Talk:No Gun Ri massacre/Archive 13

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Events of July 25-29, 1950 - Proposed Edit 1

As said in above posting, this corrects the Ha Ga Ri situation of the first graf; eliminates the untruthful, diversionary discussion of TACPs, action summaries and such (further on that: if we're looking for an "explanation for the strafing of refugees," we need look no farther than the USAF memo of the day before saying all approaching refugee groups would be strafed; but these "whys" can wait for later, rather than interrupt the simple account of the killings); eliminates the unreliable Wenzel in favor of a quick summary of the "gunfire out" matter; and eliminates Carroll's protests of "don't blame me."

There are probably too many survivor/soldier quotes here, but you can see the various potential "angles" for describing what happened. Charles J. Hanley (talk)

As North Korean forces on July 25 seized the town of Yongdong, 7 miles (11 km) west of No Gun Ri, 1st Cavalry Division troops were evacuating nearby villages, including hundreds of residents of Chu Gok Ri and Im Ke Ri. They were joined by other refugees as they headed down the main road, and all were ordered to spend the night by a riverbank near Ha Ga Ri village, 3.5 miles (5.5 km) west of No Gun Ri. When some evacuees ventured away in the night, possibly to relieve themselves or for other reasons, the Americans opened fire, witnesses said. Seven were killed, including five from one family, Korean investigators would later determine. In the morning the evacuees found the soldiers had left.

South Korean government reports summarized subsequent events:

On the morning of July 26, the villagers continued on the road south, which runs eastward in this area. When they approached the vicinity of No Gun Ri, soldiers stopped them at a roadblock and ordered the group onto the parallel railroad tracks, where the soldiers searched them and their belongings. The refugees were resting, spread out along the railroad embankment around midday, when suddenly warplanes appeared and attacked, strafing the group, possibly dropping bombs. Witnesses later estimated 100 were killed then. Villagers who survived initially sought protection in a small culvert beneath the tracks. Gunfire and soldiers drove them from there and into the double tunnels beneath a concrete railroad bridge nearby, just outside No Gun Ri. The U.S. soldiers then fired into both ends of the tunnels over four days (July 26-29, 1950), resulting in what survivors estimated were an additional 300 deaths.

Survivor Yang Hae-chan, then a 10-year-old boy, recalled the air attack in a 2007 German television documentary: "Suddenly bombers flew over and opened fire without warning. They came back again and again firing at us. Chaos broke out among the refugees. We ran around wildly trying to get away. But in that first attack very many people were hit and killed." Chun Choon-ja, an 11-year-old girl at the time, said her mother was breast-feeding when the planes struck. “It was strangely dark. … I couldn’t see my family. Soon after, I found my mom dead … My baby brother was still alive suckling my mom’s dead breast.”

The dug-in troops of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, then opened fire on the refugees, some of whom fled to the low, narrow culvert beneath the embankment. Gunfire followed them. "They were shooting at us from this side. We ran out the other side, but they were shooting at us there, too," said Kum Cho-ja, a 12-year-old girl at the time. "I told my mother, 'I've been shot,' but she had my brother and sister, and she had to save them. She said, 'Follow me if you can' and went on."

On the tracks above, Yang Hae-chan and Chung Koo-hun, then a teenager, said they saw soldiers walking among the wounded civilians and shooting them if they moved. “It was like they were hunting us down,” Yang said.

Survivors made their way to the nearby twin underpasses of the No Gun Ri railroad bridge (each tunnel 80 feet long, 22 feet wide and 40 feet high), and others were forced into the tunnels by American soldiers. The 7th Cavalry troops soon opened fire with machine guns.

"Children were screaming in fear and the adults were praying for their lives, and the whole time they never stopped shooting," said survivor Park Sun-yong, whose 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter were killed. Park, who was badly wounded, said those still alive began piling up corpses as shields against the gunfire.

Yang led his older sister into a tunnel where the 13-year-old Yang Hae-sook, blinded in the bombing, “thought I could save my life if I squeezed in between the dead bodies.” Chung Koo-ho, whose mother and sister were killed, said in a 2009 South Korean documentary, "Even now if I close my eyes I can see the people who were dying, as they cried out someone's name." The soldiers turned searchlights on the tunnels at night, and continued shooting, he said. “On the second night, my mother was shot. At the time, she was hugging me and my younger sister to her breast to protect us from the gunfire. She was killed by four bullets to her head and her back.” As trapped survivors cried out for water, he said, he drank bloody water from a stream running through one tunnel.

