This week as part of remembering the tragic events that unfolded under a railway bridge at No Gun Ri during the Korean War, I have decided to construct an archive of documents related to the events that happened there.  These documents were originally kept on a website maitained by the publisher of the book The Bridge at No Gun Ri.  This book was written by the Associated Press journalists who wrote the initial Pulitzer Prize winnin article on the incident at No Gun Ri.  These journalists often cite these documents to support their views, but for some reason the website has been deleted.  Fortunately I downloaded all the documents before the deletion.  You don’t have to worry about the ROK Drop getting deleted, so these documents should be available to those who are interested in this subject for quite some time.  Feel free to discuss the documents in the comments section.

The following are after action reports from both Navy and Air Force pilots that the AP writers believed supported their version of events at No Gun Ri:

This memo shows how guerrillas had been sneaking behind friendly lines thus causing targeting problems:

Here is the infamous Rogers memo I have discussed before:

This memo I cannot really make out what it is saying:

This action report describes how pilots were coordinated by radio to strafe people dressed in white.  There is no way of knowing if the people dressed in white were enemies or not from the memorandum, but if the pilots were radioed to strafe these people than the combat ground controller must have felt some threat from them to call in an airstrike:

Here is a copy of a memorandum that explains the refugee movement control order issued by the 8th US Army:

This document shows how the US was dropping leaflets on villages to notify them of this new order:

This is report about ROK authorities ordering the executions of suspected communists:

This next document is by an American NCO that witnessed the South Korean Army execute a number of people he was told were spies:

It is pretty clear that the NCO wasn’t happy about what he saw and was rightfully concerned that the US Army could get blamed for what happened.  For anyone that thinks this is some shocking revelation, it is not.  It has been well known for quite some time that South Korean authorities were rounding up and and shooting people they suspected as spies.

This next document is yet another one in regards to the refugee control order:

This is the CQ log that the AP writers fraudently claimed to be an order to kill refugees at No Gun Ri:

Here is the order from General Kean that the AP writers sensationalized in their article:

Here is a unit log report that followed the issuing of this order from General Kean:

This is another document from the 25th Infantry Division in regards to the civilian control order:

Another 25th Infantry Division memorandum in regards to the handling of civilians on the battlefield:

This is a 1st Cavalry Division document in regards to the blowing up of a bridge over the Naktong River:

It is impossible to know the context of this message from a Army Chaplain and the date is unknown as well:

This message from the Headquarters of the Far East Command shows how the military leadership wanted the Air Force and Navy to issue more precise descriptions of their targets in order to avoid the confusion that the more ambigous reports were causing:

The following three documents from the 1st Cavalry Division are dated August 17, 1950 and shows how the North Koreans made it a priority to cultivate hatred of US and ROK forces with the civilian population in South Korea:

As you can see in the above document it mentions the North Koreans claiming that 100 people died in a railway tunnel near Yongdong.  This claim even if true would not match the incident at No Gun Ri because the North Koreans only claim 100 killed at that it was caused by strafing during the day and artillery fire at night.  Here are more documents in regards to cultivating hatred of the US troops:

8th Army document citing that refugees will not be allowed to cross friendly lines on November 29, 1950:

Keep in the mind that this document was issued when the 8th Army was in full retreat against the Chinese Army that had just entered the war and was using people disguised as civilians to infiltrate US lines. Unit log book entry that shows the unit was authorized to shoot refugees on the north side of a firing line:

With these documents we don’t know what the context of the statement is.  Was the area north of the line cleared by the national police first and that anyone else remaining in the area was to be presumed hostile?

Here is a memo that discusses scouting for refugees:

8th US Army reiterating that units are allowed to use force to stop refugees:

8th Cavalry logbook entry that shows that the unit commander would fine soldier $100 for not enforcing the refugee control order:

This memo I cannot read a whole lot of:

Artillery unit memo in regards to the difficulty of implementing the refugee control order:

More on the refugee problem facing the 8th US Army:

Another logbook entry discussing the refugee problem:

7th Cavalry memo from December 30, 1950 stating that any civilians out at night could be shot:

This report I really can’t make too much out of:

8th Cavalry logbook entry once again showing that refugees crossing the frontlines would be shot in accordance with the 8th Army policy:

S-4 logbook entry that shows that Soviet weapons may have been recovered from the tunnel at No Gun Ri:

Reading these documents really makes it clear how chaotic the battlefields were and the tough decisions that from the highest general to the lowest private would have to make in regards to the handling of civilians on the battlefield.  There are few modern wars that was as brutal to civilians as the Korean War was.