Tag: Korean War

For this week’s #TBT, we’re going a little more lighthearted. Marilyn Monroe, one of the world’s more famous actresses, appearing with the #USO Camp Show, “anything Goes,” poses for the shutterbugs after a performance at the 3rd U.S. Inf. Div. area.1954. (U.S. Army photo by Cpl. Welshman.)  [USFK Facebook page]

For some of you that served in the Korean War or had family members who did maybe you can help identify some of the people in these photos:

More than 5.7 million Americans served in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. The U.S. Department of Defense chronicled America’s involvement through photographs, a collection of which found its way into the care of Air Force veteran Betty Perkins-Carpenter, a resident of Penfield, New York. Now, Perkins-Carpenter would like to pass on these original photos, which remain in excellent quality, to the men and women pictured in them or their families.

The Democrat and Chronicle, owned by the same parent company as Army Times, has teamed up with Kodak Alaris to share the photos with a wide audience. Digital files scanned by Kodak Alaris have been used to create this website.

Keep an eye open for people or places you might recognize. You can search the gallery for a name, hometown, battle or date by using the search bar below. Click a photo to view it in a larger format and access a link to email Perkins-Carpenter to inquire about a photo.  [Army Times]

You can read more at the link.

Considering that last year the North Korean government spent a lot of money renovating a Korean War cemetery honoring North Korean veterans of the Korean War; I would not be surprised if the Chinese leadership were unhappy that their cemetery did not receive the same treatment:

North Korea has begun renovation work on a cemetery in the North’s capital for Chinese soldiers who were killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, China’s state media reported Tuesday.

China’s ambassador to North Korea, Liu Hongcai, attended a ceremony in Pyongyang to celebrate the start of renovation work, the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, reported on its website. [Yonhap]

 

Basic Information

• Name: Mitchell Red Cloud Jr.
• Born: July 2, 1924
• Died: November 5, 1950
• Korean War Service: 2-19 Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division
• Posthumously recognized with the Medal of Honor in 1951.

Picture of Mitchell Red Cloud Jr. in his US Army uniform. Picture via FreeRepublic.com.

Introduction

For soldiers that receive orders to the 2nd Infantry Division located near the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea one of the camps that all soldiers will eventually visit or at least hear about is Camp Red Cloud. This camp is located in the commuter city of Uijongbu just north of South Korea’s capitol of Seoul. Camp Red Cloud is home to 2ID’s division headquarters and other support units. Though every soldier in the 2nd Infantry Division knows of Camp Red Cloud very few actually know who the camp is named after. I can remember when I once had a lieutenant ask me if the camp was named after the sunsets seen from the camp over the mountains in the evenings. What many people do not realize is that Camp Red Cloud is actually named after a person and not for any red clouds seen in the air. The person the camp is named for is Mitchell Red Cloud Jr. who was recognized with the Medal of Honor for combat actions during the Korean War.

Mitchell Red Cloud Jr. was born on July 2, 1924 in Hatfield, Wisconsin on the traditional lands of the Winnebago Native-American tribe to Mitchell Red Cloud Sr. and Lillian Winneshiek. Mitchell Jr. was the oldest of three boys that the couple would have. As a boy Mitchell Jr. was well known for his outdoor skills that he perfected while going on hunting and fishing trips on the reservation. Mitchell Jr.’s schooling began at the Clay and Komensky Rural School before moving on to the Winnebago Indian School for a year. For high school he enrolled in the Black River Falls High School before deciding to drop out at the age of 16.

Red Cloud During World War II

Mitchell Jr. made the decision to drop out of high school because he wanted to pursue a career in the US military. Just one month after his 17th birthday he received permission from his dad to enlist in the Marine Corps. Red Cloud’s enlistment date into the Marines was on August 11, 1941. Due to his outdoors skills and physical conditioning honed from growing up on the Indian Reservation, Red Cloud excelled at boot camp and became an outstanding Marine. His first duty assignment was at Camp Elliot in San Diego when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. After the bombing Red Cloud was assigned to the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion and deployed to the Pacific to fight in World War II. In November 1942, the then Private First Class Mitchell Red Cloud found himself in heavy combat on the island of Guadalcanal which was the scene of some of the most ferocious fighting of all of World War II.

Red Cloud spent a month in the jungle with the Raider Battalion fighting the Japanese on the island. After the US military was able to secure Guadalcanal from the Japanese, Red Cloud like many other personnel that served on the island became sick with the tropical diseases malaria and jaundice. He suffered extreme weight loss and was sent back to the US for medical evaluation in January 1943. The medical personnel recommended a discharge for Red Cloud but he refused. Red Cloud’s refusal to accept a discharge saw him redeployed to the Pacific theater again just in time to participate in another brutal fight against the Japanese; this time on the island of Okinawa. On May 17, 1945 while serving as a radio operator during the Battle of Okinawa PFC Red Cloud was shot in his left shoulder. He was medically evacuated to Guam for treatment before being shipped back to the US.

Picture of Mitchell Red Cloud in his Marine Corps uniform during World War II. Picture via Wikipedia.

With World War II over Red Cloud accepted his discharge from the Marines on November 9, 1945. The Marines gave him an honorable discharge and $56.70 before he returned to the Winnebago Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. While on the reservation Red Cloud got married and his wife gave birth to a daughter. Despite these personal developments in his life outside the military, Red Cloud decided after only two years on the reservation to reenlist in the US military. Red Cloud decided this time to not join the Marines, but instead the US Army in 1948. I wasn’t able to find anything definitive on why Red Cloud reenlisted in the military, but maybe he just grew restless after experiencing so much combat during World War II? Maybe it was just the more practical matter of providing for his family that caused him to reenlist in the military? His younger brother who had enlisted in the Army had just did in a peace time training accident; so maybe Mitchell enlisted in honor of his brother? Finally maybe he enlisted because after spending two years away from the Army he realized he is a true warrior and the military was his calling? For whatever the reasons were the US Army was getting an experienced soldier that was badly needed in the US military that had lost the vast majority of its combat veterans due to the post-World War II drawdown.

Red Cloud During the Korean War

The first unit Red Cloud was assign to was E company, 2 battalion, 19 Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division. The 24 ID at the time was responsible for conducting peacekeeping duties on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. The assignment to Japan must have seemed like easy duty for Red Cloud compared to what he had been through during World War II. However, the relaxed time he spent in Japan didn’t last long when on July 3, 1950 the 24th ID was deployed to the Korean peninsula to stop the communist backed North Korean military that had invaded South Korea. The North Korean military crossed the DMZ that separates the two countries on June 25, 1950 and appeared to be on its way to reuniting the country that had been divided by US and Russian occupation forces after World War II. US President Harry Truman however decided to militarily intervene to stop the communist invasion of the Korean peninsula and the only troops immediately available to deploy to Korea were the peacekeeping troops located in Japan. Most of these troops were draftees that had not fought during World War II and had little combat training while stationed in Japan. Though these troops were eager to fight in what was being called a “police action” at the time; it would be up to hardened World War II vets like Mitchell Red Cloud to get these guys ready for battle. Red Cloud at the time of his deployment to Korea was a 25 year old Corporal who was respected by the men in his unit due to his prior combat experience.  He had the nickname “Chief”, was easy going, and was quick to give advice to the younger troops that all looked up to him.  They would soon learn to respect him even more.

Taskforce Smith soldiers arrive in Daejon during the Korean War, picture via Wikipedia.

Of the four US military divisions stationed in Japan, the 24ID was chosen to be the first to deploy to Korea.  The first element of the 24th Infantry Division to arrive in Korea was the ill fated Taskforce Smith that first saw action against the North Korean military just south of Osan. The light infantry unit found themselves in battle against a foe with Soviet provided tanks and due to the superior firepower Taskforce Smith was soundly defeated.  You can read more about Taskforce Smith at the below link:

• Heroes of the Korean War: Lieutenant Colonel Charles B. Smith

Defeat would become a reoccurring theme for the other 24th ID units who were thrown into combat against the North Koreans with little to no weapons to combat the North Korean tanks. The battlefield chaos for the 24th ID reached its climax when the Division Commander Major General William Dean was captured during the Battle of Taejon. You can read more about General Dean at the below link:

• Heroes of the Korean War: Major General William Dean

This was the chaos that Corporal Red Cloud found himself in that most have been vastly different experience for him compared to his time in World War II. During that war he had fought in many successful battles against a much more dangerous enemy and now just a few years later he was part of one of the greatest military debacles in US history.

The 24th ID may have been soundly defeated by the North Koreans, but it and the other divisions from Japan that were thrown into battle, did enough to slow down the North Korean invasion until more troops from the US could arrive to help hold the Pusan Perimeter. Red Cloud and the rest of the men in the 2-19 Infantry Regiment saw combat soon after arriving in country on July 12, 1950. The unit saw combat during the defense of Daejon and then moved south towards Taegu and held part of the line along the Pusan Perimeter. Eventually General Douglas MacArthur would execute his famed Incheon Landing Operation that changed the course of the war and threw the North Koreans into a massive retreat. This allowed the 24th ID to reconstitute itself and soon enough Corporal Red Cloud and the rest of the personnel in the division were crossing the DMZ into North Korea to finish the war. In November 1950 the US military and its United Nations allies who had recently deployed troops to Korea, had advanced deep into North Korea when unbeknownst to them the Chinese military had decided to come to the aid of their communist ally North Korea. The unexpected attack by the Chinese caused the US and UN forces to a massive retreat that was quickly turning into yet another military debacle. This was the state of the war that Corporal Red Cloud now found himself in as he sat in a listening post on a hill north of the Chongchon River in North Korea on November 5, 1950.

The Chongchon River can be seen at the very bottom of the map which is located just north of the North Korean capitol city of Pyongyang. To the northwest of the river the positions of the 19th Infantry Regiment on November 1, 1950 can be seen. Map via Wikipedia.

The UN forces were in retreat and the bridge across the Chongchon River was a critical asset to support the southward movement of friendly forces. The 27th British Commonwealth Regiment which had just recently deployed to Korea and Red Cloud’s 19th Infantry Regiment were both positioned on the north side of the river to defend the bridge on November 2, 1950. Due to the shortage in personnel there was a five mile gap between the two units that was to be patrolled to prevent infiltration by the Chinese. However, the patrols ended up proving ineffective as the Chinese were able to successfully probe and discover this gap between the two units.

On the night of November 5, 1950 a 1,000 Chinese soldiers from the 355th Regiment were able to follow field telephone lines laid down in this gap to the positions of the 19th Infantry Regiment. Fortunately for E Company they had someone in a listening post that night that was awake and very attentive in looking for any Chinese infiltrating towards their position on Hill 123. That man was Corporal Red Cloud. A friend of Red Cloud’s in the company, Private First Class Ed Svach would later tell how Corporal Red Cloud had once told him that he could smell the Chinese coming. Red Cloud said, “It’s like hunting those Wisconsin deer. I can smell them coming.”

Red Cloud had been in a listening post that night with his assistant machine gunner on a ridge below the company command post. Red Cloud also knew how the Chinese liked to attack. The Chinese would launch a small frontal attack to draw attention that way but the main attack force would actually be infiltrating from the sides and rear. That is why Red Cloud set up his listening post to the side and rear of the company command post. At 3:20 AM in the morning Red Cloud let out a cry when he spotted Chinese infiltrating towards the E Company position who were following the communications wire leading to the command post. After being spotted the Chinese charged Red Cloud’s position from a 100 feet away and shot and killed his assistant machine gunner. Using his Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), Red Cloud stood up out of his listening post and unleashed direct fire into the advancing Chinese. Red Cloud’s direct fire slowed the Chinese assault and bought time for the Company Commander, Captain Conway to wake everyone up and consolidate the defense of the E Company position.  Unfortunately Red Cloud’s warning was not enough to alert everyone in the company in time because the Chinese were able to shoot some of the US soldiers in their sleeping bags.  E Company was getting over run and one veteran of the battle is quoted in John McCain’s book, “Why Courage Matters” as saying:

“I wanted to bug out.  I just couldn’t figure out how”

While Red Cloud was holding off the initial Chinese assault he was shot twice in the chest. One of the E company medics, Perry Woodley went to Red Cloud’s position and applied pressure bandages to his two chest wounds. Red Cloud seemed fine and continued to fire his BAR at the Chinese. Woodley left Red Cloud to go help other wounded soldiers. He returned a short time later to check up on Red Cloud again. He found Red Cloud surrounded by about a dozen Chinese bodies and more severely wounded than from when he last saw him.

Position of the 2-19 Infantry Regiment north of the Chongchon River where Corporal Mitchell Red Cloud Jr. was killed in action. Notice the area that the Chinese infiltrated through just west of the 2-19th’s position to get into their rear area.  This was the gap between them and the British 27th Brigade which was mostly composed of Canadians that was supposed to be patrolled by both units to detect the Chinese.  Map via Wikipedia.

Woodley told Red Cloud that he had to get off the mountain or he was going to die there. Red Cloud refused medical evacuation from his position and instead propped his wounded body up on a tree to continue firing at the advancing Chinese with the BAR. One soldier at the bottom Pete Salter said that he actually used a web belt to tie Red Cloud to the tree so he could stay up right to keep firing. Something not widely known about this battle is that another man, PFC Joseph Balboni stayed in a position near Red Cloud that created a crossfire that pinned the Chinese down enough for other men in the company to try and escape down a draw to the south.

After Woodley and Salter left the position they could hear the BARs from Red Cloud and Balboni continuing to fire on the advancing Chinese.  The battle lasted for about an hour before Corporal Red Cloud and PFC Balboni would eventually be killed by the advancing Chinese.  However by this time the men of E Company were well alert and retreating off the hill side from the massive Chinese assault to supplementary fighting positions a 1,000 yards to the south. From there the regiment was able to consolidate and make a defensive line to hold off any further Chinese attacks.  There four quad 4′s with .50 cal machine guns were used to clear the hillsides of Chinese troops chasing the E Company survivors down the draw.  Other units in the battalion would not be as lucky as E Company, if you can call E Company lucky. The nearby A Company would be nearly wiped out as many soldiers were killed while sleeping in their foxholes due to the surprise Chinese attack. E Company soldiers that survived that battle said that their unit likely would have been wiped out too if it wasn’t for Corporal Red Cloud holding off the Chinese attack.