Seventh Cavalry veterans recalled similar scenes of the air attack, of bodies strewn on the railroad tracks, bodies piling up in the tunnel entrances, and continuous small arms fire.

Two 2nd Battalion communications specialists said they remembered orders to fire on the refugees coming from a higher level, probably 1st Cavalry Division. "I'm secure in my own mind, that the order came from division or higher,” Lawrence Levine said. Said James Crume, "All I know is the order was given _ `You're not going through,' and the order was given to the heavy weapons company, and that was it." Levine and Crume agreed with battalion veteran George Early that the ground fire opened with a mortar barrage. “When it hit and exploded, of all things, it landed directly dead center of all these people,” Early said. Levine recalled the small-arms fire that followed: "It was probably the first time a lot of, if not all of them had been okayed to fire on people, and so the firing turned into a frenzy."

"All of a sudden, machine guns started firing into the crowd of people under the bridge," recalled George Preece, a 2nd Battalion sergeant. "It was assumed there were enemy in these people," said ex-rifleman Herman Patterson. "The old man (company commander), yes, right down the line he’s running down the line, ‘Kill ‘em all,’ so what do you do?” Joseph Jackman, a G Company rifleman, told the BBC. “I shot, too. Shot at people. I don’t know if they were soldiers or what. Kids, there was kids out there. It didn’t matter what it was, 8 to 80, blind, crippled or crazy, they shot em." Norman L. Tinkler, an H Company machine gunner, remembered white-clad people moving toward the bridge, including "a lot of women and children. ... I was the one who pulled the trigger." He fired about 1,000 rounds and assumed "there weren't no survivors." But others said some held their fire. Delos Flint, an F Company rifleman who was caught forward with the refugees and was injured in an initial blast, estimated half the soldiers near him – including himself – refused to fire: "I couldn't see killing kids, even if they were infiltrators." Thomas H. Hacha, dug in nearby with the sister 1st Battalion, witnessed the slaughter: "I could see the tracers (bullets) spinning around inside the tunnel ... and they were dying down there. I could hear the people screaming."

Three men from among 52 battalion veterans interviewed in the 1999-2001 U.S. investigation said there had been gunfire from among the refugees. Their statements were inconsistent, saying the gunfire came from the underpasses or from the railroad tracks, that a “burp gun” was found on the tracks or was seen in an underpass. In addition, no unit documents reported an encounter with infiltrators, even though it would have been the 7th Cavalry's first direct clash with the enemy, and any slain infiltrators its first enemy killed in action. The surviving villagers denied strenuously any infiltrators were among their group, which had been forced from villages miles from the enemy and been searched. "This sort of thing is inconceivable. They checked our luggage,” said Chung Koo-ho.

During the refugee killings, the 2nd Battalion came under sporadic artillery and mortar fire from the North Koreans, who advanced only cautiously from Yongdong. Declassified Army intelligence reports showed the enemy front line was still 2 miles or more from No Gun Ri late on July 28, third day of the massacre. When the Americans withdrew from No Gun Ri early on July 29, leaving behind the dead refugees, they were "under no immediate enemy pressure," the official Army history noted. As troops pulled back, some finally saw the scene. "There were quite a few slaughtered there. … But you didn't know until you get down there and seen all the bodies at the mouth of the tunnel," said G Company’s Lyle Jacobson.

In the afternoon of July 29, North Korean soldiers appeared outside the tunnels and helped those still alive, perhaps two dozen, mostly children, feeding them and sending them back toward their villages.

Again, I'll necessarily be dropping out of the discussion until Sept. 6 or so. But I hope this helps feed the discussion mill. Thanks. Charles J. Hanley (talk) 14:50, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I think maybe the only way we can tackle large edits like this is to adopt something similar to what I have been doing above, so that one version shows what you've deleted and added and the other shows the final product. It's a bit more work on the front end, but considering that one person posts a change and multiple people try to comb through it to find the specific changes, it seems like less work overall.

Will see you in a few. No worries. There is no deadline. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 19:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed edit Background 3

I propose deleting the following sentence.

