The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War [Hardcover]

Sang-Hun Choe (Author), Martha Mendoza (Author), Charles J. Hanley (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0805066586 | ISBN-13: 978-0805066586 | Publication Date: September 6, 2001 | Edition: 1st

The untold human story of a massacre of Korean civilians by American soldiers in the early days of the Korean War, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who uncovered it

In the fall of 1999, a team of Associated Press investigative reporters broke the news that U.S. troops had massacred a large group of South Korean civilians early in the Korean War. On the eve of that pivotal war's 50th anniversary, their reports brought to light a story that had been supressed for decades, confirming allegations the U.S. military had sought to dismiss. It made headlines around the world.

In The Bridge at No Gun Ri, the team tells the larger, human story behind the incident through the eyes of the people who survived it: on the American side, the green recruits of the "good time" U.S. occupation army in Japan made up of teenagers who viewed unarmed farmers as enemies and generals who had never led men into battle; on the Korean side, the peasant families forced to flee their ancestral village caught between the invading North Koreans and the U.S. Army. The narrative looks at victims both Korean and American; at the ordinary lives and high-level decisions that led to the fatal encounter; at the terror of the three-day slaughter; at the memories and ghosts that forever haunted the survivors. The story of No Gun Ri also illuminates the larger story of the Korean War-also known as the Forgotten War-and how an arbitrary decision to divide the country in 1945 led to the first armed conflict of the Cold War.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The AP investigation of a 1950 shooting of South Korean civilians by U.S. soldiers won Hanley, Choe and Mendoza the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 and ignited a series of controversies that as yet remain unresolved. In the early days of the Korean War, as defeat began sliding into disaster, inexperienced, poorly commanded U.S. troops received higher orders to stop, by force if necessary, civilian movement through their lines. They responded, the journalists found, by massacring a number of South Korean civilians near the village of No Gun Ri over a period of three days. This book delves further into the "larger human story" of the events, well establishing the terror and confusion of the South Korean refugees, caught up in a war they did not understand. The reconstruction is less effective from the American side. Relative to the number of alleged participants, U.S. interviewees are few. (A high proportion, the authors find, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.) The authors take pains to establish the men of No Gun Ri as dropouts and throwaways teenage rejects of a postwar society obsessed with prosperity and anti-communism. That in turn makes it easier to show them, as well as the Korean civilians, as victims of a government that sent them to Korea to fight a civil war on the side of squalid local tyranny. That perspective is defensible but, experts might argue, scarcely definitive. This volume, with its focus on personal experience, is correspondingly best understood as advocacy reportage, eschewing critical analysis by concentrating on the victims on both sides of the rifles. (Sept. 6) Forecast: Readers shocked by reports of the incident will pick up this follow-up, while an eight-city author tour should bring the story to further corners. But with U.S.-North Korean relations apparently under control, the book probably won't benefit from current political notice.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In 2001, Associated Press reporters Hanley, Sang-Hun Choe, and Martha Mendoza broke the story of how U.S. troops opened fire on a group of South Koreans during the Korean War; later, they won a Pulitzer Prize for their investigative work. The book begins with U.S. troops stationed in Japan on occupation duty. These troops, who had no combat experience and were used to the easy and sometimes "wild" life in Japan, soon found themselves in Korea facing the invasion of the North Koreans. Most units had no adequate antitank weapons and were led by inexperienced officers. The U.S. Army retreated until it reached the Pusan defense line (located at the base of the Korean peninsula), and it was during this period that the massacre of civilians occurred. Recalling Facing My Lai (LJ 12/97) in scope and content, this book tells a grim but true story. The authors have done their research and tell an excellent tale one that the U.S. Army tried to forget. Recommended for both public and academic libraries. Mark Ellis, Albany State Univ., GA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (September 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805066586
• ISBN-13: 978-0805066586
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,829,807 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars People miss the point, October 17, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War (Hardcover)

...the authors found documentation showing that there were orders to strafe refugees and kill them when they tried to cross lines. The Pentagon report was a whitewash because it acknowledged the killing done by some scared soldiers, but carefully deflected attention away from the evidence showing that the air force and the army were ordered to kill civilians.

Returning to the bridge itself, some of the critics don't seem to realize that even the Pentagon acknowledges that a massacre occurred. As for the poor training of the soldiers, it's not exactly a leftist viewpoint to say that America began the Korean War with troops who were very green. It's common knowledge.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Journalistic Travesty, September 24, 2001

By 

John Hodes (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War (Hardcover)

Charles Hanley, Sang-Hun CHOE AND Martha Mendoza take the research of a south Korean policeman of dubious character and wind it around their preconceived notion as to what happend at NGR. They denigrate the training of U.S. soldiers in Japan without any facts except some from disgruntled privates who embelliah their barracks war stories and contaminating the evidence the authors think they had. Their description of the action at NGR is based on youthful survivor testimony and little from the chain of command on the US side. At the scene were officers, commanders, reporters and many more reputable witnesses that tell a diferent story. To label NGR a massacre is a travesty of the first order. A real massacre took place a few days later at Hill 303 where some twenty US soldier prisoners of war were shot at close range with their hands tied behind their
back. When somebody is accused of a crime there should be concrete evidence to support that accusation. With lack of solid evidence and an action 50 years old the authores should have been more careful not to denigrate the character of any of those doing their duty.

7 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Biased rubbish., March 20, 2008

By 

Catsmate - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War (Paperback)

This book is terrible, don't buy it. I'd recommend Bateman's analysis of the incident.
This book oozes with Hanley's bias and has ben utterly discredited, except among those who *want* to believe his account

Hanley's book is mainly based on the recollections of one man, Edward Daily. Daily was the star witness for this book; he claimed to have been one of the two machine gunners at the bridge, and that he was ordered to fire in civilians.
Alas for Hanley and his supporters Daily is a liar;
(1) he was an ordnance mechanic during his military service
(2) he didn't join the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry until 1951
(3) there is no evidence her ever saw a single day of actual combat in Korea.
(4) he pleaded guilty to defrauding the U.S. government of over $300,000 in veterans' disability benefits.

Hanley has stated that he feels that the questions raised by Daily's record did not,and still don't, significantly undermine the story. Personally I'm one of those who prefers more rigor.

Two other witnesses prominently quoted by Hanley (and AP) are Eugene Hesselman and Delos Flint.
Hesselman still insists that Daily was there, despite Daily finally admitting he made his evidence up, and so his testimony (and memories) are highly suspect. Flint simply (and verifiably) wasn't at No Gun Ri, so his testimony is worthless.

Both this book, and Bateman's far superior account, quote witnesses who report that the Americans' shooting was a spontaneous response to gunfire that came from within the group of refugees, although Hanley's team downplays this possibility. Hanley utterly fails to show any evidence for his perferred option; that US troops were ordered to fire on civilians. His own book does confirm orders to fire warning gunfire over the heads of the refugees.

Finally, Hanley fails to account for the human remains. If, as he claims, 350 people were killed, where are the bodies? Aerial reconnaissance pictures from August 6th fail to show either the bodies or the traces of the graves that would have been needed to dispose of them. Even the US troops' foxholes (ideal for expedient graves) are visibly open to the sky. Hanley's claim that local villagers buried the bodies in piles under the bridge falls down, **especially when the river that flowing under the bridge ran toward No Gun Ri**. Why would the villagers, who used the river for water, leave hundreds of rotting human corpses in the streambed of the river?

OK I'm off now. I've had enough.