The next morning with the sun out which provided air cover, the battalion was able to return to the old E company position to retrieve the bodies of the deceased. They found that the dead Americans soldiers had been stripped to include Mitchell Red Cloud. The only deceased soldier not stripped was 1st Lieutenant Leslie Kirkpatrick who had all of his clothes and gear on except for a missing West Point ring. Kirkpatrick had been killed while coming to the aid of a wounded soldier during the battle. His body was found with his head lying on his helmet as if he was sleeping. It is believed that one of the other lieutenants in his company placed his body like that after recovering his West Point ring to give to his wife. However, that lieutenant had been killed as well during the battle and the Chinese stripped his body and took the ring. Kirkpatrick was a 1949 graduate of West Point. Of the 670 cadets that graduated that year, 41 of them to include Kirkpatrick were killed in action during the Korean War.

Picture of Leslie Kirkpatrick as a cadet at West Point. Picture via SidneyLanier.org.

Red Cloud’s stripped down body was found lying near the tree where he died. He had been reportedly shot a total of eight times. All around Red Cloud were the bodies of Chinese soldiers. It was reported that over 30 Chinese bodies were found around Corporal Red Cloud’s position.  Corporal Red Cloud’s recovered body would eventually be laid to rest in the United Nations Cemetery in Pusan.  The other BAR gunner PFC Balboni would be credited with killing 17 enemy soldiers before being killed himself.  PFC Balboni would posthumously be recognized with the nation’s second highest honor, the Distinguished Service Cross.  In all the battalion estimated that about 500 enemy soldiers had been killed on the hill that day.

Post-Korean War Honors

A few months later in April 1951 the Congressional Medal of Honor was presented to Corporal Mitchell Red Cloud Jr.’s mother during a ceremony held at the Pentagon. She was presented the medal by General Omar Bradley. Here is what his Medal of Honor citation says:

Cpl. Red Cloud, Company E, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. From his position on the point of a ridge immediately in front of the company command post he was the first to detect the approach of the Chinese Communist forces and give the alarm as the enemy charged from a brush-covered area less than 100 feet from him. Springing up he delivered devastating pointblank automatic rifle fire into the advancing enemy. His accurate and intense fire checked this assault and gained time for the company to consolidate its defense. With utter fearlessness he maintained his firing position until severely wounded by enemy fire. Refusing assistance he pulled himself to his feet and wrapping his arm around a tree continued his deadly fire again, until he was fatally wounded. This heroic act stopped the enemy from overrunning his company’s position and gained time for reorganization and evacuation of the wounded. Cpl. Red Cloud’s dauntless courage and gallant self-sacrifice reflects the highest credit upon himself and upholds the esteemed traditions of the U.S. Army. for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in Chonghyon, Korea, 5 November 1950.

At the Pentagon in April 1951, Lillian “Nellie” Red Cloud, mother of the late Cpl. Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., is handed the Medal of Honor awarded her son for his “dauntless courage and gallant self-sacrifice” against Chinese forces in North Korea the night of November 5, 1950. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is at left. ” Photograph via the Stars & Stripes

In 1955 his family was able to get his body moved from the UN Cemetery to the Ho-Chunk Cemetery on the Winnebago Indian Reservation back in Wisconsin so he could lay in rest with the rest of his tribe. His friend Ed Svach escorted the body back to the US where he remembered his friend being buried in the custom of the Winnebago people. The sides of his coffin were removed so his soul could escape, a bow and quiver of arrows was laid next to him so he could hunt in heaven, and bowl of fruit was laid next to him so head would have something to eat during the journey.

Mitchell Red Cloud Jr.’s grave in Wisconsin. Picture via FindaGrave.com.

In John McCain’s book, “Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life” he includes quotes from veterans from the battle that say they owe their lives to Mitchell Red Cloud. One of the survivors, Pete Salter said that during the battle he prayed to God in his foxhole to let him survive this fight and he would live a better life. He said his prayers were answered by Mitchell Red Cloud who sacrificed his life so many other men could survive. Salter in the mid-1960’s would take his kids to the Winnebago Indian Reservation to see the grave of Corporal Red Cloud. Salter broke down crying at the site of the grave of the man who had saved his life. Inscribed on Red Cloud’s grave are these words:

“The son of a Winnebago chief and warriors who believe that when a man goes into battle, he expects to kill, or be killed and if he dies he will live forever.”

Picture of marker above Mitchell Red Cloud’s grave site in Wisconsin. Picture via FindaGrave.com

Since Corporal Red Cloud’s death, the US military has made efforts to ensure that his memory does live forever by naming various military installations and equipment in his hnor. The first thing that I could find that was named after Red Cloud was when Camp Red Cloud in Uijongbu, South Korea was named after the Medal of Honor recipient.

• The True Story of How Camp Red Cloud, South Korea Got Its Name

Mitchell’s Club on Camp Red Cloud is named after him as well.  There is also a rifle range on Ft. Benning, Georgia that is named after him. On August 7th, 1999 the newly commissioned strategic sealift ship, the USNS Red Cloud was launched from its dock in San Diego in honor of the fallen warrior. His daughter Annita Red Cloud, his granddaughter Tris Yellow Cloud, and other dignitaries from the Ho-Chunk tribe were there for the ceremony.  Kenneth Kershaw, a veteran of E Company, 19th Infantry, who was able to survive the battle that night also attended the ceremony. He simply told the crowd that he attended the ceremony because “If it were not for the alarm sounded by Mitchell Red Cloud, I would not be here today.” The last commemoration I can find for Red Cloud was on the 50th anniversary of his death in 2000. The Korean War Commemoration Committee held a ceremony in honor of Red Cloud at his grave site in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. The committee presented Red Cloud’s daughter Annita with the Republic of Korea War Service Medal that had recently been authorized by Congress for Korean War veterans to wear.

USNS Red Cloud.  Picture via Navy.mil.

Despite these attempts by the military to honor Corporal Red Cloud within the American public and even the US military his story is widely unknown. Red Cloud’s life story is why I have continued to advocate for Hollywood to explore using stories from the Korean War as movie material. A movie based around E Company with Mitchell Red Cloud as a main character and climaxing with the Battle of Hill 123 would make for a great movie.  Red Cloud’s life is one to be remembered not just for his Korean War service, but for his service in World War II as well. There probably are not many US military servicemembers that fought at Guadalcanal and Okinawa during World War II and then the Busan Perimeter and then finally against the Chinese during their intervention into the Korean War. Clearly Mitchell Red Cloud Jr. is not only a Hero of the Korean War, but one of the nation’s most heroic military heroes that unfortunately few people know anything about.

Note #1: More stories about Heroes of the Korean War can be read at the below link:

Note #2: During my research I found only the two above photographs of Mitchell Red Cloud.  If anyone knows of more photographs of Red Cloud please leave a link in the comments section.

Note #3: If anyone knows where to find a picture of PFC Joseph Balboni I would like to post his picture here as well.

Note #4: If anyone knows of any other buildings or site named after Mitchell Red Cloud Jr. please leave a comment and share it with everyone else.

Further Reading:

History.net: Mitchell Red Cloud Jr.: Korean War Hero

Marine Raider Page: Mitchell Red Cloud

“From the Hudson to the Yalu”, by Harry Maihafer

“Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life”, by John McCain

“Medicine Bags & Dog Tags”, by Al Carroll

“Warriors In Uniform: The Legacy of American Indian Heroism”, by Herman Viola

As I was conducting research of old books about Korea I came upon the memoirs of Lieutenant General Arthur Trudeau who in the 1957 was the I Corps Commanding General in South Korea.

While reading through his memoirs about his time in Korea he provides an extensive and very interesting history of how the naming of Camp Red Cloud in Uijongbu came to be:

Did I tell you the story about the naming of Camp Red Cloud? Well, I think this is worth telling.  My compound there, the corps headquarters, had always been called Jackson Six, which was our telephone exchange.  That seemed to me a rather inadequate name.  I told somebody — my G-1, I guess, or PR officer, whoever it was — to start digging and find some people in this corps who got a Congressional Medal of Honor during combat and let’s name our compound here, our headquarters, for the most worthy.  They came up with several names, and they had a couple of lieutenants.  One of them was the Lieutenant Shea that I mentioned, who had just reported to my division and was killed on Pork Chop Hill.  She was sort of a favorite of mine, because he held the two-mile record at West Point, about 30 seconds faster than I had held it 30 years before.  I had a great feeling for Shea and when I went back home had a review and presented the decoration to his mother.  Shea was one of the names, and there were two or three other lieutenants.  I finally looked this list over and spotted the name of Corporal Mitchell Red Cloud.  I thought that was interesting; what did he do. I got the citation, and Mitchell Red Cloud had done about everything a soldier could do; he charged a bunker and knocked off about 20 of the enemy and finally — even after he was badly wounded, tossed a grenade in a bunker before he died.  So what about Mitchell Red Cloud?  Well, Mitchell Red Cloud’s mother was the daughter of a chief of the Winnebago Indian Tribe.  I said, “Now let’s get hold of all the records we can, and we’ll put in and get this camp named Camp Red Cloud.”  I was thinking of the relationship between a native American and a native Asian.  We did this, and I had a brass plaque made.  I put the brass plaque on a tremendous rock on the more or less flat sloping side in front of I Corps (Group) headquarters, where it is today.  We put it in front, right at our flagpole. On Armed Forces Day, 1957, I decided that we had the authority to redesignate and announce it at the Armed Forces Day meeting.

It was a lovely May day; I had all the Diplomatic Corps, President Rhee and his wife, Ambassador Dowling and his wife, General Decker, I believe, or White — all the Americans.  We had about 150 people that were there for the ceremony and then for lunch at my club, which I had built or greatly extended across the street.  They were sitting there.  General Lemnitzer came over; he was always great because my wife had remained in Tokyo, so he brought her over.  She was sitting in the front row of seats next to Mrs. Rhee.  The President was standing there on one side of this curtain.  I was going to say something about Camp Red Cloud, draw the curtain, and expose this plaque, and then the President was to make some remarks.  This all happened; we pulled the cord and it worked, fortunately, and the brass was there, so I read what the brass plaque said.  Then I said, “How wonderful it is that an American, a native American, an Indian whose ancestors lost their country to us, came over here to fight for the freedom of the native men of Asia.”  I went on and built this one up for a little bit, and emphasized that he gave his life for the freedom of Asian people.  I then turned it over to President Lee.  Well, he said excitedly what a great thing this was.  Mrs. Rhee was getting itchier by the moment because she knew that he frequently went of on tangents, and my wife was keeping her calm, saying, “Never mind everything is going to be alright.”

The President launched into this one.  He said, “Yes American Indians are exactly like Asian people.  I think American Indians came from Asia.”  But then he said, “Why is it that all the time you have American movies over here, you show soldiers and cowboys killing American Indians?  Asian people don’t like to see white men killing American Indians.”  The he said, “Never again will a motion picture be shown in Korea that has the American soldiers or cowboys killing American Indians.”  And they never have, but this doesn’t mean that our compound cannot.  There was quite a “to-do,” Mrs. Rhee was so upset.  I said, “This is nothing.  What he said is true, but this happened more than a hundred years ago.”  Of course to them this could be happening today.  The dates aren’t shown frequently, and they think this is still going on out in the West.  It is bad psychology.

Before I left there to come back to the United States at the end of that year, the end of 1957, I wrote back to G-2 and I said, “Listen, you have got to go out and get me tow of the finest pictures, portraits, grand portraits of American Indian chiefs that you can get for me to present to President Rhee.”  Mrs. Trudeau and I were invited there for dinner at Chung Mu Dae, now the Blue House, with President and Mrs. Rhee.  He presented me with another Korean decoration and then I said, “Your Excellency (or Mr. President), I have a presentation I would like to make to you.”  He said, “Certainly.”  So we went into the next room.  The portraits were on the wall.  I had this all planned with his people bringing him in and then we were going to flip the covers back.  I said, “Mr. President, you remember the day we named the I Corps Headquarters Camp Red Cloud for Mitchell Red Cloud, the American Indian who came to fight for your freedom in Asia?”  He said, “Oh, yes, I remember”.  “Well,” I said, “I want to show you, I want to present to you a pair of portraits of other famous American Indians who are high in our esteem in our country also.”  I’ve forgotten which ones they were, but I presented them to him; he thought it was tremendous.  Goddam it, they looked more like him than he did himself, if he had a headdress on.  It was terrific!

This was a very interesting read and I have to wonder what ever happened to those two portraits?  I wonder if they are still on display in Cheongwadae?

Note: You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link: 

Basic Information

• Name: Anthony T. Kaho’ohanohano
• Born: Maui, Hawaii
• Battlefield: Battle of Chup’a-ri
• Date of Death: September 1, 1951
• Medal of Honor Ceremony: May 3, 2011

Private First Class Anthony T. Kaho’ohanohano via Army.mil.

Introduction

The Korean War saw people from many countries come to the peninsula and fight and die to protect the Republic of Korea from communist aggression.  Some of those people who came to Korea to fight were Americans from the Hawaiian Islands.  In downtown Honolulu the Hawaii Korean War Memorial can be seen that lists the names of all 456 residents of Hawaii who died fighting in the Korean War.  The memorial is about a 100 feet in length, 6 feet high and made of polished granite and black lava rock.  On each of the rock squares is the name of each Hawaii resident that died during the war.

Early Life

One of the names on these blocks is Anthony T. Kaho’ohanohano from the Hawaiian Island of Maui.  Kaho’ohanohano was born in 1930 to a family with 5 other brothers and a sister.  This large family lived in a two bedroom house in the village of Wailuku in Maui.  Anthony graduated in 1949 from St. Anthony High School where he played both football and basketball and was known as the “humble giant”.  After high school he like all of his other 5 brothers joined the military; three of his other brothers joined the active Army, one other brother served in the Marines, and the last brother served in the National Guard.  Anthony initially enlisted in the Hawaii National Guard, but later joined the active Army on February 5, 1951 to fight in the Korean War.