The war quickly created hundreds of thousands of refugees. In the two weeks following the first significant U.S. ground troop engagement on July 5, the U.S. Army estimated that 380,000 South Korean civilians fled south, passing through the retreating U.S. and South Korean lines.

The first sentence adds nothing. The second sentence says everything the first one does, but it offers specifics and a source. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 19:09, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. GAB^Hello! 19:10, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

You're right. Having a general introductory sentence is only necessary if there's more than one example following it. That leaves a single sentence paragraph that could be merged into the next paragraph....--Wikimedes (talk) 20:42, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Quite correct. Delete it. Binksternet (talk) 21:21, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Done.--Wikimedes (talk) 04:10, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Request for Arbitration declined

For the record, the request for Arbitration on this topic hit a significant snag when Yunshui blocked Weldneck as a sock of TDC. The arbitrators changed their votes to 'decline' and the case was declined the next day. Binksternet (talk) 04:28, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Ready to resume

GeneralizationsAreBad, Wikimedes, Iryna Harpy, Irondome, Binksternet, Timothyjosephwood, I’m back at the keyboard and eager to get this mess of an article cleaned up.

But first I’d like to 1) make clear where I’m coming from, and 2) propose again what I see as the most sensible way to proceed.

Those of us knowledgeable about No Gun Ri watched in outrage several years back as ignorant denialists took over this article and turned it into a stew of incoherence and untruths. Upon retiring in 2011, it fell to me to learn the WP ropes and try to set things aright, despite my misgivings as a lifelong journalist about the WP project and its free-for-all editing. In 2012, with help from others, a solid, sensible article emerged, drawing on a vast array of sound sources. One denialist attacker was soon banned. Then, in August 2013, the sock puppet WeldNeck descended on the article and began his belligerent, defiant, destructive work -- hundreds of edits. Despite appeals for help, WP admins did nothing. It took two years. That’s outrageous. Now we face the task of cleaning up the mess. And I will tell you, I have lost way too much of my increasingly precious time and expended way too much psychic energy dealing with this. I want us now to work quickly and efficiently, and then I’ll want to know how a restored, solid No Gun Ri Massacre will be protected from future WeldNecks.

As for how to proceed, please understand one essential point: Every major problem in the article was created by the now-banned sock-puppet bad-faith actor WeldNeck, in a denialist effort to excuse the killing of refugees at NGR, or at the very least to confuse the reader. The most efficient way to deal with this fiasco would be to simply revert every edit he ever made. More pragmatically, and this is what I again strongly urge us to do, we should start with the article as it stood in June 2013 (i.e., beginning with the "Events" section), stack it up against the current article, and insert the few worthwhile items that were added since then. It could then also be revised for better organization and sense.

Otherwise, we face a potentially painful, confusing, time-wasting editing process, particularly if fellow editors forget the source of the problems, “assume good faith” where there was none, and think, “There must be some reason why TACPs …. or Robert Carroll … . or Bosnia … or whatever … is brought up in this context.”

In fact, is there no WP protocol whereby edits made by a exposed sock puppet, by definition a bad-faith editor, are automatically deemed illegitimate, to be reverted?

And so, again, I strongly urge us to start afresh from June 2013, for the sake of a solid article and for the sake of at least one man’s sanity. Yeah or nay? Thanks. Charles J. Hanley (talk) 21:37, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

The June 2013 version of this article was pretty good, useful to the reader, and coherent. But time marches on... A bit of Jonathan M. House's 2014 book A Military History of the Cold War, 1944–1962 should be added to that, page 162. Same with Suhi Choi's 2014 Embattled Memories: Contested Meanings in Korean War Memorials and the 2014 Berman/Cohen chapter titled "War Crimes in Global Perspective: From the Eastern Front to No Gun Ri". Binksternet (talk) 05:41, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Oppose reverting to June 2013 version.

1) While it is acceptable to revert edits because they were made by sockpuppets, Weldneck was not the only editor to work on the article these past two years.

2) The June 2013 version also has major problems.

3) Weldneck is not the only editor who has disagreed with CJHanley over the article. Reverting to CJHanley’s preferred version and starting anew from there… well, I hope you can appreciate that that would be a poor method of dispute resolution.

