Daily, who had written two books on the history of the unit. Another AP witness inadvertently demonstrated Bateman's point in a front-page New York Times article. Veteran Eugene Hesselman, would adamantly deny the charge that Daily was not at No Gun Ri when confronted; "I know that Daily was there. I know that. I know that." He and others, including Pfc. Delos Flint, come under scrutiny in Bateman's book for their recollection of events and are suggested to have not even been there just as Daily was not.

Bateman acknowledges in a debate with the Associated Press that "...the (US government) report stated that "an unknown number" died at No Gun Ri...."

The incident

The AP-based book describes the soldiers as, "green recruits of the U.S. occupation army in Japan thrown unprepared into the frontlines of war, teenagers who viewed unarmed farmers as enemies, led by officers who had never commanded men in battle." They were wary of civilians as being potential (North) Korean People's Army (NKPA) fighters; there were reports of captured enemy fighters as well as of Russian and Japanese weapons.

On the day prior to the incident, hundreds of Korean civilians were being evacuated in the vicinity, southward from Im Gae Ri and Joo Gok Ri, fleeing a North Korean advance. They were stopped by a roadblock at No Gun Ri and set on the railroad track which eventually led up to a bridge, where American forces had dug in. In order to compel the refugees to halt their advance from the line, US soldiers fired mortar rounds. Bateman describes this as "the dumbest possible action that could have been taken." Some Korean witnesses describe being strafed and bombed as they walked along the railway. Pictures taken on August 6 reveal possible recent strafing damage; Hanley, et al, contend the U.S. forces called in strikes. Bateman believes this to be impossible because of the incompatibility between army and air force radios (AM vs. FM) and the fact that the same unit could not stop a USAF strafing of their own position the very next day due to the lack of such radios; he claims the witnesses may have confused the mortars for bombs, and that the strafing shown in the photographs could have been from that period, or could have been from a later period days or weeks after the events.

The most contested claim concerns the body count. Bateman believes it to be merely a few dozen due to mortar rounds and then a short (30-90 seconds) of gunfire from the troops which occurred when the troops panicked and believed they were under fire themselves. Some Korean victims have claimed numbers in the hundreds. A report of the Yongdong County Office in South Korea claimed the total number of civilian casualties (injured, missing, or killed) to be 248. It's not entirely clear what happened to all the bodies in any case. Declassified reconnaissance photos revealed no sprawling corpses nor indicated potential graves. Hanley has suggested that they were not in the open because they were stacked by local villagers beneath soil under parts of the bridge. Bateman contends that the soil required for burying hundreds of corpses even at a shallow level would have meant an excavation of soil so large (the remains alone for 300 small humans would be, roughly, 20 tons) that it would be visible in the photos. Korean witnesses did testify to stacking bodies, however, but Bateman believes the number of victims are conflated with other incidents in the vicinity during the war, and in the same timeframe. Citing the psychiatric studies, he points out that none of the Koreans may believe they are lying, and he believes many if not most were fired upon by U.S. troops (he cites at least nine incidents that he found, and suspects dozens of other times where U.S. troops fired upon civilians in that period), just not all at the same time, and in the same place, at No Gun Ri.

Official Army inquiry

The result of the official Army inquiry was released in January 2001. Among its findings:

U.S. forces were inadequately trained to deal with mass refugees, which were causing problems on the battlefield.
Official policy emphasized the role of South Korean authorities in dealing with refugees.
Policies enacted regarding refugees were that they were prohibited from crossing battle lines (positions where there is contact or expectation of contact with the enemy) as well as having a night curfew.
The 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from a position east of Yongdong to No Gun Ri, believing they were under attack; the withdraw was highly disorganized.
The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment showed up in the afternoon of the 26th to the east of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, relieving the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment.
During July 27 to 29, the forces believed they were under enemy attack.
Official policy discouraged large evacuations so as not to clog roads and supply lines; it is unknown why so many were evacuated.
U.S. forces were not responsible for the large evacuations in the vicinity; they may have evacuated Im Gae Ri but if so they were not 7th Cavalry Regiment soldiers.
There were no airstrikes in the afternoon of July 26 in the vicinity of No Gun Ri. The only airstrikes during this period were a friendly fire incident on July 27 which caused the cavalry commander to request a Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) and a strike on NKPA forces on July 28 near the 1st Battalion.
Only TACPs had the ability to communicate with aircraft; there were none in the vicinity during the time period of July 26 to 29.
No USAF veterans interviewed participated in the strafing of civilians in the vicinity of No Gun Ri in late July.
The Navy found no evidence of its aircraft in the vicinity except on July 28, when it "attacked a railroad tunnel occupied by enemy troops and other targets forward of the 7th Cavalry in the direction of Yongdong with bombs and machine guns."
Images dated August 6 and September 19 show no signs of bombing but, "some patterns near the tracks approximately 350 yards from the double railroad overpass show "an imagery signature of probable strafing"", the same location identified by witnesses as being where they were strafed.
No evidence of an air strike on July 26 but number of eyewitnesses shows it can not be precluded.
Separate strikes on July 27 and 28 (on friendly and enemy targets, respectively) could have caused civilian casualties.
A strike could have occurred in this period which killed civilians but it did not target them.
Veterans heard various types of fire near unidentified individuals in civilian clothing outside of the tunnels and bridges in the vicinity; some reported seeing or receiving hostile fire from civilians; other civilians had shots fired near them to prevent them from moving.
"Although the U.S. Review Team cannot determine what happened near No Gun Ri with certainty, it is clear, based upon all available evidence, that an unknown number of Korean civilians were killed or injured by the effects of small-arms fire, artillery and mortar fire, and strafing that preceded or coincided with the NKPA's advance and the withdrawal of U.S. forces in the vicinity of No Gun Ri during the last week of July 1950. These Korean deaths and injuries occurred at different locations in the vicinity of No Gun Ri and were not concentrated exclusively at the double railroad overpass."
Estimates of the time length of fire range from a few minutes to four days.
U.S. commanders did not issue orders to fire on civilians in No Gun Ri during July 25-29.
Pilots were not ordered to kill civilians in the vicinity of No Gun Ri.
Interviewed veterans said deadly force was not authorized against civilians who posed no threat, and they were not given orders to shoot and kill civilians.
Some veterans believed they had the ability to use deadly force if civilians did not halt from passing their position.
Some veterans believed there was an order to fire on civilians because the weapons used may have hit civilians; they did not hear any such order and do not know who would have given it or when; other veterans maintain there was no such order.
There was a reference to firing upon civilians who refused to stop in an army log of the 8th Cavalry Regiment; this regiment was not in the vicinity during the time period and there is nothing suggesting this message was transmitted to other regiments.
The number of casualties is unascertainable by witnesses; the 248 figure is unverified.

The summary concludes:

"Neither the documentary evidence nor the U.S. veterans’ statements reviewed by the U.S. Review Team support a hypothesis of deliberate killing of Korean civilians. What befell civilians in the vicinity of No Gun Ri in late July 1950 was a tragic and deeply regrettable accompaniment to a war forced upon unprepared U.S. and ROK forces."

President Bill Clinton expressed U.S. regret over Korean civilian deaths, the U.S. and South Korea issued a joint "statement of mutual understanding" which stated that there were no orders to fire on civilians.

References

"Incident at No Gun Ri" Online Newshour, May 31 2000
"What really happened at No Gun Ri?" Judith Greer, Salon.com, June 3 2002
"Report of the No Gun Ri Review" Official U.S. Army inquiry, January 2001
"Joint Report: GIs Killed Refugees" News-Gazette, January 11 2001
"No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War"

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