Picture of Kaho’ohanohano as a high school football player via Wikipedia.

Korean War Service

Anthony Kaho’ohanohano was later that year deployed to South Korea where UN forces were battling communist aggression against the Republic of Korea.  By 1951 the war had changed dramatically from what appeared was going to be a rout of the North Korean military by the UN forces after the successful Incheon Landing Operation.  With the North Korean forces largely defeated the Chinese military secretly infiltrated across the Yalu River into North Korea where they launched a massive surprise attack against the UN forces.  The effectiveness of the Chinese surprise attack caused a full scale UN forces retreat back across the 38th parallel into South Korea.  The retreat was only halted in February 1951 when soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division and their attached French Battalion under the command of two Heroes of the Korean War, Colonel Paul Freeman and Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Monclar stopped the Chinese advance at the Battle of Chipyong-ni.

The Chinese would attempt to regain their battle field momentum when they launched the “Chinese Spring Offensive” in April 1951.  However, United Nations units such as the British Gloucestershire Regiment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James P. Carne, the Philippines Expeditionary Force To Korea (PEFTOK) commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Dionisio Ojeda, and the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry commanded by Lieutenant Colonel J.R. Stone were able to stop the Chinese advance.  After the failed “Chinese Spring Offensive” the Korean War had largely turned into a stalemate near the 38th parallel where the opposing Army’s battled over hilltops that gave each side increased leverage during the Armistice Negotiations that had begun July 10, 1951 at Kaesong.

This is the war that Private First Class Anthony Kaho’ohanohano found himself entering in 1951when he was assigned to Company H, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division.  In August, 1951 the 7th Infantry Division was deployed along the frontlines in the area north of Hwacheon which is an extremely mountainous region in the central area of the Korean peninsula.

This mountainous area made the control of high points extremely important in order to call for indirect fire and to better control the few roads in the area.  The 7th Infantry Division launched an operation on August 26, 1951 that would come to be known as the Battle of Chup’a-ri.  The small village  of Chup’a-ri was located in one of the main valleys in the area and the 7th Infantry was attempting to seize five key hills to the east of the village that would allow them to better control the valley and the  road that ran through it.  Additionally the control of these hills would put the UN forces in a better position tactically to reclaim the Kumsong River located two miles north of Chup’a-ri.

Map of the Chupa-ri area via the Korean War Project.

The 17th Infantry Regiment of the 7th Division that PFC Kaho’ohanohano was assigned to was tasked to secure three of these hills.  On August 26th the regiment began combat operations to secure Hill 461 that overlooked the valley and its access road, Hill 682 that was a mile to the east of 461, and Hill 851, which was one more mile east of 682.  For the next five days the regiment battled the Chinese 81st Division for control of these hills.  PFC Kaho’ohanohano’s company was part of the 2nd Battalion which was tasked to assault Hill 682.  By this point in the war, Anthony had found himself as the leader of a machine gun squad within his company.  On August 31, the unit was able to secure the hill, but the Chinese launched a massive counterattack against the 2nd battalion.  The fighting was ferocious with the Chinese blowing whistles to signal the next human wave attack against the American positions.  The overwhelming Chinese attacks eventually caused the 2nd Battalion soldiers to begin to withdraw off of Hill 682 the next day.

3D view of Hill 682 via the Korean War Project.

During the initial Chinese assault Kaho’ohanohano was wounded in the shoulder, but continued to fight on.  When his company began their withdrawal PFC Kaho’ohanohano ordered his squad to take up better positions lower down the hill while he provided covering fire for them.  Kaho’ohanohano gathered a satchel of grenades and extra ammunition to use against the on coming enemy.  His last words were reported to be “I’ve got your back” as he headed back to a position to hold off the Chinese attack.  The extra ammunition would not be enough though as Anthony eventually ran out of ammo and had to turn to his entrenching tool to fight off the enemy until he was killed.  He had fired so many rounds from his rifle that it had actually melted and was found bent.  Seeing his final stand against the Chinese, Kaho’ohanohano’s comrades charged back up the hill and defeated the Chinese onslaught.  When his unit re-secured the hill they found 11 dead Chinese bodies around Kaho’ohanohano’s position and two more found dead inside his position apparently killed by blunt force trauma to the head from Kaho’ohanohano’s entrenching tool.

By September 4th, the 7th Infantry Division had captured all 5 hills in the vicinity of Chup’a-ri, but PFC Kaho’ohanohano was far from being the only person killed during the battle.  In just his unit 17 other soldiers died defending Hill 682.  In total the 7th Infantry Division lost 175 soldiers with 594 more wounded in the Battle of Chup’a-ri.  What did the lives of all the soldiers gain the UN forces?  Well if you look at a map of South Korea it ultimately helped the UN forces consolidate about 10 square miles worth of territory.  Think how many more lives the Chinese lost trying to defend that territory?  Life was definitely cheap back then.

Kaho’ohanohano for his actions received the Army’s second highest decoration for combat, the Distinguished Service Cross in 1952.  However, his family believed that he deserved the nation’s highest honor, the Medal of Honor for his heroism during the Battle of Chup’a-ri.  Considering that another soldier in his battalion Corporal William F. Lyell was awarded the Medal of Honor for doing nearly the same thing as Kaho’ohanohano did during the battle, it would seem his family had a strong case.  However, it would take 60 years before the Kaho’ohanohano family would see Anthony be recognized with the Medal of Honor.  US Senator from Hawaii Daniel Akaka requested in 2004 that the Pentagon review Kaho’ohanohano Distinguished Service Cross documentation to see if it should be upgraded to a Medal of Honor.  Senator Akaka has long been an advocate for veterans from  Hawaii.  In 2000, he was able to get 22 veterans of Asian and Pacific ancestry to include 20 of them from the famed 442 Regimental Combat Team the Medal of Honor for combat actions during World War II.  Many advocates for these veterans believed that these minorities may have been overlooked for the Medal of Honor by commanders that were prejudice against minorities.

President Obama presents George Kaho`ohanohano, the nephew of Army Pfc. Anthony T. Kaho`ohanohano, a posthumous Medal of Honor during a White House ceremony.

The President of the United States Barack Obama, who was born in Hawaii himself, must have agreed as he upgraded Kaho’ohanohano’s Distinguished Service Cross to the Medal of Honor.  On May 3rd, 2011 at a White House ceremony President Obama presented PFC Kaho’ohanohano’s family with the Medal of Honor.

George Kaho’ohanohano, a retired Maui Police Department captain, also said it was a relief that their hard work had come to fruition. He added that he had a “lump” in his throat when he received the medal from Obama.

“When I looked at the family when I got it from the president, I saw couple of the family members crying; I saw a couple of family members with a broad smile. It was a wide range of what the family was going through,” he said.  [Maui News]

Here is Private First Class Anthony Kaho’ohanohano’s Medal of Honor citation:

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to (Posthumously) to Private First Class Anthony T. Kahoohanohano (ASN: RA-29040479), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy of the United Nations while serving with Company H, 2d Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. Private First Class Kahoohanohano distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action against enemy aggressor forces in the vicinity of Chup’a-ri, Korea, on 1 September 1951. On that date, Private Kahoohanohano was in charge of a machine-gun squad supporting the defensive positions of Company F when a numerically superior enemy force launched a fierce attack. Because of the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, it was necessary for the friendly troops to execute a limited withdrawal. As the men fell back, he ordered his squad to take up more tenable positions and provide covering fire for the friendly force. Then, although painfully wounded in the shoulder during the initial enemy assault, he gathered a supply of grenades and ammunition and returned to his original position to face the enemy alone. As the hostile troops concentrated their strength against his emplacement in an effort to overrun it, Private Kahoohanohano fought fiercely and courageously, delivering deadly accurate fire into the ranks of the onrushing enemy. When his ammunition was depleted, he engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat until he was killed. His heroic stand so inspired his comrades that they launched a counterattack that completely repulse the enemy. Coming upon Private Kahoohanohano’s position, the friendly troops found eleven enemy soldiers lying dead before it and two in the emplacement itself, beaten to death with an entrenching shovel.

Pfc. Anthony T. Kaho’ohanohano [KA ho OH hano hano]
– Killed in Action Sept. 1, 1951 in Chupa-ri, Korea
– Age: 21 years, 2 months
– Unit: Company H, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division
– Years of Service: 3 years, 3 months, prior service with Hawaii National Guard. Enlisted with the U.S. Army Feb. 5, 1951
– Awards: Purple Heart (posthumously), Army Good Conduct Medal (posthumously), National Defense Service Medal, Korean Service Medal with one Bronze Service Star, United Nations Service Medal, Republic of Korean-Korean War Service Medal, The Republic of Korea’s Wharang Distinguished Military Service Medal with Silver Star (posthumously), Combat Infantryman Badge, Republic of Korea-Presidential Unit Citation

Anthony Kaho’ohanohano’s headstone via Army.mil.

Anthony Kaho’ohanohano is buried at the Makawao Veterans Cemetery on the slopes of Maui’s gigantic volcano called Haleakala.  In February 2012 the US military replaced his headstone to signify that he is a Medal of Honor recipient.  This replacing the headstone was the ultimate closure for Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano’s family who had fought for so long to see that he received the recognition he deserved as a Hero of the Korean War.

Note: You can read more of the ROK Drop featured series Heroes of the Korean War at the below link:

Via Stars & Stripes.

Tokyo, Japan, February, 1953: Gen. Mark Clark, left, head of the United Nations Command, and Gen. James Van Fleet, outgoing commander of the U.S. Eighth Army and U.N. forces in Korea, rush between events at Clark’s headquarters at Pershing Heights in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district. Van Fleet, 60, was being honored on his way home to retirement after turning over command of the war effort to Gen. Maxwell Taylor. Van Fleet was called “the greatest general we have ever had” by President Truman.

RELATED MATERIAL:
Two stories about Gen. Van Fleet’s February, 1953 stop in Tokyo:
Van Fleet regrets leaving war stalemate
Life-saving role seen for A-arms in Korea

I can’t say I’m not surprised:

The search for the remains of victims of a U.S. massacre during the 1950-53 Korean War is likely to end Wednesday with no remains found, officials said, adding that the remains may have been damaged by heavy rains or taken away by their bereaved families. [Yonhap] (HT: Reader)

(more…)

Picture of the bridge at No Gun Ri.

In my prior posting I posted in full the Associated Press’ entire uncut article about their version of what happened at No Gun Ri for everyone to review before posting a rebuttal to it. Unlike the AP writers I don’t mind people reading both sides of the story and judging the facts for themselves. In the rebuttal I have posted paragraphs from the original AP article in bold print and then offered my comments below them.

My rebuttal to the AP article begins below the fold:

It was a story no one wanted to hear: Early in the Korean War, villagers said, American soldiers machined-gunned hundreds of helpless civilians, under a railroad bridge in the South Korean countryside.

Well actually everyone has heard the story before of South Korean civilians being killed during the Korean War. I can remember in my high school history class when my teacher explained how civilians were killed during the Korean War due to the infiltration of North Korean soldiers dressed as civilians. The killing of civilians during the Korean War is well documented today in multiple Korean War history books and was also well documented by the media during the Korean War.

The AP writers are relying on the ignorance of today’s American public about the Korean War in order to promote the killing of civilians during the Korean War as some kind of new revelation they have uncovered through their research. Even the No Gun Ri incident has been well covered in the Korean media with the founder of the Korean internet news site Oh My News, Oh Yeon-ho covering the story since 1994 and other Korean media outlets picking up on the story as well.[i] How come Oh Yeon-ho’s work was never mentioned by the AP writers? This is probably because the writers want to maintain the illusion they uncovered something new. The killing of civilians during the Korean War is nothing new, but starting from they very first sentence in the AP article they want the reader to think it is.

When the families spoke out seeking redress, they met only rejection and denial, from the US military and their own government in Seoul. Now a dozen ex-Gis have spoken, too, and support their story with haunting memories from a “forgotten” war.

As you will see later on in this article what this great “rejection and denial” from the US military really was. As you can expect it is not what the AP tries to make it out to be. However, it is early in the article so in order to give the article legs the AP writers need to create an air of scandal in order to keep the reader’s attention. Military cover-ups are always a great way to keep a reader’s attention.

Additionally, start preparing an AP scorecard to keep track of ex-GI witnesses because the article claims that “a dozen ex-GIs” support the story given by the Korean claimants. As we go through the article lets count how many of the dozen ex-GIs actually support the AP’s version of events. The results will surprise you.

These American veterans of the Korean War say that in late July 1950, in the conflict’s first desperate weeks, US troops – young, green and scared – killed a large number of South Korean refugees, many of them women and children, trapped beneath a bridge at a place called No Gun Ri.

I highly recommend that everyone read my prior posting on the soldiers of the 7^th Cavalry that lays out in great detail the exact conditions the 7^th Cavalry faced in July, 1950 that cannot possibly be summarized in one passage of “young, green, and scared” that the AP is willing to use to describe the conditions during the early days of the Korean War.

 

In interviews with the Associated Press, ex-Gis speak of 100, 200 or simply hundreds dead. The Koreans, whose claim for compensation was rejected last year, say 300 were shot to death at the bridge and 100 died in a preceding air attack.

Remember this passage about ex-GIs claming hundreds of dead civilians and then compare this claim to who actually said it. Also note the Korean claim of 400 dead bodies and then compare that to the source that verifies it. Like I said before the results may surprise you.

American soldiers, in their third day at the warfront, feared North Korean infiltrators among the fleeing South Korean peasants, veterans said. “It was assumed there were enemy in these people,” ex-rifleman Herman Patterson or Greer, South Carolina, told the AP.

Mr. Herman Patterson is the first ex-GI that the AP quotes in the article so get you AP scorecard out and mark Mr. Patterson as the first of the dozen GIs the AP uses to verify their story. Notice that this quote makes no reference to if Patterson was referring to the events that allegedly happened at No Gun Ri or not. In fact it was later revealed by one of the AP writers Charles Hanley that this passage did in fact not relate to the events that happened at No Gun Ri and was in fact added as a “red herring”.[ii]

Additionally, you will see later on in this article that when Patterson was interviewed by the Pentagon Review team, he claimed the AP misquoted him. So take out your AP scorecard and mark one of the dozen GIs used by the AP as being misquoted.

