Controversies of the Korean War: The Tragedy at No Gun-ri – Part #1

Who Were the Soldiers of the 7th Cavalry?

The tragedy at No Gun-ri has been a point of much debate since the publishing of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning article from the Associated Press that suggests that the soldiers of the US 7th Cavalry are heartless killers of helpless Korean civilians while acting on the orders of even greater heartless leaders from above. I believe before condemning soldiers especially those who didn’t even volunteer to go to war, but were conscripted as heartless war criminals it is important to understand the context of the situation that these men were put into. The original AP article dismisses these men as “poorly trained and ill equipped”, I hope to show through closer analysis why these men were ill trained and poorly equipped and how this was one of the factors that led to what I call the “perfect storm” of events that ultimately ended with the tragedy at No Gun-ri.

Before the outbreak of the Korean War the soldiers involved in the tragedy at No Gun-ri, soldiers from H Company, 2 Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment which were part of the 1st Cavalry Divison. They were stationed in Japan conducting peacekeeping operations in the aftermath of World War II. Due to budgetary reasons most of the resources for training soldiers at the combined arms level were diverted to Europe because of the looming Soviet threat there. No one ever envisioned a war in Korea. This lack of vision would become one of many factors that led to the tragedy at No Gun-ri.

The soldiers of the 7th Cavalry did not train at anything above the company level and spent much of their time conducting occupation related duties, not to mention hanging out at the local clubs at all hours of the night. Plus the units were all short of personnel especially noncommissioned officers (NCOs) to keep the Army divisions in Europe fully manned against the more immediate Soviet threat there. The 7th Cavalry was full of young, patriotic, soldiers who grew up on John Wayne movies and were eager to serve their country. However the majority of these young soldiers were not old enough to have served during World War II and lacked combat experience.

There were a few NCOs and officers in the unit that did have combat experience. However, when the war in Korea did break out the experienced NCOs from the 7th Cavalry were pulled to fill units from the 24th Infantry Division that were the first division in Japan to deploy to Korea to delay the North Korean advance that included units such as Task Force Smith.

I have always found this statement from T.R. Fehrenbach (pg102) to best describe the state of the US military leading up the Korean War:

..the abiding weakness of free peoples is that their governments cannot or will not make them prepare or sacrifice before they are aroused.

The military had been under funded for years after World War II and the politicians were unwilling to raise the amount of money necessary to ensure the military was properly trained and equipped. Additionally the initial sanatizing of the war by the government as a “Police Action” did not arouse the citizens of the United States enough to be committed to a full scale war. This failure at the governmental level all had a part to play with the tragedy at No Gun-ri.

From Pohang to No Gun-ri

Once it came time for the 1st Cavalry Division to deploy to Korea, it was deployed in piece meal and not as a complete division due to the nature of limited ports in Korea and the division being spread out all over Japan due to occupation duties. So when the 2-7 Cav’s transport from Japan arrived in Korea on July 22, 1950 they were acting semi-autonomous from the division command structure they were used to, plus they were about to undertake operations they had never trained for because they had never done any training above the company level and were about to undertake operations in a major theater war that featured many uncontemporary operating environment problems, such as security in the rear areas and a massive refugee crisis no one had any prior experience or training to deal with. Refugees was almost a totally new concept because the US military had little experience dealing with a mass refugee crisis during World War II. In Korea the US forces were faced with a refugee crisis of epic proportions that no one expected.

To deal with the refugee crisis the soldiers on the ground were literally making up doctrine as they went through trial and error. To make matters worse they were short NCO’s across the regiment that enforce standards. It was so bad that there was some Private First Classes serving as Platoon Sergeants. The officer ranks weren’t much better as the battalion only had one officer with combat experience at the time and that was the commander of G company, 2-7 Cav, CPT Henry West. This lack of inexperience and training would all have a part to play in the tragedy that would occur four days later.

Almost from the moment the 7th Cavalry regiment unloaded their boats and moved out of Pohang to fight the North Koreans the stragglers of soldiers from the 24th Infantry Division who had been defeated by the North Koreans, and who were retreating South told tales of how the North Koreans were dressing up as civilians to enter the rear areas of the American units to the 7th Cav soldiers.

Here is this report from Robert Bateman’s book, No Gun-ri, that chronicles this fear:

… a civilian woman who appeared pregnant and her male companion who were attempting to pass through American lines. At an American checkpoint there were stopped and searched along with other civilians in the group. At that point the searchers discovered that the pregnancy was not real , and that the bulge covered by the woman’s clothing was actually a two way tactical radio. The woman immediately confessed that she was North Korean and was sent to observe and report American positions and to call for artillery fire on them.

Then reports of American GI’s in the rear found with their hands tied behind their backs and shot in the head began to circulate among the soldiers as well. Long before the 7th Cav had ever reached their defensive positions near Hwanggan there had been plenty of warning about the dangers of letting refugees through the front lines. This was something that was in the back of all the soldiers minds more than the North Korean Army they had yet to face.

The night of 25-26 July, 1950 these inexperienced soldiers would have their first experience with what was then known as the “bug out” syndrome that happened to US soldiers in the early days of the Korean War. At about 0200 that night one of the last elements of the 24ID that was lost and unaccounted for finally found the proper road to retreat south on. This unit included a company of tanks. The road they moved south on went right through the 7th Cav’s defensive lines.

It was dark, their was no night vision devices back then, no communications with anyone in the 24ID, lack of combat experience, and just plain fear that caused the soldier of the 7th Cavalry to open up fire on the American unit. The 24ID unit just simply drove through the hail of gun fire and continued their retreat south not really knowing who was firing on them. Fortunately no one from the unit was killed.

Many soldiers of the 7th Cavalry thought that the retreating company of tanks was in fact a North Korean armored column moving through their lines and opened fire. Experienced NCO’s could of detected the sound of the tanks as American tanks and not North Korean tanks, but remember all the experienced NCO’s from the division got pulled in Japan weeks prior, to serve with the 24ID, leaving the 7th Cavalry with no experienced NCO’s. Remember there was Private First Classes serving as Platoon Sergeants. The now, even more frightful soldiers, were thinking that the North Koreans were in their rear waiting to kill them and many soldiers just simply “bugged out” after the tanks passed and left their fighting positions and retreated. Nobody in the infantry likes to have tanks in front of them much less behind them as well.

CPT Melbourne Chandler the commander of H/2-7CAV was able to consolidate some of his retreating troops and other stragglers of the 7th Cavalry in the predawn darkness to form a defensive line with this hodgepodge of troops. The defensive perimeter was set up on a small hill overlooking a bridge near a place called No Gun-ri.

Next Posting: What Happened at No Gun-ri?