--Wikimedes (talk) 10:51, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

To address Wikimedes’ points:

1) This is why I propose comparing the 2013 version with the current version and inserting good edits – i.e., made by editors other than WeldNeck – from the past two years.

2) Any problems in the 2013 version can similarly be dealt with. And I’ll be interested to hear what they are.

3) The dispute (which was less a dispute than a simple attack on the article) was resolved with the banning of the bad-faith editor WeldNeck. We’re beyond that, aren’t we? And this is not a matter of anyone’s “preferred version,” but of purging the article of what is definitely not preferred, that bad-faith editor’s nonsense. And the most efficient way to purge is to purge.

In fact, Wikimedes’ point 1, that it is acceptable to revert sock puppets’ edits, suggests to me that this might be the simplest and most effective approach, to line up and “undo” all of WeldNeck’s edits, and work from there. That would preserve others’ edits. Any seeming non sequiturs, lapses in continuity, lost sources etc. that then appear in the article could be readily fixed since, to my chagrin, I have a painfully deep knowledge of every nook and cranny of this beast.

My friends, I am simply loath to get into a situation where I have to now struggle with the Ghost of WeldNeck, expending inordinate time detailing to you why TACPs don’t matter, where covered-up Air Force mission reports can be found, why Bob Carroll doesn’t belong in the article, why the falsehoods about Hesselman and Flint are simple denialist slander, why Bosnia isn’t relevant to NGR, and on and on. The bad-faith editor is gone; so should be his bad-faith edits.

So we have two options: Option 1, revert to June 2013 and then add to that; Option 2, undo the sock puppet’s edits, tidy up and then, as Binksternet suggests, improve with updates (to include the casualty updates). Either way, a huge amount of time can be saved. Let’s please hear your thoughts, including Wikimedes’ on the “undo” method. Thanks.

--Charles J. Hanley (talk) 12:37, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Support Wikimedes' position

As usual, I honestly could not have said it any better than this. One of the main issues of the article was the unresolved question of Bateman as a source, and (after trying twice and failing to find a conclusive answer) this needs to be resolved. Yes, WeldNeck/TDC relied heavily on Bateman to support his version of events, but I don't think that settles things. Bateman is already cited substantially in the article, and I am inherently uncomfortable with removal of a lot of cited content. I want to hear some outside voices on this before making up my mind on how I stand, as I am genuinely conflicted. (I am not itching to remove Bateman, and I am not fixated on keeping him in, just to be clear.) A simple rollback would erase a lot of effort on the part of all -- yes, including WeldNeck/TDC. I advocate resuming the previous process of discussion and proposals, which will be expedited considerably by WeldNeck/TDC's... "absence." My copy of Suhi Choi's "Embattled Memories" isn't coming, and I'm not sure in general where to go in terms of actually adding new content. Binksternet is correct that the more sources, the better.

Arbitrary break to let your eyes rest

I do, however, think that some sections in particular could use some attention, period. These are:

• "Events of 25–29 July 1950" subsection of Killings: Conflicting accounts between sources regarding airstrikes. Enough said.
• "U.S. and South Korean military investigations" and "Additional criticism of the U.S. investigation" subsections of Aftermath: Need attention due to the importance of these sections.
• "Aerial imagery" subsection of Aftermath: Needs attention due to the contentious argument over this particular point. GAB^Hello! 20:13, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Reply to GAB, regarding, for example, his reference to “*’Events of 25–29 July 1950’ subsection of Killings: Conflicting accounts between sources regarding airstrikes. Enough said.”

I’m sorry, GAB, but this is precisely the path I am cautioning against, investing hokum, bunk, from the bad-faith actor WeldNeck with some kind of legitimacy. There are no conflicting accounts on airstrikes. Even the U.S. whitewash report acknowledges that: “It is clear, based upon all available evidence, that an unknown number of Korean civilians were killed or injured by the effects of small-arms fire, artillery and mortar fire, and strafing.”