American commanders had ordered units retreating through South Korea to shoot civilians as a defense against disguised enemy soldiers, according to once-classified documents found by the AP in months of researching U.S. military archives and interviewing veterans across the United States.

This is one of the greatest examples of stretching the truth by the AP writers in the entire article. There justification to claim they have documented evidence of an order shoot refugees comes from a phone call made from a 8^th Cavalry Regiment major working as a liaison officer at the 1^st Cavalry Division Headquarters.

For those who are not familiar with the military let me clarify the structure of the 1^st Cavalry Division. Regiments fall underneath a division and the 1^st Cavalry Division during the Korean War had three combat regiments, the 8^th Cavalry, the 5^th Cavalry, and the 7^th Cavalry. The 7^th Cavalry is the unit that was located in the vicinity of No Gun Ri, the 8^th and 5^th Cavalry were not.

Regiments send liaison officers to work at the division headquarters to help pass information between the division and the regiment. The major working as the liaison officer for the 8^th Cavalry phoned his regiment’s headquarters to relay this message:

“No refugees to cross front line. Fire everyone trying to cross line. Use discretion in case of women and children.”

This message was written down in the 8^th Cavalry logbook on July 24, 1950. Even today the military operates what is known as a CQ (charge of quarters) desk that has a logbook that writes down important information received over the telephone. When you go to the field you have someone that maintains a log as well of important information and events. When a unit goes to combat it is the same process, there will be a soldier who will man the unit’s radio and phone and log important information. The person manning the phone that day for the 8^th Cavalry wrote in his logbook a summary of what he heard on the telephone from the division liaison officer.

An entry in a logbook is not an order. Furthermore a regiment is commanded by a colonel and a colonel does not take orders from a major calling over the telephone and leaving a note in a logbook with the guy manning the phone. A regimental commander takes orders from the division commander who is a major general or a two star general for you non-military types who might be reading this.

Military orders are issued in what are known as Operations Orders that are approved and signed by the higher commander, which in the case of the 8^th Cavalry their higher was Major General Hobart Gay, the commander of the 1^st Cavalry Division. There was an order issued by General Gay, but it is an order that does not support what the AP writers are claiming.[iii]

Six veterans of the 1^st Cavalry Division said they fired on the refugee throng at the South Korean hamlet of No Gun Ri, and six other said they witnessed the mass killings. More said they know or heard about it.

Update your AP scorecards because the AP says that six veterans fired at the refugees while six saw what happened. You should already be tracking Mr. Patterson as misquoted. Now notice how the AP writers slipped into the article a sentence about additional GIs having heard about the killings. Who did they hear about the killings from? You will find out later in the article.

“We just annihilated them,” said ex-machine gunner Norman Tinkler of Glasco, Kansas

We now have the name of another GI witness Norman Tinkler. So add Norman Tinkler to your AP Scorecard as well. Tinkler is not only quoted in this AP article he is also one of the most widely quoted ex-GIs in all the various media articles that came out after the AP released this report. To say Mr. Tinkler’s testimony in the various news reports is less than consistent is putting it mildly.

Army documents prove that Tinkler was at No Gun Ri so that is not in dispute. However, what is in dispute is the accuracy of his testimony. Tinkler had told the AP writers that he was one of the GIs that had manned a machine gun that fired into the tunnel at the refugees.

When he told his story to a U.S. News & World Report journalist this is what he had to say:[iv]

“Refugees came through our positions the day before and pulled pins and threw three hand grenades at our guys. I wasn’t going to let them get near me.”

Mr. Tinkler’s claim here is unsupported by documentary evidence from July 25, 1950 because the unit log reports no casualties that day from a refugee grenade attack. No other GI witnesses have confirmed this account either.

Mr. Tinkler goes on in the U.S. News article:

“I was on a .30-caliber Browning water-cooled machine gun that fires 700 rounds a minute. I was located on the right side of the railroad tracks facing the bridge, between a quarter and a half-mile away. And yes, I fired at them. Nobody gave me orders. Nobody was there to give me orders. There was just me and one other guy on this gun. Nobody else was around. I saw maybe 150 refugees go in that bridge tunnel. I fired one belt, 250 rounds. I could see maybe a couple of feet of one edge of the tunnel and I aimed at that and moved the elevation knob up and down, ricocheting bullets into the tunnel.”

Take note of the distances in this quote “between a quarter and a half-mile away” that Tinkler gives. This distance comes out to in feet approximately 1320 – 2640 feet. This is a big discrepancy in distance. Additionally, note that he says he fire “one belt, 250 rounds” under the bridge. Now if this statement is true it would be impossible to kill 300 people underneath the bridge with 250 bullets especially if the only way he can fire underneath the bridge was through ricochets.

Let’s look at what Mr. Tinkler had to tell The Wichita Eagle just a couple of months later. Tinkler claimed to have:[v]

“looked down the barrel of his tripod-mounted machine gun toward a throng of Korean women and children – perhaps a hundred of them – a thousand yards away. For a minute or two, he pulled the trigger, firing hundreds of rounds.”

Notice the change in distance. This time he is exact in his distance from the bridge as 3,000 feet. So in two different interviews we have distances that range from 1320 feet to 3000 feet in distance. If you go to the site of the bridge at No Gun Ri you will see that Tinkler’s distances are not correct. I could not see into the tunnels much less even shoot a ricochet into the tunnels from 1320 feet much less from 3000 feet. This is what the Pentagon Review team concluded as well that after conducting a terrain analysis based off the distances and angles given by Mr. Tinkler that he could not have caused the “hundreds” of casualties alleged by the Korean witnesses.[vi]

Here is additional testimony from Mr. Tinkler who wasn’t shy by giving many interviews to members of the media including CNN:[vii]

“Among the Army veterans CNN spoke to was Norman Tinkler of Glasco, Kansas who was 19 on that in 1950. Tinkler says he fired on the refugees with his 30-caliber machine gun as the refugees attempted to cross a bridge heading south, because of orders not to allow anyone, including civilians, to cross south of his position.

He estimated that 100 to 125 were killed on the railroad tracks leading up to the bridge.

“There were no survivors,” he told CNN in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Tinkler said he never questioned whether it was right to shoot civilians. “It was war,” he said. “It was either that or die.”

Tinkler told CNN that in his mind the attack was justified because on the day before several U.S. soldiers were killed while trying to search a group of refugees, as North Korean troops hiding among the refugees attacked with guns and grenades.

First of all, notice how the attack by North Koreans intermingled with South Korean civilians was explained now as being a gun and grenade attack when in his interview with US News he clearly states only three hand grenades were thrown at them.

Secondly, Tinkler states that the refugees “attempted to cross a bridge”, not huddle underneath the bridge as the AP report describes and also what Tinkler told other media outlets when interviewed. The CNN report however, did notice this and reported it:

“Tinkler said he was manning a machine gun overlooking one end of the bridge, and another gunner was at the other end, when the refugees began to move across the bridge.

The details of that account to CNN differ with the picture pieced together by the AP. The wire service investigation, which included interviews with South Korean survivors, said the refugees were gunned down as they were huddled under the bridge, trapped because the U.S. troops would not let them pass.”

So what is Mr. Tinkler’s real story? Unfortunately we may never know because he may not be shy with talking to the media, but he was shy about talking to the Pentagon review team. The review team contacted Mr. Tinkler on multiple occasions in order to clarify his statements, but he refused all requests to be interviewed by the Pentagon team.

After five decades, none gave a complete, detailed account. But ex-GIs agreed on such elements as time and place, and on the preponderance of women, children and old men among the victims. They also disagreed: Some said they were fired on from beneath the bridge, but others said they don’t remember hostile fire. One said they later found a few disguised North Korean soldiers among the dead. But others disputed this.

As you will see later in the article misquotes and fraudulent witnesses are what created such a distorted picture of what happened at No Gun Ri to begin with.

Some soldiers refused to shoot what one described as “civilians just trying to hide.”

The 30 Korean claimants – survivors and victims’ relatives – said it was an unprovoked, three day carnage. “The American soldiers played with our lives like boys playing with flies,” said Chun Choon-ja, a 12-year old girl at the time.

This is the first quote from a Korean witness to what happened at No Gun Ri. Notice how they quote a sentence that will have a great emotional appeal to the reader. Also notice how the AP writers have yet to add any balance to their story and present any information about the other side to this story. All the reader has heard so far are accounts from GIs supposedly confirming the AP’s version of events along with distorted historical documentation. Now a Korean witness is quoted in order to add an emotional element and create disgust at what happened at the bridge with the reader.

Armed with new evidence that U.S. GIs had confirmed much of their account, the Korean claimants called for a U.S. investigation into the killings.

Which GIs confirmed these accounts? As you will see only two GIs fully confirmed the Korean witnesses’ version of events and both of them were not at No Gun Ri.

“We hope the U.S. government will meet our demands and console the wandering souls of those who died an unfair death,” the claimants said in a statement.

Does anyone know what their demands are? The AP for some reason didn’t feel it was necessary to list what those demands are. The demands from the Korean claimants were originally a $170 million dollar compensation package[viii] that was later raised to $400 million dollars after all the publicity over the No Gun Ri incident.[ix] This financial angle seems just a tad bit important, but for some reason the AP has never mentioned it in this article or even in any follow up articles.

In the end, the Koreans have said in a series of petitions, some 300 refugees lay dead under the bridge’s twin arches. About 100 others were killed in a preceding attack by U.S. Air Force planes they say.

That would make No Gun Ri one of only two known cases of large scale killings of noncombatants by U.S. ground troops in the century’s major wars, military law experts note. The other was Vietnam’s My Lai massacre, in 1968, in which more than 500 Vietnamese may have died.

You knew it was only a matter of time before the AP writers brought up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam because that was the goal that the AP writers had with this story from the very beginning. Co-writer of the AP article Choe Sang-hun who is the person who initially began the AP reporting into No Gun Ri admitted that before he even interviewed one witness or even went to the scene he wrote a 150-word story pitch to submit to his AP editor. In the story pitch he used the advice of one of his colleagues to “hype” the story by likening No Gun Ri to a “Korean My Lai”.[x]

Choe found out about the story by reading about it in a Korean newspaper about No Gun Ri claimants protesting in front of the US Embassy in Seoul demanding that the US embassy investigate a US massacre at No Gun Ri. This links back to what I said before, there was nothing new about No Gun Ri until the AP decided to turn it into the “Korean My Lai”.

Choe Sang-hun

The AP writers knew that just reporting a story of civilians killed during the Korean War is not something that would grab anyone’s attention. They had to make No Gun Ri bigger than what is was, they had to make it like My Lai because that is what Pulitzer Prizes are made of. Thus anything that discredited their version of events was ignored while anything that supported it was sensationalized such as the logbook entry in the 8^th Cavalry Regiment journal.

From the start of the 1950-53 conflict, North Korean atrocities were widely reported. But the story of No Gun Ri has remained undisclosed for a half century, despite sketchy news reports in 1950 implying U.S. troops may have fired on refugees.

“Sketchy news reports”? How about front page of the nation’s largest newspaper the New York Times:

“Fear of infiltrators led to the slaughter of hundreds of South Korean civilians, women as well as men, by some U.S. troops….”[xi]

Front Page of The New York Times
September 30, 1950 referring to events in July of 1950.

Facts like this front page news report in the New York Times didn’t stop the AP writers for advocating that their story was something new:

“Some research was just a subway ride away: 1950 magazines and obscure books on the Korean War at the New York Public Library . . . . All in all, Herschaft made more than fifty trips to the public and university libraries. He checked U.S. and European newspapers from those days and consulted every available bibliography and index to periodical literature to confirm such a massacre was never reported.”[xii]

AP Reporter Marth Mendoza
January 2000 making the claim that their story was brand new.

That is interesting because as I pointed out earlier the Korean media had already reported about the claimants demands for an investigation and AP writer in Seoul, Cho Sang-hun used this newspaper article in order to begin his own investigation into No Gun Ri. Even more interesting is that Cho even admits that stories of civilian killings during the Korean War was not something new:

“… news media didn’t report these stories all that much, old South Koreans had been talking about them all along. I grew up hearing those tales, not during history class but from villagers and friends’ parents – stories about civilians killed by South Korean and U.S. troops, as well as all those people massacred by “commies”.[xiii]

As you can see the Korean media has reported before about civilian killings along with an article about the No Gun Ri claimants outside the US embassy in Seoul as well. The AP did not report any big revelation, but sensationalized something that was common knowledge with the Korean War generation in Korea as well as being widely known by historians in America.

No Gun Ri’s dead were not alone. Veterans told the AP of two smaller but similar refugee killings in July and August 1950. They also told of refusing orders to fire on civilians in other cases.

Hundreds more South Koreans were killed on August 3, 1950, when retreating U.S. commanders blew up two bridges as refugees streamed across, according to ex-GIs, Korean eyewitnesses and declassified documents.

The Americans wanted to deny the crossings to the enemy, reported massing more than 15 miles away. But the general overseeing one bridge-blowing, the 1^st Cavalry Division commander, had sought to stop the refugee flow as well. He told a correspondent he was sure most refugees were North Korean guerrillas.

I could have saved the AP research team a whole lot of time from conducting all these eyewitness interviews, going through all their piles of declassified documents, and all the subway fares for their fifty trips to the library by simply pulling out a simple history book about the Korean War that explains this bridge blowing in great detail:

“Thousands upon thousands of Korean civilian refugees were pressing upon these men, clamoring to be let across the bridge. Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans, frightened of the Inmun Gun (North Korean Army), were fleeing south ahead of, with, and behind the fighting forces, complicating their job enormously.

As the rear guard came across the bridge to the east side, throngs of Koreans followed them, filling the bridge with jostling bodies. General Hobart Gay, who had ordered the bridge to be sent up only as his express command, instructed them to go back to the far side, and clear the bridge.

