MASSACRE AT NO GUN RI

Virtual Truth Commission

Chronology of the Massacre

On July 26-29, 1950, 300-400 Korean refugees fleeing their villages, leading ox carts and carrying their children, headed south toward the village of No Gun Ri, 100 miles southeast of Seoul. The North Korean invasion was progressing in full force. The Americans facing them, members of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment, First Cavalry Division, had just arrived three days before; they were said to be poorly armed and poorly trained. There were fears that North Koreans had infiltrated among the refugees, and if the refugees were allowed through the lines, the North Koreans would then attack the Americans from their rear. The refugees were ordered off the road and onto parallel railroad tracks, and then under a railroad culvert. Over the next three days, the Americans kept the refugees pinned down under the culvert, and eventually killed nearly all of them.

Nearly 50 years later, a more open political situation in South Korea finally permitted 30 survivors to press their claims. The Associated Press interviewed ex-GIs who had been there. The GIS referred to "100 or 200 or "hundreds" dead. The Koreans, whose claim for compensation was rejected last year, say 300 were killed at the bridge and 100 in a preceding air attack...The ex-GIs described other refugee killings as well in the war's first weeks, when U.S. commanders ordered their troops to shoot civilians, citizens of an allied nation, as a defense against disguised enemy soldiers, according to once-classified documents found by the AP in U.S. military archives." In discussing No Gun Ri, some ex-GIs told of the killing in chilling detail, while others "abruptly ended their interviews."

"Six veterans of the 1st Cavalry Division said they fired on the civilians at No Gun Ri, and six others said they witnessed the mass killing. "We just annihilated them," said ex-machine gunner Norman Tinkler of Glasco, Kan. After five decades, none gave a complete, detailed account. But the ex-GIs agreed on such elements as time and place, and on the preponderance of women, children and old men among the victims." There were reports of hostile fire from the refugees which some remember, others don't. "Both the Koreans and several ex-GIs said the killing began when American planes suddenly swooped in and strafed an area where the white-clad refugees were resting. Bodies fell everywhere, and terrified parents dragged their children into a narrow culvert beneath the tracks, the Koreans said. Some ex-GIs believe the strafing was a mistake, that the pilots were supposed to strike enemy artillery miles up the road. But declassified U.S Air Force reports from mid-1950, found by the AP, show that pilots also sometimes deliberately attacked "people in white," apparently suspecting disguised North Korean soldiers were among them."

Sang-Hun Choe, Charles J. Hanley and Martha Mendoza, Associated Press Writers, with AP Investigative Researcher Randy Herschaft, "Ex-GIs Tell AP of Korea Killing, in Horace Coleman, A Korean War My Lai, Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, September 29, 1999

Two Officers

The accounts contrasted the conduct of two officers. Robert M Carroll, then a first lieutenant, and now (1999) a retired Colonel, remembers 7th Cavalry riflemen firing on the refugees. Orders had come down from First Cavalry Division headquarters, "No refugees to cross the front line. Fire everyone trying to cross lines. Use discretion in case of women and children." A neighboring U.S Army division, in its order, said civilians "are to be considered enemy." Experts in law state such orders to shoot civilians are plainly illegal. Carroll was able to get the rifleman to cease fire and shepherded a boy to safety under the "double-arched concrete railroad bridge nearby, where shaken and wounded Koreans were gathering. Carroll saw no threat from the mainly women, children, and elderly people, and then left the area.

Captain Melbourne C. Chandler, the heavy-weapons company commander, according to accounts of the veterans, spoke with superior officers by radio and then ordered machine gunners to open fire. One veteran recalled him saying, "...Let's get rid of all of them". Chandler is now dead and Herbert B. Heyer, now 88, the batallion commander, stated "I know I didn't give such an order." "The Korean claimants said those near the tunnel entrances died first "People pulled dead bodies around them for protection," said survivor Chung Koo-ho, 61 "Mothers wrapped their children with blankets and hugged them with their backs toward the entrances .. My mother died on the second day of shooting."

In preparing their story, "the AP reconstructed U.S troop movements from map coordinates in declassified U.S war records, narrowed the possibilities among Army units, then spent months tracing veterans -some 130 interviews by telephone and in person -to pinpoint the companies involved.
Sang-Hun Choe, Charles J. Hanley and Martha Mendoza, Associated Press Writers, with AP Investigative Researcher Randy Herschaft, "Ex-GIs Tell AP of Korea Killing, in Horace Coleman, A Korean War My Lai, Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, September 29, 1999

Analysis

"Some elements of the No Gun Ri episode are unclear: What chain of officers gave open-fire orders? Did GIs see gunfire from the refugees or their own ricochets? How many soldiers refused to fire? How high in the ranks did knowledge of the events extend?

"The U.S government's civil liability may be limited. It is largely protected by U.S law against foreign lawsuits related to "combatant activities," although the claimants say the killings were not directly combat-related.

"War crimes prosecution appears even less likely The U.S military code condemns indiscriminate killing of civilians, even if a few enemy soldiers are among a large number of noncombatants killed, legal experts note. But prosecution so many years later is a practical impossibility, they say.
Sang-Hun Choe, Charles J. Hanley and Martha Mendoza, Associated Press Writers, with AP Investigative Researcher Randy Herschaft, "Ex-GIs Tell AP of Korea Killing, in Horace Coleman, A Korean War My Lai, Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, September 29, 1999

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