Re: Killing of Civilians?

[<CavKVet50@aol.com>]

fyi - Army perspective. Marty

Subj:    Col Hughes statement
Date:   99-10-06 15:39:26 EDT
From:   tbarker@kwp.org (Ted Barker)
To: CavKVet50@aol.com

Marty,

FYI:

I have sent the following to the New York Times as well as other places.

Anone reading this may do what you will with it.

Dave Hughes
dave@oldcolo.com

                             October 7th, 1999

        THE HARDER LESSONS OF NO GUN RI

    A lot of ink, most of it from outside wire services, has been
spilled over the alleged 'massacre' of South Korean civilians at No Gun Ri
Korea, July 26th, 1950 by units of the 7th US Cavalry. Editorials have
appeared arguing that since bad things happen in wars, perhaps we should
never have fought there in the first place.

    Well, there are many lessons that came out of that war, and many
unreported factors which contributed to that incident at No Gun Ri. There
are much broader issues raised by this incident that the press has not
commented on. So I will.

    I think I am qualified to comment about the Korean War, and this
particular incident, and what they all mean. For not only did I fight in
Korea through some of its bloodiest periods, I was called on years later
to analyze for high US officials, why the Chinese intervened there.

    Even more to the point, I served in the 7th Cavalry Regiment,
arriving soon after the events at No Gun Ri, and I have been an active
member of the Korean Chapter of the 7th US Cavalry Association, over 950
strong, with whose members of all ranks and backgrounds I have associated
for over 6 years. I personally know many of the officers and men who were
involved in this incident. I have now talked to over 25 of them, doing my
own 'investigation' of what reporters with no military experience have
done for the press. This includes one soldier who admits to being the
primary machine gunner firing into the tunnels at No Gun Ri.

    First off, there is no question that hard pressed and nearly
disintegrating units of the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 3 days after
entering that war, both under orders, and using their own judgement fired
at groups of people in the two culverts at No Gun Ri, killing and wounding
an unknown number of them. But whether that was a 'massacre', or an
illegal use of force - a war crime - and whether shooting into that
culvert was justified by military imperatives, are very different
questions. I have my serious doubts it was the crime as alleged. But I
will await the outcome of the investigation ordered by the Secretary of
Defense before passing my final judgement. Even the number and identity of
people killed there is in wide dispute.

    But I don't have to wait for the results of that investigation to
point out that, under recognized military law, there are military
conditions under which US forces may fire even though it knowingly will
cause civilian casualties. The laws against causing civilian death in war
are not absolutes. If they were, the bombing of German and Japanese
cities, and targeting of civilian facilities by NATO Air Strikes in
Belgrade would have been war crimes. They were not. And many times in
Korea, when hordes of civilians, some pushed forward as human shields
against our troops, and infiltrated by North Korean soldiers who fired
from within refugee columns left no alternative to our units, save death
or defeat for our men and units. That included accepting the civilian
casualties that went with it. I and every commander of combat units during
the severe fighting in Korea knew that, and acted according to military
law, battlefield reality, and personal conscience. A respected lawyer in
this town, who landed on Omaha Beach as an Infantry commander, was, 6
years later a military lawyer in the 1st Cavalry Division on the ground
near No Gun Ri. He largely agrees with me and takes issue with what he
calls the 'academic' lawyers who so quickly have branded this, and the
orders given, as a war crime.

    I have determined from the memories of 7th Cav soldiers who were
there, and by re-studying a detailed history of the 7th Cav in Korea by a
Company Commander whom I knew, and who was in that unit at the time, that
the military situation justified extraordinary measures for the survival
of the whole command. Our troops were on the verge of another Bataan like
catastrophe. Hordes of refugees mixed in with North Korean infiltrators
who themselves were violating the laws of war as a matter of high policy,
gravely threatened our forces.

    The second point is that the condition of readiness of the US
Army, both in Japan on occupation duty, and in the US, was so poor, caused
by the willy nilly cuts made by Congress after World War II, that it was a
crime to throw such ill prepared, poorly equipped green troops into a
combat against what was then a powerful, trained, and modernly equipped
invading Army. Gen. McArthur may have been overly confident we could beat
the North Koreans, but the 1st Cavalry Division was a hollow shell of what
it had been in the South Pacific. And a parsimonious Congress had refused
modernization and improvement of our fighting equipment. Our soldiers were
killed shooting ineffective rocket launchers at modern Soviet tanks. The
Company at No Gun Ri was fired on with impunity by just such a Russian
tank. The combat training of the units in Japan was very poor, partly
because we did not want to damage the land of a recovering Japan. Today
environmentalists have made combat training, even on our federally owned
bases, ever more difficult. We paid for that set of priorities in blood
the first two months of the Korean War. The troops were also in bad
physical condition. That, however, was the clear fault of Army comanders
in Japan. Which, as today, reflects on our efforts to recruit and retain
the very best officers and NCOs in time of peace. Something we neglect at
our peril.