This they did, as dusk approached. Then, with the refugees pushed back onto the west shore, the rear guard turned and pelted across to the friendly bank – but the second they turned, the Koreans dashed madly for the bridge and soon filled it, even before the cavalrymen were across.

Three times, at Gay’s order, they repeated the maneuver, without success. Short of shooting them there was no way to keep the Koreans from using the bridge. Even telling them it would be blown did no good.

Now it was growing dark, and the Inmun Gun was closing. As the rear guard recrossed to the east side for the third time, with the mass of Koreans close behind them, Hobart Gay, his face pale, said, “Blow it.” He had no other choice.

Several hundred Koreans went into the river with the bridge.”[xiv]

T.R. Fehrenbach
This Kind of War

Fehrenbach’s book is not some obscure history of the Korean War and is in fact one of the most well known books about the Korean War.

To further show the disingenuous nature of the AP reporting, the declassified document they are referring to in the article is actually the letter the 1^st Cavalry Division Commander General Hobart Gay sent to the Army historian writing the official history of the Korean War.[xv]

The incident at the Naktong River Bridge is included in the book South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, written by historian Roy E Appleman that serves as the official Army history of the Korean War.[xvi] This incident that the AP is describing as having discovered through Korean eyewitnesses and declassified documents was readily available in the official US Army history of the war.

Some how with the AP’s fifty trips to the library they failed to pick up and read a copy of Fehrenbach’s book much less even pick up and read a copy of the official military history of the Korean War. As you will see the AP writers failed to read a lot of things; either that or they did read these books and intentionally did not mention them in order to keep the illusion that only through their tireless research they uncovered a hidden tragedy of the Korean War that the US government was trying to cover up.

For decades in U.S.-allied South Korea, the No Gun Ri claimants were discouraged from speaking out. After they filed for compensation in 1997, their claim was rejected by the South Korean government on a technicality.

The statute of limitations for civilians to file claims during the Korean War had long run out. The claimants claim they missed the prior deadline because of fears of retribution for prior authoritarian governments that ruled Korea.

The claimants in fact filed a claim in 1960 that was denied by the Korean government because the statute of limitations ran out in 1958. The fact is they did not receive compensation because they waited to long to file for it. The claimants probably brought up the compensation claims again beginning in 1994 because of the election of Kim Young-sam to the presidency of South Korea made the possibility of compensation for what happened a No Gun Ri more likely.

The U.S. military has said repeatedly it found no basis for the allegations. On Wednesday, just after the AP report was released, Pentagon spokesman P.J. Crowley said, “We just have no information in historical files to lend any clarity to what might have happened in July 1950.”

AP research also found no official army account of the events.

That sure didn’t stop the AP from making one up and offering plenty of conspiracy theories to bolster their storyline.

Defense Secretary William Cohen said on Thursday that the claims could be examined if there were new evidence.

“I am not aware of any evidence that would support or substantiate those claims. But to the degree that any substantive information is forthcoming, we certainly would look at it,” he told a press conference in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Speaking at a press conference in Washington later Thursday, Army Secretary Louis Caldera promised a “complete and thorough review” of the allegations.

The reaction from the Pentagon sure doesn’t sound like “The U.S. military has said repeatedly it found no basis for the allegations,” that was just uttered by the AP reporters just three paragraphs before. All these statements indicate that the Pentagon is taking the matter seriously and will investigate it. I see no denials of what happened at No Gun Ri in either statement by Secretary Cohen or Caldera.

However, the AP writers have spun every statement issued by the Pentagon to create an aurora of scandal and denial when no such thing exists. The Pentagon at the time had no information to either support or deny the allegations and thus a review of the incident was agreed to be done.

The South Korean government said it will investigate whether the survivors’ claims are true or not.

“With keen attention, we’ll try to verify the truth of all related things concerning the case,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Chan Chul-kyun said. “Any further action will be decided after those efforts are finished.”

Ultimately the South Korean government conducted the review in coordination with the Pentagon review team.

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?

As I have already shown their claim of a chain of officers giving orders to fire is based off a logbook entry from a liaison officer not even in the 7^th Cavalry Regiment.

The Korean conflict, which ended in stalemate, began on June 25, 1950, when the communist North invaded and sent the South Korean army and a small U.S. force reeling southward toward the peninsula’s tip.

American units who rushed from Japan to stop the North Koreans were poorly equipped and ill-trained. The 1^st Cavalry went in with little understanding of Korea. Half its sergeants had been transferred to other divisions. Teen-aged riflemen and young officers with no combat experience were thrust overnight into a hellish war, told to expect guerilla fighting and be wary of the tens of thousands of South Korean civilians pouring south with retreating Americans.

Wow can you believe it! After already spending half the article condemning the soldiers of the 7^th Cavalry Regiment as murdering war criminals the AP writers have finally decided to add a little historical context. However, only two paragraphs worth of historical context comes no where near being enough to fully explain the conditions the men of the 7^th Cavalry found themselves in.

The untested 7^th Cavalry Regiment, part of the 1^st Cavalry Division, reached the front July 24. Within a day many of its 2^nd Battalion infantrymen were scattering in panic, tossing away weapons, at word of an enemy breakthrough nearby.

This statement here is just another example of the sloppy reporting of the AP team. The 7^th Cavalry Regiment was nowhere near the front lines on July 24^th. The 7^th Cavalry on July 24^th were in the process of moving from the port in Pohang on the peninsula’s east coast to the vicinity of the 1^st Cavalry Division’s headquarters located near Hwanggan.[xvii] The 7^th Cavalry would not reach the frontlines until the late afternoon of July 25^th.

Records show that on the third day, July 26, the battalion’s 660 men were regrouped and dug in at No Gun Ri, a hamlet 100 miles southeast of Seoul, South Korea’s capital. Word was circulating that northern soldiers disguised in white peasant garb might try to penetrate U.S. lines via refugee groups.

At least the AP team got this one right. The 7^th Cavalry was located near No Gun Ri on July 26^th however, the AP writers make no mention of what state the 7^th Cavalry found themselves in on July 26^th. On the night between the 25^th and 26^th of July the 7^th Cavalry found themselves in contact with what they perceived to be enemy tanks. Some of the veterans recalled firing at the tanks and the tanks firing back at them. Historical records show that is was very unlikely that the tanks were North Korean tanks, but most likely American tanks that had gotten lost earlier in the day and found the highway the cavalrymen were defending and proceeded to drive up it.

The cavalrymen in the darkness probably confused the friendly tanks with enemy tanks and proceeded to fire on them. Some of the GI witnesses have confirmed that they saw 7^th Cavalry soldiers firing on friendly tanks. The tanks blasted through the cavalrymen’s lines and proceeded down the road. The US soldiers thought they were being routed by the North Korean Army and many simply dropped their weapons and equipment and ran. The next morning CPT Melbourne Chandler was herding men he found walking down the road and the railroad tracks to take up positions near the railway bridge at No Gun Ri. That day groups in trucks were sent forward to recover equipment and weapons that were left behind. The night of July 25^th was an absolute disaster and embarrassment for the 7^th Cavalry and is a perfect example of the chaotic environment the soldiers found themselves in on July 26, 1950.

The refugees who approached the 2^nd Battalion’s lines on July 26 were South Koreans ordered out of two nearby villages by American soldiers, who warned them the North Koreans were coming, Korean claimants told the AP.

Declassified records show that the 1^st Cavalry Division soldiers did move through that village area the previous three days.

If soldiers herded refugees from these villages is definitely debatable. Retreating soldiers from either the 8^th or 5^th Cavalry may have stopped at the villages. The soldiers had just got done fighting for their lives against the North Koreans and were retreating down the only road in the area plus they were very wary of North Korean infiltrators disguised as “civilians” because they had already had a number of engagements with these “civilians” during the last battle. After all of this does it make sense that these soldiers would then stop to evacuate two villages and clog up the road even more than it already was and allow even more refugees for infiltrators to hide among?

Not likely, but what is likely is that retreating American soldiers stopped at the two villages and warned the villagers that the North Koreans were coming, but through translation problems the villagers might have thought they were being evacuated or the villagers simply left on their own and were under the mistaken impression they were being escorted on the road because of all the soldiers retreating on the road.

As the refugees neared No Gun Ri, leading ox carts, some with children on their backs, American soldiers ordered them off the southbound dirt road and onto a parallel railroad track, the South Koreans said. Ex-sergeant George Preece remembered the way was being cleared for U.S. Army vehicles.

What then happened under the concrete bridge cannot be reconstructed in full detail five decades later. Some ex-GIs poured out chilling memories of the scene, but others offered only fragments, or abruptly ended their interviews. Over the three days, no one saw everything: Koreans were cowering under fire, and Americans were into positions over hundreds of yards of hilly terrain.

But old soldiers in their late 60s and 70s identified the No Gun Ri bridge from photographs, remembered the approximate dates, and corroborated the core of the Koreans’ account: that American troops kept the refugees pinned under the bridge in late July 1950, and killed almost all of them.

“It was just wholesale slaughter,” Patterson said.

When Mr. Herman Patterson was interviewed by the Pentagon review team he told them he was misquoted by the AP. His statement, “It was wholesale slaughter”, actually referred to his unit at the Naktong River when they were overrun.[xviii] Get used to the misquotes from the AP because there are more to come.

Both 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 children into a narrow culvert beneath the track, the Koreans told the AP.

Declassified U.S. Air Force mission reports from mid-1950 show that pilots sometimes attacked “people in white,” apparently because of suspicions North Korean soldiers were disguised among them. The report for one mission of four F-80 jets, for example, said the airborne controller “said to fire on people in white clothes. Were about 50 in group.”

The AP in a follow up article dated December 29, 1999 used witness testimony from six US Air Force pilots in order to bolster their claims of an airstrike on the South Korean refugees at No Gun Ri. All the pilots except for one agreed to be interviewed by the Pentagon review team. When the five pilots were interviewed by the Pentagon team they had a much different story to tell than what the AP claimed.

All five pilots claimed the AP sensationalized the information they provided. One pilot, retired LTC Dewald told the Pentagon team that “no people were ever attacked unless they were observed firing on – or were part of a group that was firing on – friendly forces or aircraft.” Retired Major Kroman flat out said the AP misquoted him. The AP quoted MAJ Kroman as saying that he “was sure civilians were killed” but Kroman says that what he really told the AP was, “couldn’t say for a fact civilians were not killed in the war.” As you can see the misquoting by the AP is quite common and did not end here.[xix]

Additionally when you actually review the documents of the AP cites as proof the refugees were strafed you will see that the strafing did not occur at No Gun Ri the times on the reports do not correspond to when the refugees say they were strafed and the strafing against “people in white” were only initiated after the Army confirmed to the pilots that the targets were North Korean infiltrators. All these important details are some how missing from the AP report.

Forward controllers in light planes directed pilots to such planned targets in mid-flight. The Korean claimants say a light plane circled their area immediately before the strafing.

But ex-GIs said the strafing may have been a mistake. A company commander had called for an airstrike, but against enemy artillery miles up the road, they said.

There is only one problem with this, the 7^th Cavalry did not have the necessary radios to even call in an air strike. In fact the only air strike in the No Gun Ri area occurred on July 27^th, which was one day after the refugees say they were strafed. However, this air strike on the 27^th was when the 7^th Cavalry headquarters was strafed. This strafing of the 7^th Cavalry caused their commander to request an Air Force Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) to the regiment who had the necessary radios to talk to the pilots in order to avoid any further strafings of the 7^th Cavalry.

Air mission chart from July 26, 1950 shows no air strike took place at No Gun Ri that day.

The Korean claimants also claim they were bombed. During an interview with a Korean reporter No Gun Ri witness Chung Gu-shik said the refugee column was bombed by a fighter jet, approximately 100 people and many animals were blown to pieces, and that the railway was bent like “steel chopsticks”. He goes on to say the bombing lasted for a total of 20 minutes.[xx] American and Korean imagery analysts that reviewed aerial footage of No Gun Ri taken one week after the incident found no signs of rails bent like “steel chopsticks”, no bomb craters, no left over refugee items, no dead animals, and most importantly no dead bodies.

Veteran Delos Flint remembers being caught with other soldiers in the strafing and piling into a culvert with refugees. The “somebody, maybe our guys, was shooting in at us,” he said. He and his comrades eventually slipped out.

Remember Flint’s name because we will talk more about him later.

Retired Col. Robert M. Carroll, then a 25 year-old first lieutenant, remembers battalion riflemen opening fire on the refugees from their foxholes.

“This is right after we get orders that nobody come through, civilian, military, nobody,” said Carroll, of Lansdowne, Va.

Add Robert Carroll to your AP scorecard as another witness who was there at No Gun Ri. However, add him as another misquoted veteran by the AP because here is what Carroll said happened at No Gun Ri during an interview with CNN:[xxi]

However, retired Colonel Robert Carroll, who was a lieutenant on the scene at No Gun Ri tell CNN he is convinced no slaughter of civilians took place. He called the allegation, “selective and imaginative memory on the part of a lot of people.”

Carroll said the orders he received, while ordering troops to fire on anyone trying to cross the front lines, also urged discretion in the case of women and children.

“Use discretion was part of that order,” he said. “We used discretion. We did not fire automatic weapons. There was a few riflemen fired at them when they came around the bend. I stopped that. I personally stopped all the firing.”

“If there was any firing at those (people), it had to be later in the day, after I left. And somebody would have countermanded that order,” he said.

“We were not using our machine guns except when we were under attack because we were short on ammunition,” Carroll said. “We had not been resupplied; we had been moving, retreating, falling back for about a week. So that guy is dreaming.”

Very clearly you can see how the AP reporters twisted what Carroll had to say happened at No Gun Ri. The AP writers do not mention anywhere in the article that Carroll was adamant no massacre happened and that no machine gun was used to fire at the refugees. Like I said before add one more misquote to your AP scorecard.

That morning, the U.S. 8^th Army had radioed orders throughout the Korean front that began, “No repeat no refugees will be permitted to cross battle lines at any time,” according to declassified documents located at the National Archives in Washington.

