| No Gun Ri | |
|---|---|
An aerial image of No Gun Ri taken on August 6, 1950. The positions of U.S. soldiers are noted. The lack of either bodies or any indication of a mass grave has led to doubts concerning a massacre said to have taken place in this area a few days earlier. |
|
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 노근리 |
| Hanja | 老斤里 |
| Revised Romanization | Nogeun-ri |
| McCune–Reischauer | Nogŭn-ri |
No Gun Ri (Korean: 노근리 pron. Noh gool li) is a village in Hwanggan-myeon, Yeongdong County, North Chungcheong Province in central South Korea. The village was the site of the No Gun Ri Massacre during the Korean War in which U.S. soldiers shot and killed an undetermined number of Korean refugees.
On July 26–29, 1950, between eight and 400 South Korean civilians were killed in this village by soldiers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment during the Korean War. Those shot were refugees trying to escape advancing North Korean forces by crossing U.S. military lines. The U.S. soldiers, under the command of General Hobart R. Gay, feared that North Korean soldiers in disguise might be among the refugees. The massacre gained international attention as a result of a report by Charles Hanley published by the Associated Press in September 1999.[1] This story quoted nine U.S. soldiers, including Ed Daily, who claimed that he machine gunned refugees and could, "still hear their cries, the little kids screaming."[2] The AP won the Pulitzer Prize for this story in 2000. U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a statement of regret in January 2001.[3]
Daily, as well as three other U.S. soldiers quoted by the AP, were later exposed as frauds who were never even present at No Gun Ri.[4] The AP cited an estimate of 400 killed which first appeared in a North Korean newspaper three weeks after the massacre.[5] In 2001, the U.S. military responded to the AP account with a report that included a detailed aerial photograph taken on August 6, 1950.[6] As there was no indication of bodies or of a mass grave in the photo, the report concluded that no more than fifty refugees could have been killed at No Gun Ri.[6] A report by the South Korean military estimated that 150 refugees were killed.[7]
Hanley responded that the bodies might not have been visible if they were placed under a bridge and covered with dirt.[8] However, the aerial photo shows no major ground dislocation, so there is no obvious place where the dirt needed could have come from.[8]
LTC Robert Bateman, a U.S. infantry officer whose book on No Gun Ri was published in 2002, estimated that between eight and thirty-five Korean refugees were killed.[9] Although the AP story claimed that the refugees were unarmed, Bateman found U.S. Army records indicating that a rifle and a submachine gun were retrieved in the area.[9] Bateman also argues that the stories Daily told at veteran's meetings contaminated the memories of authentic witnesses.[8] Some veterans even insisted that they remembered Daily at No Gun Ri, although Daily has since confessed he was never there.[8] Bateman's book won the Colby Award in 2004.
In 2007, the South Korean government announced that it would build a $20 million "No Gun Ri History Park" in the village by 2009.[10]