Where are the “conflicting accounts” there? Seriously, please tell me what you see as needing some kind of drawn-out discussion over the air strike in the “Events” section. Everyone agrees there was a strafing. Where’s the conflict? Thanks. Charles J. Hanley (talk) 20:56, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Hanley, you might want to prepare a new version in your own sandbox space, and when it is ready, invite people here to comment. With favorable consensus, your sandbox would then be copied here to replace the current article. As a guideline, here is the 'diff' between June 2013 and today's version. As can be determined from a close comparison, the casualty figures from today are superior. Donghee Sinn is referenced in 2015 but not 2013. Same with Baik, B-C Lee, Dong-Choon, Choi, Galloway, and many more. So these sources would have to be included in your proposed version. It would not matter to anyone how you arrived at your proposed version, whether it began as the June 2013 version which you then built up, or whether it was a pruning job applied to today's version. Binksternet (talk) 20:20, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Charles, I do believe that Bateman should be included, and some criticisms and other POV be included. The article mentions the AP work and yourself, and that concerns me slightly. I really do not want to end up with a Weldneck version, except reflecting the AP POV in it's totality. I would like to see a WP NGR article which allows some "heretical" points to be aired. I fear we will end up with a flipside of Weldnecks intentions here, except it will be your's Charles. Are you prepared to continue, taking on these caveats? Simon. Irondome (talk) 20:58, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Irondome, what’s the “AP POV”?

This notion of “versions” and “POVs” is very, very troubling. Journalists do not produce “versions.” They assemble pertinent facts as diligently as possible, present them in a cogent way, and let the readers draw any conclusions (or recognize the obvious conclusions, in this case that masses of Korean and American witnesses confirm a large-scale slaughter of refugees; that documents anyone can read show the policy behind it; that the U.S. Army suppressed those documents in its 2001 investigative report; those are simple, undeniable facts.)

No. 1, the AP’s original 1999 report was not a “version” of events; it was a conscientious assembly of an array of recollections of what happened, including disagreements among witnesses and gaps in what could be known, complemented by very relevant documents. No. 2, the current NGR Massacre article draws from probably two dozen or more media and other sources. The NGR story and this article have gone well beyond what AP first reported. Again, what’s the “AP version”? Where is that in this article?

As for Bateman, I’m flabbergasted. I’ve tried repeatedly in Talk to show as painlessly as possible, with simple exercises one can do at home, what a load of deceit his book is. But one really shouldn’t even need to go that far, since the unreliability is built in: Bateman was an officer of the regiment responsible for NGR, he has been an activist and booster of the 7th Cav Assn, his book was edited by an Army colonel and published by a publisher whose work for the Pentagon goes back generations. Bateman is way off the charts as an unreliable source.

But if we want to include his “heretical points,” which will it be? That NGR never happened (his page 151), that it was not a single mass killing but “hundreds of small misfortunes” across SKorea (his page 126), or that it did happen, there was a mass killing and he has divined all the details, despite never going to Korea or talking with those witnesses (page 198-199)? Seriously, how do we deal with this garbage? OK, how about dealing with it this way...

An earlier version of the article acknowledged the man’s existence in this way: “The casualty numbers (from witnesses) must be ‘grossly inflated,’ Robert L. Bateman, a 1990s veteran of the 7th Cavalry, argued in a 2002 book about No Gun Ri, published before the Seoul government's review panel began the work that verified a minimum 218 casualties.” There’s a “heretical point” from Bateman, immediately knocked down. What about that? And what other heretical points do you have in mind? And I really do want to hear specifics. Too often when I try to get a concrete discussion going, I get vagueness in return. Thanks! Charles J. Hanley (talk) 22:43, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

@Cjhanley: The fact that there has been such intense dispute in the past over these sections, in my opinion, means that they warrant some sort of looking-over. In any event, it's not like the debate has been over the Peace Park section or something nice and non-controversial. I believe (if I am not mistaken) that there was general agreement to look at the article in its entirety anyways.

@Binksternet: I now have Tirman's book. I am eager to get more sources into play. GAB^Hello! 21:39, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

@GeneralizationsAreBad: I can only remind you that the "intense dispute" came solely from a bad-faith sock-puppet editor who has now been banned, and who was wholly ignorant of No Gun Ri beyond what he heard in militarist Internet circles 15 years ago. Must his inanities now be held up as debate-worthy? How about if good-faith editors instead come up with their own sensible ideas, instead of his nonsensical ones? Anyway, one can look at my sandbox to see an inkling of what lies ahead if we're not simply going to undo WeldNeck and start afresh. Charles J. Hanley (talk) 22:58, 8 September 2015 (UTC)