Here is another example of selective reporting. The passage is taken from a much larger order issued theater wide by the Eighth United States Army headquarters that dictates how subordinate units handle the massive refugee problem that was plaguing combat operations in Korea.[xxii] The order created a system where the Korean police would consolidate care for and move the refugees through friendly lines at set times every day and forbid any movement of civilians at night. Leaflets were dropped to spread this information to include the Korean police going in and evacuating villages.

Nowhere in this order was there ever any orders to kill refugees as the AP writers would lead you to believe. The order was to not permit civilians to cross battle lines who were not following the established procedures.

Additionally this refugee handling order was not something that was taken lightly according to a letter written by John Muccio who was the U.S. Ambassador to Korea during the early days of the Korean War. Ambassador Muccio wrote the letter to inform his boss U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk about the new refugee control order. The order was only implemented after a meeting at Eighth Army headquarters that included officials from the Korean government, US Embassy officials, and the Director of the Korean National Police.

All these elements agreed to the refugee control order and it was not something that was created by the U.S. military on a whim so they did not have to deal with the refugees. It was in fact a very thoroughly thought out policy that was only issued after close consultation with elements of the Korean government. Some how the AP writers have always failed to mention any of this.

Two days earlier, 1^st Cavalry Division headquarters issued a more explicit order: No refugees to cross the front line. Fire everyone trying to cross lines. Use discretion in case of women and children.”

Remember the order to shoot refugees that I mentioned earlier in this article that was in fact nothing more than a logbook entry from a telephone call placed by a 8^th Cavalry Regiment liaison officer at division headquarters? Well, once again the AP is referring back to this logbook entry as evidence of an order to shoot refugees.

This is the logbook entry that the AP claims is an order the 7th Cavalry had to shoot civilians.

Not only was this so-called “order” only a logbook entry, but the logbook entry was placed with the 8^th Cavalry Regiment which was not at No Gun Ri. There has never been documented evidence from the 7^th Cavalry Regiment that proves there was an order to shoot refugees at No Gun Ri. In fact the logbook entry in the 8^th Cavalry Regiment that the AP writers are using as evidence of an “order” to kill refugees cannot be found in any other logbook in the entire 1^st Cavalry Division from the Division level all the way down to the individual company level.

The most likely explanation for the phone call placed by the liaison officer is that he probably over heard discussions within the division headquarters about how the division planned to handle the refugee problem. The division planning staff eventually published their order on how to handle the refugee situation, but the 8^th Cavalry liaison officer who overheard the discussions earlier may have called back to his regiment to let them know an order was coming out from division on refugees and added details he thought was going to be in the order, which ultimately were not in the order. This would explain why not one other unit from the division level all the way down to all the individual companies in the entire division did not record anything even remotely similar to what the 8^th Cavalry recorded.

That is why the military uses operations orders signed by commanders in order to relay orders so leaders are not led by rumors spread by liaison officers at the division.

So let’s suspend reality here for minute and suppose that the 7^th Cavalry Regiment commander decided to take orders from a lower ranking officer at division to shoot refugees and implemented this order without it being recorded anywhere. This alternate reality couldn’t even had happened because the 7^th Cavalry didn’t even have a liaison officer at the division when this so called “order” was put out. The 7^th Cavalry was still in the process of moving from the port in Pohang towards the location of the rest of the 1^st Cavalry Division near Hwanggan. The 7^th Cavalry was no where near the division headquarters in Hwanggan to have a liaison officer present at the division headquarters much less receive any order to shoot refugees[xxiii].

As you can see the AP writers cleverly took two separate documents, quoted them out of context in these last two paragraphs of their article, in order to create an illusion that an order to shoot refugees was issued by the senior leadership. There is plenty of more deception to come.

In the neighboring 25^th Infantry Division, the commander, Maj Gen. William B. Kean, told his troops that since South Koreans were to have been evacuated from the battle zone, “all civilians seen in this area are to be considered as enemy and action taken accordingly.” His staff relayed this as “considered unfriendly and shot.”

First of all, the AP is using a quote from the 25^th Infantry Division that was not even at No Gun Ri to support their version of events that happened at No Gun Ri. This appears to be just another red herring added to the storyline to support the AP’s version of events.

Of course once you actually view the 25^th Infantry Division records that the AP quoted the story is actually much different than what the AP is suggesting. This is what the order from General Kean actually says:[xxiv]

“Korean police have been directed to remove all civilians from the area between the blue lines shown on the attached overlay and report the evacuation has been accomplished. All civilians seen in this area are to be considered as enemy and action taken accordingly”

If you read the whole the whole document you gain the context of why the order by General Kean was given. The Korean National Police were evacuating an area of civilians and had to report to General Kean when complete. Once complete, anyone left in the area was to be considered hostile due to the mass infiltration of enemy fighters in the area. Additionally you also have to look at the historical context as well. The 25^th Infantry was in a desperate fight to the north of the 1^st Cavalry Division. If the 25^th Infantry collapsed the North Koreans would have high-speed access into the rear of the 1^st Cavalry Division who had just arrived in Korea and was trying to get combat operations established. A collapse of the 25^th Infantry would have led to the collapse of the entire allied front.

The AP writers, I think for obvious reasons, failed to provide such necessary context of this order. I think it has become clear by now that the AP writers are masters at playing a document shell game. They use short quotes from longer documents in order to back their storyline without providing any context of the complete documentation. The AP even to this day continues to play a document shell game by uncovering hidden documents they say proves No Gun Ri happened and yet when you review them it is not the case.

Additionally military experts in the law of war told the AP they had never heard of such blanket “kill” order in the US military.

“An order to fire on civilians is patently an illegal order,” said retired Col. Scott Silliman of Duke University, an Air Force lawyer for 25 years.

Yes, that would be an illegal order and that is why the 1^st Cavalry Division order on the handling of refugees made no mention of authorizing soldiers to shoot refugees. That doesn’t stop the AP reporters from suggesting that it does by taking quotes from separate documents and quoting them out of context.

Additionally the assistant staff judge advocate of the 1^st Cavalry Division when interviewed by the Pentagon review team stated that he does not believe a massacre in the vicinity of No Gun Ri could have taken place without the Staff Judge Advocate’s Office learning about it. He and another 1^st Cavalry Division Judge Advocate Officers regularly visited the front line units. He does not recall hearing of an incident like the one alleged to have occurred in the vicinity of No Gun Ri.[xxv]

Carroll said he “wasn’t convinced this was enemy,” and he got the rifle companies to cease firing on the refugees. The lieutenant then shepherded a boy to safety under a double-arched concrete railroad bridge nearby, where shaken and wounded Koreans were gathered. He said he saw no threat.

As I pointed out earlier, Carroll saw no massacre either.

“There weren’t any North Koreans in there the first day, I’ll tell you that. It was mainly women and kids and old men,” recalled Carroll, who said he then left the area and knows nothing about what followed.

The Americans directed the refugees into the bridge underpasses – each 80 feet long, 23 feet wide, 30 feet high – and after dark opened fire on them from nearby machine gun positions, the Koreans said.

Veterans said Capt. Melbourne C. Chandler, after speaking with superior officers by radio, had ordered machine gunners from his heavy-weapons company to set up near the tunnel mouths and open fire.

“Chandler said, ‘The hell with all those people. Let’s get rid of all of them,’ “said Eugene Hesselman of Fort Mitchell, Ky. “. . . We were there only a couple of days and we didn’t know them from a load of coal.”

There is only one problem with Mr. Hesselman’s story, he wasn’t there to be able to hear any such order from CPT Chandler. According to 7^th Cavalry records in the national archives Mr. Hesselman was wounded either on the night of the 25^th or morning of the 26^th and evacuated from the front lines.[xxvi]

When the Pentagon investigators requested to speak to Mr. Hesselman in order to clarify his testimony he refused to be interviewed.

So now on your AP scorecard you can now add Mr. Hesselman as another fraudulent witness.

Ex-GIs believe the order was cleared at battalion headquarter, a half mile to the rear, or at a higher level. Chandler and other key officers are now dead, but the AP was able to locate the colonel who commanded the battalion, Herbert B. Heyer, 88.

Heyer, of Sandy Springs, Ga., denied knowing anything about the shootings and said, “I know I didn’t give such an order.” Veterans said the colonel apparently was leaving battalion operations to subordinates at the time.

Notice how quickly the AP writers throw in a sentence right after someone is quoted saying something that does not support their storyline. It is very unlikely that in a time of war the battalion commander would just sit back and not command his unit like the AP is suggesting. Also who are the veterans making the claims that battalion operations were being commanded by subordinates? Are they the same guys that were later proven not to be at No Gun Ri?

I think it is pretty clear the AP writers intentionally presented Heyer’s quotes in a way that would portray him as having something to hide in order to substantiate the AP storyline of a Pentagon conspiracy.

The bursts of gunfire killed those near the tunnel entrances first, the Korean claimants said.

“People pulled dead bodies around them for protection,” said 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.”

Recalled machine gunner Edward L. Daily: “Some may have been trying to crawl deeper for protection. When you see something like that and you’re frightened, you start to claw.”

Here is the first mention of Edward Daily. You can now add Edward Daily to your AP scorecard.

Edward Daily

What is not mentioned in this article is that Daily was the first ex-GI to confirm the AP’s version of events when contacted by AP writer Charles Hanley.[xxvii] The AP had contacted 34 veterans before Daily and all denied the AP’s claims about what happened at No Gun Ri. Daily than went on to give Hanley contact information of other veterans in the 7^th Cavalry. After doing this Daily contacted these veterans himself and discussed the events of No Gun Ri with them. By the time the AP writers contacted these veterans their memories had already been polluted by Daily.

After the AP’s original No Gun Ri story was released, Daily became the face of the No Gun Ri incident by conducting interviews for newspapers across the country as well as appearing on TV news programs. His most notable appearance on TV news was when NBC flew Daily back to Korea to be interviewed by Tom Brokaw. In all of these media interviews Daily told his tail of what happened at No Gun Ri as well as battlefield heroism during the Korean War which included winning multiple Silver Stars, being awarded a Distinguished Service Cross, as well earning a battlefield commission to lieutenant.

However, there was only one problem with Ed Daily’s tale, he was not at No Gun Ri that day. In fact he wasn’t even in the 7^th Cavalry Regiment or even in Korea. Due to a US News & World Report investigation they found through documents in the National Archives that Edward Daily was in fact stationed in with 27^th Ordinance Maintenance Group in Japan. Ed Daily was not a decorated combat hero who was involved in the incident at No Gun Ri, he was in fact a mechanic in Japan of no significance.[xxviii]

How the media allowed themselves to be fooled by some one like Ed Daily is a story all in itself, but what is important to realize is that Charles Hanley found out Daily was a fraud on December 7, 1999 when he received documents from the National Archives proving that Daily was not who he said he was. Hanley received this information months before Daily appeared on NBC and a whole month before Hanley submitted the AP story to the Pulitzer committee for consideration.[xxix] Knowing full well Daily was a fraud Hanley kept quiet about Daily and allowed him to become the face of No Gun Ri in the international media and slime an entire generation of Korean War veterans simply because he wanted to protect his chances at winning a Pulitzer Prize.

During three nights under fire, some trapped refugees managed to slip away, but others were shot as they tried to escape or crawled out to find clean water to drink, the Koreans said.

Veterans disagreed on whether gunfire came from the underpasses.

Some, like ex-sergeant James T. Kerns of Piedmont, S.C., said the Americans were answering fire from among the refugees. Hesselman said, “Every now and then you’d hear a shot, like a rifle shot.” But others recalled only heavy barrages of American fire power, not hostile fire. “I don’t remember shooting coming out,” said ex-rifleman Louis Allen of Bristol, Tenn.

You can add two more names to your AP scorecard, James Kerns and Louis Allen.

This statement from Kerns is actually accurate, but as you will see later others are misquotes.

Annotate on your scorecard Mr. Allan as another phantom witness. When Allen was interviewed by the Pentagon review team he told them that he was on re-enlistment leave when the 7^th Cavalry deployed to Korea and did not link up with his unit until August of 1950, long after the events that transpired at No Gun Ri.[xxx] How the AP got his quote about being at No Gun Ri is anybody’s guess. Get used to it because there are plenty more quotes in the article from soldiers who were not there.

The Koreans said the Americans may have been seeing their own comrade’s fire, ricocheting through the tunnels’ opposite ends. That’s possible, said Preece.

“It could actually have happened, that they were seeing our own fire . . . . We were scared to death,” said Preece, a career soldier who later fought in Vietnam.

This is what retired SFC George Preece had to say to the Pentagon review team when he was interviewed:

“I’ve got a feeling it was a blast. A muzzle blast coming out of that tunnel. Again, now, it could have been (referring to a ricochet). I’m not putting that out of possibility, but I don’t see how. I mean it could have been. I mean ricochets from this guy shooting from this tunnel. I’ve had that told to me before too, but it’s – I don’t believe that.” He also said, “I saw flashes coming out from under the bridge and you saw where the shells were hitting. And it’s close to that machine gun over there. You could see where it was hitting the dust, hitting the rocks, and things…And when they (soldiers) shot into it, there wasn’t that many rounds shot into it.”[xxxi]

So the quote from one of the soldiers there the AP tried to use to advance their claim that the veterans saw ricochets and not fire coming from the tunnel is actually a misquote. Preece clearly states that he saw bullets shot from the tunnel impacting near the US machine gunner. Than he also says that few rounds from the machine gun were fired back into the tunnel in response.

On July 28, the 7^th Cavalry was told to prepare to pull back again early the next morning. The final barrage still echoes in the memories of old soldiers.

“On summer nights when the breeze is blowing, I can still hear their cries, the little kids screaming,” said Daily, of Clarksville, Tenn, who went on to earn a battlefield commission in Korea.

Sounds of slaughter haunt Park Hee-sook’s memory too. “I can still hear the moans of women dying in a pool of blood,” said Park, then a girl of 16. “Children cried and clung to their dead mothers.”

Not everyone fired, veterans said.

“Some of us did and some of us didn’t,” said Flint, of Clio, Mich., the soldier who had been briefly caught in the culvert with the refugees.” . . . I wouldn’t fire at anybody in the tunnel like that. It was civilians just trying to hide.”

