The first month of the Korean War was chaotic and full of military failures for the South Korean army and its allied U.S. Army. The invasion came as a complete surprise and the North Korean army quickly captured Seoul and rolled southward with little opposition.
American forces had been quickly deployed from Japan where the soldiers were enjoying a cushy life. WWII had been over for five years and American GI’s were ill-prepared for a new war. They were poorly trained, poorly equipped, and poorly led. It is no surprise their performance was substandard.
The first month was one of continuous retreats, some of them of the panicky variety. “Bugging out” became slang for those precipitous withdrawals. As American and ROK units retreated, so did thousands of civilians who did not want to live under communism. The sneaky North Koreans sometimes put soldiers disguised as civilians in the midst of the refugees.
It only took a couple of Incidents of being shot at from behind after refugees passed through their lines to cause Americans to be paranoid. On July 25, 1950 the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division dug in near the village of No Gun Ri. 600 refugees who had been following them were told to camp on a railroad embankment after they had been searched.
The search revealed some knives, but no guns. On July 26, the hapless refugees were bombed and strafed by American planes. The survivors took refuge in a nearby railroad tunnel.
They came under mortar, machine gun, and rifle fire from a company of Americans. Children, women, and men were slaughtered. Some used dead bodies as shields to try to survive. During the night, searchlights were used to keep up the firing.
There was sporadic shooting for the next two days. Around 300 refugees were killed. The American officers did not report the killings and the South Korean government covered up the incident. In 1990, the Army confirmed there had been some panicky shooting, but it had not been ordered.
Later, the Associated Press did a Pulitzer Prize winning investigation that pointed to culpability on the part of higher ups. This led to another Army investigation which admitted to the massacre, but insisted there had been no orders.
Looking back, it seems clear that the massacre was a combination of panicky soldiers with itchy trigger fingers plus orders to not take chances with refugee masses trying to cross the lines.
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