    The invasion of Korea was a total surprise to the US and UN. As
was the invasion of Kuwait. We keep kidding ourselves that, since the
Berlin Wall came down, there can be no other such surprises. Or that we
can meet them all, and lower our guard, and disperse our forces. All on
the cheap. That is a fool's paradise.

    When I read editorials saying, in effect, that we should have let
South Korea fight its own battles, and not have shed American blood, young
journalists of today are probably unaware that our government deliberately
denied tanks, heavy artillery, and modern aircraft to the South Korean
Army after we pulled our troops out after the free elections of 1948. They
could not have defended themselves after North Korea had built up - which
our poor intelligence services, because they too had been gutted, failed
to detect.

    If we are going to let countries friendly to ourselves fight their
own battles, then we had either best not supply them at all, and let them
fall under the control of more aggressive nations with no such scruples as
we have. Or else we should properly support them. We can't have it both
ways while also expecting to trade and move freely across the world.
    
    "Freedom Is Not Free", reads the inscription on the Korean War
Memorial in Washington. A Memorial that neither glorifies our victories in
war, as does the Iwo Jima monument, nor displays a nation feeling sorry
for itself, as the Vietnam Memorial seems to say to me. And I fought there
too in the Infantry. The silent, larger than life, steel soldier figures
marching forward forever doing their thankless jobs at the Korean
Monument, in our most Forgotton of Wars, perfectly portrays what we did in
Korea, without fanfare or failure.

    Reasoning, about where we come to the defense of others taken to a
logical conclusion, would have been better for us to have capitulated at
the peace table when Stalin was ready to turn all of Korea into a
communist state. We should have let Saddam Hussain's invasion of Kuwait
stand. And if China threatens Taiwan, we should turn our back. Instead, we
stood for letting the people of South Korea, who had been oppressively
occupied by Japan, determine their own destiny, by democratic means. So
the 38th Parallel compromise was reached, resulting in a grim, belligerent
and impoverished dictatorship in the north, but 46 years of ever more
representative and independent democracy and prosperity in the south.

    My daughter in law, who now teaches at the Air Force Academy, came
from Communist China. Her parents were respected doctors in the Red Army
there, trying to save lives north of the Yalu River while I, in the 7th US
Cavalry south of it, were sending them battlefield patients in the bitter
winter fighting of 1950. Ironic, isn't it? When I visited Ha Ning's aged
parents in Dalian, China, and we discussed that war, I told Col Zhou that
I thought China had made a big mistake in pushing us back out of North
Korea after we defeated the North Korean Army. He wanted to know why.
Because, I said, the United States is more generous and successful with
its defeated enemies - such as Germany and Japan, than it is to its
friends, such as England. Had we stayed in North Korea, it would be today
as prosperous as South Korea, and not a dangerous basket case which China
has to help feed, and prevent from starting a nuclear war. He didn't have
much to say.

    We paid the price of 54,000 American dead, and 8,000 still missing
in action, for the freedom and prosperity of South Korea, including that
of the 30 claimants for compensation for No Gun Ri.

    I do not think we owe them any more than we have already paid in
blood and treasure. We probably should pull out of Korea, but remain ready
to go back in. Being sure, unlike the uncertain trumpet we blew in 1950,
that potential enemies know loud and clear we do not let free nations come
under their heel.

     Unlike many editorial writers, I think the Korean war was fully
worth the price we paid. I am proud that Hill 347 that I walked off of on
October 7th, 1951 48 years ago today, with our handful of Company K, 7th
Cavalry, survivors after our final battle before the truce, is still part
of the line of freedom. My grandsons born of both Chinese and American
ancestory, will be taught why I think it was worth it.

    I would hope American newspapers take such a wider, educational
view of the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War when it comes round next
June 25th. It will be a time for younger Americans to relearn some very
old lessons. The Harder Lessons of No Gun Ri.


David R Hughes
Colonel US Army (Ret)

-------- David Hughes was a member of the Class of 1950 serving in the
Korean War in the 7th US Cavalry. He won the Distinguished Service Cross
and two Silver Stars during his year in combat. He served as an Army
officer until 1973 when he retired.