As you can see above, more false, but emotional testimony from Daily in the above paragraphs. There is also another name to add to your AP scorecard, Mr. Flint. Of course Mr. Flint wouldn’t have fired at any refugees at No Gun Ri because Flint wasn’t even there. Records show that he was wounded some time on July 25^th and evacuated from the area before the events that transpired at No Gun Ri happened. Add another phantom witness to your AP scorecard.

Kerns, a machine gunner, said he fired over the refugees heads. “I would not fire into a bunch of women.”

Kerns a witness that was proven to be at No Gun Ri, earlier said he saw fire coming from the refugees and in response he only fired over their heads. Hardly a war crime or something that could cause 400 dead bodies to pile up.

Once the fury subsided, Kerns said, he, Preece and another GI found at least seven dead North Korean soldiers in the underpasses, wearing uniforms under peasant white.

But Preece, of Dunville, Ky., said he doesn’t remember making such a search or even hearing that North Koreans were found. None of the other veterans, when asked, remembered seeing North Koreans.

Kerns also said weapons were recovered. Hesselman said someone later displayed a submachine gun. Preece recalled only “hearsay” about weapons.

When interviewed by the Pentagon review team Mr. Kerns said he never said such a thing to the AP about finding seven dead North Korean bodies in the underpass. He told the review team that he saw between four to nine bodies lying in the culverts of the bridge, but was not sure if they were dead. Mr. Kerns also told the AP he saw some grenades and a burp gun (a North Korean machine gun) in the tunnel.[xxxii] Since Kerns never said he saw dead North Koreans under the bridge, that would explain why Preece claims to have never seen any North Korean soldiers in the tunnel as well.

Hesselman as I demonstrated earlier couldn’t have possibly seen any weapons because he wasn’t even there to begin with.

All 24 South Korean survivors interviewed individually by the AP said they remembered no North Koreans or gunfire directed at the Americans.

North Korean soldiers probably were not in the refugee column and Mr. Kerns in his testimony to the Pentagon team already confirmed that he saw no North Korean soldiers though that didn’t stop the AP writers from misquoting him. However, what isn’t addressed in this article is the possibility that South Korean communist guerrillas that were active in the area could have been hiding within the refugee column. Newspaper articles from the Korean War period are filled with stories of guerrilla attacks in the Yongdong area.

Secret U.S. military intelligence reports from those days, since declassified, place the North Korean front line four miles from No Gun Ri on July 26, when the refugees entered the underpasses.

Notice how the AP team sneaks in another mention of them using “secret U.S. military intelligence reports” in order to confirm something that was supposedly hidden and no one knew about. In fact they didn’t need to look at any secret documents at all, they could just open up the book that chronicles the U.S. military’s official history of the Korean War. In the military’s official history there is an entire chapter called the 1^st Cavalry Division Loses Yongdong. Where is Yongdong? About eight miles from No Gun Ri. In fact the book lists that by the night of July 25^th the North Koreans had suffered approximately 2,000 casualties in battle against the 1^st Cavalry Division at Yongdong.[xxxiii] The book goes on to list the retreat of the 7^th Cavalry down the highway leading from Yongdong to Hwanggan. This highway runs right through No Gun Ri.

Early on July 29, the 7^th Cavalry pulled back. North Korean troops who moved in found “about 400 bodies of old and young people and children” the North Korean newspaper Cho Sun In Min Bo reported three weeks later.

I almost giggled when I first read this because the AP writers are using a known North Korean propaganda organ to verify their belief that 400 people died at No Gun Ri. I have to wonder if this is the first time in U.S. journalism that a North Korean newspaper has been sourced to confirm a reporter’s storyline?

Some ex-Gis today estimate 100 or fewer were killed. But those close to the bridge, from Chandler’s H Company, generally put the total at about 200. “A lot” also were killed in the strafing, they say.

This is the paragraph the reporter use as CYA. If it proven later that less then 100 people were killed at No Gun Ri they can point to this line and say they reported that. However, you can clearly see throughout the whole article they are promoting “hundreds” as being killed. So who are these GIs making the claims that “hundreds” were killed? The Pentagon review team determined that GIs that weren’t at No Gun Ri were the ones that made this claim. The review team discovered that after interviewing all the GI witnesses that were proven to actually be at No Gun Ri, not one GI witness said they saw “hundreds” of dead bodies under the bridge.[xxxiv]

As it turns out the AP writers are relying on testimony from people who were not at No Gun Ri and a North Korean newspaper to support their claim that 400 people died at No Gun Ri; unfortunately this is the researching that Pulitzer Prizes are made of.

The North Koreans buried some dead in unknown locations and surviving relatives buried others, the villagers said. Because families then scattered across South Korea, the claimants said, they have the names of only 120 dead, primarily their own relatives.

This is one of the most curious facts about the whole No Gun Ri incident. Where are the 400 bodies? 400 dead people is a lot of bodies not to mention that the Korean witnesses claim that cows and other animals were slaughtered as well. Reconnaissance photographs taken a week after the events at No Gun Ri show absolutely no evidence of a massacre of 400 people. So where did the bodies go? Additionally just think of the forensic evidence 400 bodies would leave not to mention the bones from the animals the refugees say were shot as well. There should be buttons, cans, coins, pieces of the wagons, animal bones, etc. littering the area. Korean forensic science teams continue to uncover the bodies and personal effects from soldiers killed during the Korean War yet at No Gun Ri little of this evidence is found. No one has been able to adequately explain the lack of forensic evidence.

Personal effects recovered from Korean War Battlefield.[xxxv]

Having been to No Gun Ri myself I have found a few unkept graves on the side of the hill. Are these graves from people killed at No Gun Ri? Who knows, but this is actually more physical evidence to support a theory of a smaller amount of people killed at No Gun Ri than what the supporters who claim 400 people were killed at No Gun Ri can produce. To this day no one has been able to provide any forensic evidence to justify the claim that 400 people died at No Gun Ri.

One of a few graves near the No Gun Ri bridge.

Despite the lack of evidence 400 dead people is still the commonly used number for the amount of people who died at No Gun Ri by the mass media and the claimants even though both the Korean and US investigators concluded such a number is incorrect. The only evidence to support such a number comes from Korean claimants who were children and teenagers at the time and have been demanding $400 million dollars in compensation, along with a North Korean propaganda newspaper verifying this number, and a handful of ex-GIs who were proven to not have been at No Gun Ri. Folks, this is called mythology, not fact seeking.

The war, in all, claimed an estimated 1 million South Korean civilian casualties – killed, wounded or missing. Almost 37,000 Americans died.

At 1^st Cavalry headquarters, division commander Maj. Gen. Hobart R. Gay was told South Korean refugees were killed by North Korean troops in a crossfire at No Gun Ri, the division information officer recalled. “I think that’s what he believed,” said Harold D. Steward, an ex-colonel from San Diego.

Steward is actually not even a ex-colonel he is actually a retired Lieutenant Colonel so the fact the AP couldn’t even get his rank right should be an indication that they wouldn’t get his witness testimony correct either. However, make sure you add Steward to your AP scorecard as another one of the dozen ex-GIs supporting the AP’s version of events.

LTC Steward testified to the Pentagon review team that he was in fact, misquoted by the AP. He told the Pentagon interviewers that he told the AP that there were confirmed reports of civilians killed in crossfire throughout the entire 8^th Army sector. There was no information specifying where the incidents took place and he never told the AP that civilians were killed at No Gun Ri.[xxxvi]

Relevant unit documents say nothing about a crossfire, about North Korean soldiers killed under a bridge, or anything else about No Gun Ri.

As I already pointed out Kerns said before that he never saw any North Koreans under the bridge though the AP misquoted him by saying he did. The fact that no one else saw any North Koreans would explain why no 7^th Cavalry documentation exists that says there was North Koreans present at No Gun Ri.

One battalion lieutenant located by the AP said he was in the area but knew nothing about the killing of civilians. “I have honestly never, ever heard of this from either my soldiers or superiors or my friends,” said John C. Lippincott of Stone Mountain, Ga. He said he could have missed it because “we were extremely spread out.”

Notice how quickly the AP writers quickly dismiss anyone that says anything contrary to the storyline they are promoting. Lippincott says something that does not back the AP’s storyline this in the next sentence they find a way to try to discredit what he said.

It is important for the AP writers to discredit him because when retired Colonel John Lippincott was interviewed by the Pentagon review team he had this to say:

“Because honestly before this – this occurred and I read all the events I would have sworn to you it never happened, because I was right there all the time. I never heard a word of it mentioned till I saw it in the paper. And I want you to know that as long as I was there I had never received an order as a Platoon Leader that – to kill all civilian refugees coming through the lines because some ‘em may be North Korean soldiers. Now, we did receive word and warning, and warnings and admonishments that the North Koreans are trying to infiltrate our lines and they’re dressed like refugees. So they may be among the refugees. You gotta be extremely, extremely careful. Well, I imagine a soldier could interpret that many ways. You know, by saying well if that occurs we don’t let any of them through. But those were the kind of warnings and admonishments we received. Never – I was never told to kill all civilians that attempted to come through the lines.”[xxxvii]

As you can see Colonel Lippincott’s testimony is highly convincing and runs contrary to the storyline being promoted by the AP. Most importantly he was actually there at No Gun Ri unlike many of the other ex-GIs quoted by the AP. Very little of what he had to say was in the AP article and what was quoted the AP writers found a way to try and discredit him with. It should be becoming quite clear to everyone that the AP was more concerned about promoting a storyline than finding out the truth of what happened at No Gun Ri.

The villagers say they tried to file a compensation claim with a U.S. claims office in Seoul in 1960, but were told they missed a deadline. Later, they say, Korean police warned one man, survivor Yang Hae-chan, to keep quiet about the 1950 events. But as authoritarian South Korea liberalized in the 1990s, they revived their case and sent petitions to Washington. None was acknowledged, they say.

Earlier in the article the AP writers mentioned a compensation claim filed by the Koreans in 1997 that was thrown out due to a technicality. Only way towards the end of the article does the AP mention what that technicality was, which was they had already filed a claim in 1960 that wasn’t awarded due to a statute of limitations on claims from the Korean War.

In August 1997, a claim signed by 30 petitioners was filed with South Korea’s Government Compensation Committee. Having researched histories, they pointed a finger at the 1^st Cavalry.

In response, the US Armed Forces Claims Service said there was “no evidence . . . to show that the U.S. 1^st Cavalry Division was in the area.” A lower-level South Korean compensation committee said people were killed at No Gun Ri but it had no proof of U.S. involvement. In April 1998, the national panel rejected the case, saying a five-year statute of limitation expired long ago.

The AP subsequently reconstructed unit movements from map coordinates in declassified war records. They showed that four 1^st Cavalry Division battalions were in the area at the time of the alleged incident.

Months of tracing veterans – some 130 interviews by telephone and in person – then pinpointed the companies involved. The AP also pored through hundreds of boxes of once-secret documents at the National Archives and other repositories to find pieces of the story.

This is the portion of the article that AP tries to use to create the angle of a government cover up. A low-level government lawyer contracted to work for the Eighth Army claims office is suddenly created into being the mastermind behind this government conspiracy to hide No Gun Ri.

The AP writers are trying to project a storyline that only through their heroic efforts of working tirelessly for months on end, taking their fifty subway rides to the library, and conducting countless interviews were they able to uncover the fact that the 1^st Cavalry Division was in the area of No Gun Ri. This revelation thus in turn exposed the government cover up being directed by a low-level Eighth Army claims lawyer.

It really does sound ridiculous when you think about it, that a misinformed claims lawyer is suddenly behind a government conspiracy to hide whatever happened at No Gun Ri.

When the AP was told this why didn’t they go and ask somebody in the senior leadership of Eighth Army if the military’s official position was that the 1^st Cavalry Division was not in the area of No Gun Ri? Heck they could have come and asked me and I would have simply pulled out my copy of the official US Army history of the Korean War and point out the entire chapter entitled 1^st Cavalry Division Loses Yongdong to them which proves the 1^st Cavalry Division was in the area of No Gun Ri.

The AP writers didn’t do any of this because keeping the myth alive that an Eighth Army claims lawyer is behind a massive government conspiracy supports their storyline of a Pentagon cover up of what happened at No Gun Ri.

The laws and customs of war condemn indiscriminate killing of civilians, even if a few enemy soldiers are among a large number of noncombatants killed, military experts note. The Korean War record shows Army courts-martial only for individual murders of Koreans, nothing on a large scale.

As for civil liability, the U.S. government is largely protected by U.S. law against foreign claims related to “combatant activities.” The Korean claimants say the killings were not combat-related-the enemy was miles away.

There is a reason this U.S. law is in place to protect the military from sensationalist journalists like the crew at the Associated Press. Additionally, the claim that the 7^th Cavalry soldiers were not in combat is totally ridiculous. What were they doing at No Gun Ri in the first place, on a scouting trip to try out some of the local kimchi? They were at No Gun Ri because they were fleeing the advancing North Korean Army, which had just defeated the frontline elements of the 1^st Cavalry Division at Yongdong. Additionally, the night before the incident, the 7^th Cavalry regiment suffered wounded that were evacuated including some of the ex-GI witnesses that supposedly supported the AP’s version of events that were in fact not there because they were wounded. Sounds like combat to me. Plus a number of veteran witnesses that were at No Gun Ri, testified that they were being shot at by some of the refugees.

“We want the truth, justice and due respect for our human rights,” they wrote in a 1997 petition to President Clinton.

They also want $400 million dollars as well. I want truth and justice too and that is why I have researched the tragedy at No Gun Ri so closely because so many of the people involved in this issue are not interested in truth in justice, but promoting a mythology.

One ex-GI objects that “a bunch of lawyers” can’t run a war.

“War is not just,” said Norman Tinkler. “There’s things that goes on that we can’t comprehend, but it has to be done. And it’s the individual that has to make the decision.”

We have another quote from Tinkler that as I have shown earlier has some creditability issues to begin with.

But the others who were there said No Gun Ri didn’t have to happen. The refugees could have been screened up on the road or checked out under the bridge, Kerns and Hesselman said.

Here we have quotes from someone who was not at No Gun Ri and from someone else who claims the AP misquoted him.

