This is week is the anniversary of the tragic events that happened under a double railway bridge near the village of No Gun Ri (Nogeun-ri) 59 years ago during the Korean War.  If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read my prior postings on this subject:

• Revisiting No Gun Ri
• Responding to the Bridge at No Gun Ri
• The Forensics of No Gun Ri
• Transcript of Briefing to Seoul Rotary Club
• The No Gun Ri Document Shell Game

The village of No Gun Ri is located just outside the city of Yeongdong in the extreme southern portion of Chungcheongbuk-do:

The following images are of the actual No Gun Ri site when I spent a morning walking around and surveying the site.  For anyone trying to find the site it is easy to find because of this large sign that anyone driving by the double railway tunnel cannot miss:

Here is the view of the double railway tunnel from the front:

When you look at this tunnel try and ask yourself if hundreds of bodies of refugees could have been stacked underneath this bridge and be undetected by US reconnaisance planes. Here are some of the bullet holes found on the front right side of the tunnel:

As you can see there is not a whole lot of bullet marks on this side of the wall.  Here is a close up of the bullet holes:

Here is the bullet holes on the left back side of the railway tunnel:

For whatever reason these bullet holes have been enclosed with a cage while the other ones are not.  This is as far back on the side of the tunnel someone firing at this wall can get:

Why would you put a firing position here and plus what were they firing at?  That is why I believe these bullet holes likely came from a strafing or from an engagement later on during the war and not from the 26-29 July 1950 period that the No Gun Ri tragedy occurred.

Here are some more bullet holes on the left back side of the bridge:

Notice how it looks like whoever was on the hill side was firing low at people crouching in the creek trying to avoid the gun fire.  Here is what the inside of the tunnel looks like:

Here is a close up of the inside of the tunnel:

There is a low number of bullet holes that was discovered at the tunnel and the people like the AP claim it is because many areas on the tunnel was plastered over.  This plaster easily comes off the sides of the tunnel.  I kicked the wall here and the plaster just crumbled off:

If people were serious about counting the bullet holes they would chip the plaster off, but they won’t probably because they are concerned that few bullets hole will be found thus destroying their claims. Here is some more plaster peeling off the outside of the tunnel:

Here is the creek that flows through the tunnel and past the No Gun Ri village:

Near the tunnel there is a set of stairs that leads up to the hillside where US soldiers were positioned.  At the top of the stairs is a small shrine:

On the hill side when I visited they were conducting an excavation which received much media attention to find remains of victims from the No Gun Ri incident:

However, when the excavation team came up empty handed it received little media attention at all. There is a number of fighting positions that can be on the side of the hill:

Here is the view from the one of two fighting positions that looked into the railway tunnel:

The foliage would not have existed during the time of the Korean War but from here the soldiers would have to richochet shots into the tunnel to shoot the refugees that were hiding there since there was no direct shot looking in.  The 7th Cavalry soldiers were running for their lives from the advancing North Korean Army and short on ammunition.  Would they have used what little ammo they had to shoot refugees for four days by richochets?

On the hill there is actually a number of grave sites but I have no idea who they were:

Finally here is a picture of the actual village of No Gun Ri that is lies across this rice paddy from the double railway bridge:

With such a scenic rural area it is hard to believe that such a place has become such a subject of controversy.  For those that are well read on this subject, a visit to No Gun Ri really is a must because once you visit the site and compare what you see with what the AP journalists wrote you will see with your own eyes their version of events couldn’t have happened.  Have you been to No Gun Ri?  If so leave in the comments section what you thought of the visit.