Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

...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.

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.

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.

This book is an important document of an otherwise unknown atrocity of war. Mendoza teaches at my school, and I have spoken with her on the issue of the credibility of the North Korean events at No Gun Ri described in the book. The truth is that their main witness (who was only main after 60 minutes chose to focus on him) is in fact fraudulent. This, however, is one unfortunate event and one person in the huge process of research and interviews that has gone into this book and it has received far more press than it is worthy. One mentally disturbed man should not discount the hours and years of effort on behalf of the journalists and the suffering of countless Koreans. Don't let the yellow press mislead you into believing that this may not have happened. It did, and everyone with a conscience should read this book as it is the best available report on this event. Let me tell you first hand that Martha Mendoza's credibility is NOT questionable. She is a jounalist with the highest ethics, and this is a book worth reading.

Though, the follow up response by Major Robert Bateman did discredit several of the many witnesses that were part of the Associated Press' story, there are still many unfilled holes that are left unanswered by both accounts.

I have read both Bateman's and the AP accounts, as well as anything that I could get my hands on in regards to No Gun Ri, and the fact of the matter is that though they both dispute the numbers of dead, there is still the matter of the orders that were passed on (these were never even disputed in the Army official report on the No Gun Ri incident http://www.army.mil/nogunri/) to shoot civilians who were attempting to cross lines. Also, there have been numerous reports of similar incidents which occurred throughout the peninsular war similar to No Gun Ri perpetrated by US, ROK, and DPRK forces.

I lived in Korea for several years and actually visited the site under that bridge, and the fact is, the bullet holes are there (this was before the Korean Government had them cemented over in an attempt to stop further investigation in 1999) the people there believe it happened, regardless of numbers.

Bateman's book is thorough in its coverage and a must-read in regards to this incident, and the contrast which exists between the two books only shows that there is never really one rendition of history, that to understand events in our pasts is not to choose sides and to close our minds. They both give differing sides to one story, and the truth must lie somewhere in between.

There may be no real answer to the exact numbers of people who died under that bridge, but in the confusion of that war, only three years long, millions of civilians were killed. With scared, unprepared, under-lead, under-equipped young soldiers fighting tooth and nail for their very lives, with orders to fire on civilian refugees who were ubiquitous throughout the battlefield, many of those killed were a result of American fire.

Though this book has brought a lot of heat on American actions in the war, the fact is we should take it as an indictment of ¡°War¡± it self. It shows that when war is determined to be the method of resolving conflict, people make mistakes, people die, and often times the lives of ¡°others¡± of another race, come second to ones own.

Well, I just can't understand why some people take this book as 'trashing US' stuff. As a native Korean with whole bunch of still alive relatives telling horror stories during the Korean War, I can guarantee that the only problem with this book is "drawing it mild". Yes, communists from the North Korea were totally cruel, but there were so many horrible crimes committed to common innocent civilians by our own side(US & South Korea), too. No Gun Ri is not the only tragedy of that kind.

And if one lost his own family members by the bullets of Democracy, not by the bullets of communism, his remaing life would be really a living hell, because he couldn't request the mere explanation of "the Accident", not to say justice. He just kept silence. For 50 years. If not, he would be suspected as a communist spy during the 50-year lasting Cold War period in Korea. He had to mourn his family in secret.

That's the story of the modern war, and the reason we Korean are so reluctant to take part in any kind of war, domestic or abroad.

When I first learned of the alleged atrocities, I was, as a former member the US Army (serving in signal intelligence gathering of NK communications), I was appalled and shocked. Though atrocities occur in all wars by all participating militaries, this one seemed too terrible to contemplate. Later on, however, reports surfaced that cast doubts on the most serious claims and the reliability of the witnesses whose accounts served as the basis for much of the reporting--e.g., that records show they were nowhere near the incident at the time and would have no direct knowledge of it. It turns out, then, that the incident, if there is any truth to it at all, has been grossly overblown.

Compared to the atrocities committed by DPRK and PRC forces, not to mention ROKs, this is a minor--thought somewhat disturbing if true--incident. It has become a staple of anti-American rhetoric in both Koreas, and is indicative of unflattering aspects of the mentalities of both Koreans (viz., their desire to tear down anyone who seems in a high er position, particularly if they have been helped by them) and many Americans (who seem to have a pathological need to judge their faults completely out of proportion--cf. Abu Gharaib and Gitmo).

American eaders who seek out this book are the same type who buy into I.F. Stone's reporting on the war--in spite of the fact that post-cold war Soviet archives completely refute his arguments about the origins of the war, and that the Venona transcripts prove that he was, if not an outright agent of the communists, at least a willing fellow traveler.

I once was acquainted with a retired colonel in the ROK army who had been responsible for investigations of atrocities committed by Korean troops in Vietnam, and he told me of many, including outright mass murder, that were covered up by both the ROK and RVN governments. Another soldier I served with had done two tours in Nam, and had witnesses ROK Army interrogation techniques--one involving the pulling out of a captive's eye and popping it in front of the working one. And if anyone is ignorant of how communists everywhere treated prisoners and civilians alike, you need to do a little impartial reading.

That said, if the accusations of what happened at No Gun Ri have any basis in fact, to me as a former American soldier they are completely indefensible, like those at My Lai. Nonetheless, some perspective is called for, and most knee-jerk anti-American Koreans and even Americans are completely lacking in this.

for further notes, visit [...]

There are many other sites that question the veracity of the accounts--check them out.

The demonization of Americans in Korea is almost fanaticaly religious in nature, but any impartial observer would have to say that it borders on pathological self-delusion. I lived there ten years, two of which were spent in the Army, and I can tell you that most anti-American rhetoric serves the political and psychological needs of its users, and reflects almost none of the truth about the presence and behavior of US troops there during and since the Korean war

This is an important--and extremely well told-- book about a massacre of Korean civilians by U.S. troops during the Korean War. If the story of the killings at No Gun Ri had been made public at the time instead of covered up for 50 years, the atrocities that happened during Vietnam might never have happened. This book, written by the reporters who discovered the documents that prove there were official U.S. military orders to kill Korean refugees, reminds me of Iris Chang's excellent Rape of Nanking. The reporting is fair to both sides, and draws from interviews with Koreans and U.S. veterans who were there. Terrific reporting, a riveting story.

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.

The authors appeared on c span and stated what I consider untruths. I was in Korea from feb. 51 to feb 52 , a member of the 7th div. 17inf. regt. Ist The ROK Army did not save the American Army at the Pusan Perimeter. They were considered the worst fighting unit in Korea. Any combat soldier will tell you that when they were on our flank we knew they would fall back. The enemy knew it to and would hit them first. 2nd These people stated that the South Korean Police and Army should have been allowed to "screen" the thousands of refugees that were infiltrated by North Korean soldiers and that were clogging the roads causing the transporting of vital supplies to the troops and also of allowing enemy troops disguised as civilians to get in the rear . I was there and there is nothing more devastating than to have the enemy in front and in back. The refugees were a tradgedy and we tried to help them but war is hell and they were costing american lives. To have civilians who were never in the situation that these boys were in , to criticize, is reprehensible. Hope they make a lot a money (blood money) on their book. I saw mistreatment of civilians by a few and kindness by the many. You do a dishonor to the brave boys who fought and died in Korea. Unless you have been in dogface's situation please stop the bull. As for the soldiers who claim they saw these atrocities, maybe they did, but some like attention in their old age. war is hell. bob steck stuart fla