“The command looked at it as getting rid of the problem in the easiest way. That was to shoot them in a group,” said Daily. Today, he said, “we all share a guilt feeling, something that remains with everyone.”

Here the AP uses some powerful testimony to lay blame for what happened at No Gun Ri on the higher commanders from someone who wasn’t even there.

The late Col. Gilmon A. Huff, who took over the 2^nd Battalion from Heyer three days after the pull back from No Gun Ri, was interviewed before his death earlier this year and said he knew nothing of what happened at the bridge.

But he “heard” about refugee killings and told his men it was wrong, Huff said at his Abbeville, S.C. home. “You can’t kill people just for being there,” he told the AP.

If you read closely Huff says he “knew nothing of what happened at the bridge.” However, in the next line the AP cleverly quotes him as saying that he “heard” about refugee killings to give the reader the impression that he heard about killings at No Gun Ri when he really meant he “heard” about refugee killings during the Korean War in general. Just a final example in this article of the AP writers using quotes out of context in order to support their own pre-conceived storyline of creating a Korean My Lai.

The bridge at No Gun Ri still stands today. For 49 years its concrete was deeply scarred by bullets – until railroad workers this month patched over the holes.

Most of the bullets marks can still be seen quite easily today because the railroad workers only put concrete on some sections of the bridge supposedly as normal maintenance which happened before the AP story was even published. However, the concrete they put over the bullet holes is more like plaster because much of it is cracking off the sides of the tunnel. The areas that cracked off you can see if there are any bullet holes or not. The concrete can be taken off the sides of tunnels at any time.

You can see the concrete cracking off the tunnel.

This is just another stretching of the truth by the AP writers because they wanted to end their article by giving the reader the impression that the bullet holes were being covered by concrete as part of the great US government conspiracy headed by the low-level Eighth Army claims lawyer in Seoul. Some how she was even able to get the Korean Railways workers involved in the plot to cover up No Gun Ri. Her cover up powers if you are to believe the AP is quite extraordinary.

Finally let’s review our AP scorecards. The AP said they had 6 witnesses that participated and 6 witnessed the events. Here is what I have listed:

1. Patterson: misquoted
2. Kerns: misquoted
3. Tinkler: suspect testimony
4. Hesselman: not there
5. Carroll: says no massacre occurred
6. Daily: not there
7. Flint: not there
8. Louis: not there
9. Steward: misquote
10. Lippincott: says no massacre occurred
11. Huff: heard civilians killed during the war not at NGR
12. George Preece: misquoted

As can be seen the 12 witnesses that allegedly supported the AP’s version of the events in the article did not hold up under scrutiny.

Note that the Pentagon review did find a veteran witness that claimed that hundreds of people were gunned down at No Gun Ri. However, when asked to identify terrain feature in the No Gun Ri area he could not do it and his description of events was totally inconsistent with other veteran’s testimony who were there. Plus he identified another veteran as being with him who saw it, but when this veteran was also interviewed by the Pentagon review team he did not support the claims the prior veteran was making. He in fact saw no such thing.[xxxviii] At least the AP did not include him in the report.

However, here is another veteran the AP did not include in their report by the name of Buddy Wenzel. Wenzel was at the scene that day had this to say about the events that transpired at the bridge at No Gun Ri:

The civilians started coming down the railroad tracks, on paths on both sides of the tracks… The front ones, there were like maybe 15 or 20 of them, and they were getting thicker beyond that. Somebody said, “Fire over their heads for a warning.” … I got out of my hole with about 30 other guys; we all had M-1s. Now, we had one machine gun up on the railroad tracks and another air cooled machine gun on the right. Well when we fired over their heads they panicked. … That’s when some of them started to run towards us. We were firing over them all this time.

Then somebody yelled, “We’re being fired at,” then there was a bunch that started shooting into the refugees … This all happened in a minute, but it all came out when we panicked ‘cause we thought we were getting shot at.

There was a lieutenant that was running down to that group I was with. I saw this little girl that was sort of in front, she was maybe four or five years old and she was coming down the track I shot towards her and she fell. Well, this lieutenant ran out there and picked up this little girl. Why … I can’t tell you. That’s why the lieutenant was yelling, “Cease fire,” and he was running. She was out there in front, by herself, and flailing here arms and throwing her arms down.

After the cease-fire I stayed where I was, maybe 10-15 yards from the track, and maybe six or eight guys went down the tracks from the group that I was with, and a few went down from on top of the tracks. One of the guys went down there and searched a few of the bodies, he … found a body with a burp gun, and he yelled, “Here’s the goddamned gun,” and he held it straight up and slammed it down on the tracks.[xxxix]

So why was such a witness that was proven to be at No Gun Ri that offers vivid testimony to what actually happened there left out of the AP article? It is because his testimony doesn’t agree with the storyline the AP has been trying to promote of racist, war criminal GIs with orders from higher to kill the 400 civilians underneath the bridge that day. The AP reporters wanted their “Korean My Lai” and Wenzel didn’t fit their agenda.

The only GI witnesses that fully confirm the AP’s version of No Gun Ri was Daily, Flint, and Hesselman who all were not at No Gun Ri. The AP finally conceded that Daily was not at No Gun Ri, but to this day the AP claims Flint and Hesselman were there despite the documented evidence that shows they were medically evacuated before the events that transpired at No Gun Ri took place. Both Flint and Hesselman refused to be interviewed by the Pentagon review team and no GI witnesses who were at No Gun Ri can confirm the presence of either individual that day at the bridge.[xl]

Out of the twelve witnesses the AP cites in their article, four of them were not even there and the rest of them do not confirm the AP’s storyline. This fact is consistent with the rest of the 130 veteran interviews the AP conducted where the veterans told the reporters they saw no such massacre as the AP described it take place at No Gun Ri. Additionally, the Pentagon review team conducted hundreds more interviews where those veterans also said no such massacre happened. Some how all these veterans that dispute the AP’s version of events like Buddy Wenzel is discarded in the AP article in favor of dubious sources like Daily, Flint, and Hesselman.

Additionally when you solely look at the forensics and imagery analysis of the No Gun Ri area that was taken only one week after the incident and then compare it to the testimony of the people that were proven to be there, it is clear no massacre happened. Some civilians were gunned down at No Gun Ri, which is proven by witness testimony from people who were there that saw a handful of dead people in the tunnel after soldiers fired in response to rifle fire from the refugee column. Korean forensics investigators later found Russian shell casings and bandoliers in exactly the same spot GI witness said they took rifle fire.[xli]

The initial warning shots the US soldiers fired over the heads of the refugees is what probably caused the gun men within the refugee column to open fire and the US soldiers then directed their fire into the refugees before being stopped by their officers. A tragic story no doubt, but this is not a scenario that supports the current body count mythology. A storyline of strafings, bombings, and four days of rifle fire despite all the evidence saying otherwise, has to be promoted to support the body count mythology.

Can you spot the 400 dead bodies? Both US and Korean imagery analysts could not either.

This is just some of the pertinent information about No Gun Ri that I have presented and in fact there is a lot more information I could put into this posting especially in regards to Korean and American witness testimony, forensics, aerial imagery analysis, and historical documents that further sheds doubt on the AP’s version of events. I could literally write a book about this topic if I presented the nitty gritty details instead of trying to provide a broad overview of what happened.

I have also written this posting in an academic format by having pertinent information supported by footnotes that can be traced back to the source material. I did this because in the AP book they offered no footnotes to support their version of events and often make totally unsubstantiated claims. I am making claims in my above response to the original AP article that is supported with footnotes that can be traced to verifiable sources.

To this day the AP writers have not provided a complete archive of all their witness testimony and historical evidence. You will often see statements from them that say, “witnesses support their story”, but very rarely do they tell you who and when. This group of journalists simply want you to trust their reporting by not providing footnotes, but as I have already clearly showed these journalists are more interested in promoting a storyline instead of searching for the truth of what happened at No Gun Ri.

This is clearly the case because when you trace back the few sources they do provide, it turns out they were either misquoted or a fraudulent witness. One has to assume the reason they will not completely disclose their work is because of the numerous holes that critics have already uncovered in their reporting. These standards of journalism may be what Pulitzer Prizes are made of, but these standards would have given me a failing grade on my college history final exam.

Pulitzer Prizes and self-promotion was obviously the driving factor behind the AP’s work and not any search to create a accurate historical record of what happened. A tragedy did happen that day at No Gun Ri and the continuing tragedy of it is that the AP’s faulty reporting has created so much mythology around this issue that it has taken on a political context that has ultimately made the search for the truth of what really happened at No Gun Ri next to impossible. The victims of No Gun Ri and the Korean War generation in general deserve better than the shoddy journalism of the Associated Press.

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UPDATE: Make sure to read my latest posting, The Forensics of No Gun Ri along with the transcript of my briefing to the Seoul Rotary Club.

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Note: If you have any questions or would like to discuss even more specific details of what happened at No Gun Ri I will be happy to answer them in the comment section. Unlike how the AP writers who tried to silence Robert Bateman,[xlii] I don’t mind debate and don’t believe in trying to silence people with opposing viewpoints. I hope this posting offers some good food for thought for everyone and spurs you to look more into the No Gun Ri issue and judge the facts for yourself before believing the mythology.

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[i] Oh Yeon-ho, CEO and Founder of Oh My News, Oh My News International, 06 June 2007, http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=365749&rel_no=1

[ii] Robert Bateman, No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident, (Mechanicsburg, PA, Stackpole Books, 2002), Chapter 7 Making Up History Page 196

[iii] Robert Bateman, No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident, (Mechanicsburg, PA, Stackpole Books, 2002), Chapter 4 Erosion, Page 85

[iv] Joseph Galloway, “Doubts About A Korean Massacre”, U.S. News & World Report, 12 May 2000

[v] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 123

[vi] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 123

[vii] Jamie McIntyre, “All Encompassing Probe Ordered Into Alleged Korean War Massacre”, CNN, 01 October 1999, http://www.dpg.devry.edu/~akim/sck/nogunri1.html

[viii] “U.S. Called On to Conduct Open, Fair Probe Into No Gun Ri Killings”, Associated Press, 6 December 2000, http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ASIANNOW/east/12/05/skorea.nogunri.ap/index.html

[ix] Robert Bateman, No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident, (Mechanicsburg, PA, Stackpole Books, 2002), Chapter 7 Making Up History Page 202

[x] Donald Kirk & Cho Sang-hun, Korea Witness, (Seoul, South Korea, EunHaeng NaMu Books, 2006), The Story Behind the Story of No Gun Ri Pages 107-112

[xi] Charles Gruntzer, “Stranded Enemy Soldiers Merge with Refugee Crowds in Korea”, The New York Times, 30 September 1950, page A1

[xii] Martha Mendoza, “Digging Into History – AP Investigates U.S. Actions During the Korean War”, Investigative Reporters and Editors Journal, January – February 2000, page 6, Note: Bateman’s book on page 133 covers this quote as well.

[xiii] Donald Kirk & Cho Sang-hun, Korea Witness, (Seoul, South Korea, EunHaeng NaMu Books, 2006), The Story Behind the Story of No Gun Ri Page 108

[xiv] T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War, (Dulles, Virgina, Brassey’s, 1963) Chapter 2 Battle: Retreating pages 106-107)

[xv] The Bridge at No Gun Ri document archive, http://www.henryholt.com/nogunri/document09.htm, accessed 05 July 2007

[xvi] Roy E. Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, (Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), Chapter 15 Establishing the Pusan Perimeter Page 251

[xvii] Robert Bateman, No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident, (Mechanicsburg, PA, Stackpole Books, 2002), Chapter 4 Erosion Page 83-84

[xviii] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 125

[xix] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 126

[xx] Oh, Yeon-ho, “Do You Know Our Agony? Massacre of Villagers By the U.S. Soldiers During the Korean War”, On the Spot Investigation, 02 June 2000, http://www.peoplepower21.org/English/37768

[xxi] Jamie McIntyre, “All Encompassing Probe Ordered Into Alleged Korean War Massacre”, CNN, 01 October 1999, http://www.dpg.devry.edu/~akim/sck/nogunri1.html

[xxii] The Bridge at No Gun Ri document archive, http://www.henryholt.com/nogunri/document19.htm, accessed 05 July 2007

[xxiii] Robert Bateman, No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident, (Mechanicsburg, PA, Stackpole Books, 2002), Chapter 4 Erosion Page 83-84

[xxiv] The Bridge at No Gun Ri document archive, http://www.henryholt.com/nogunri/document06.htm, accessed 05 July 2007

[xxv] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 127

[xxvi] Brian Duffy, “Memory and Its Flaws”, U.S. News & World Report, 12 June 2000, Vol. 128, No. 23, page 22

[xxvii] Robert Bateman, No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident, (Mechanicsburg, PA, Stackpole Books, 2002), Chapter 7 Making Up History Page 219

[xxviii] Joseph Galloway, “Doubts About A Korean Massacre”, U.S. News & World Report, 12 May 2000

[xxix] Robert Bateman, No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident, (Mechanicsburg, PA, Stackpole Books, 2002), Chapter 6 The Strange Tale of Edward Daily, Page 160

[xxx] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 125

[xxxi] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 125

[xxxii] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 125

[xxxiii] Roy E. Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, (Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), Chapter 12 The Front Line Moves South: The 1^st Cavalry Division Loses Yongdong Pages 195-200

[xxxiv] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 120

[xxxv] Author attended display of artifacts recovered from Korean War battlesites at the Korean War memorial in Seoul on June 25, 2007

[xxxvi] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 126

[xxxvii] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 124-125

[xxxviii] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 133

[xxxix] Robert Bateman, “No War Crime at No Gun Ri”, Arm Chair General, January 2007, page 37

[xl] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Chapter 4 Analysis of Interview Data, Page 123

[xli] No Gun Ri Review, (Department of the Army Inspector General, January 2001), Appendix B Analysis of Forensic Evidence, page B-8

[xlii] Michael Taylor, “A War of Words On a Prize-Winning Story”, San Francisco Chronicle, 07 April 2002, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/04/07/IN89398.DTL