AP Finds Documents On U.S. Atrocities in Korea in 1950

[babylonsister]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003571759

AP Finds Documents On U.S. Atrocities in Korea in 1950

Published: April 13, 2007 9:30 PM ET

POHANG, South Korea-- A half-century on, the cold, matter-of-fact words leap from the typewritten page of a U.S. warship's journal: "DeHaven received orders from the SFCP to open fire on a large group of refugee personnel located on the beach."

The destroyer's officers questioned the order, then complied. What happened next is frozen forever in the minds of those who were there.

"The sea was a pool of blood," said Choi Il-chool, 75. "Dead bodies lay all over the place." Witnesses say 100 to 200 civilians were killed in the Navy shelling.

For seven years, since going public with their private grief, the survivors of that day, Sept. 1, 1950, have demanded an investigation of what they say was an unprovoked U.S. attack on refugee families huddled on a Pohang beach early in the Korean War. The Seoul government said in February it would launch such an inquiry, armed now with firsthand evidence-- the declassified U.S. Navy journal -- to back up what the victims say.

Since 1999, when the large-scale No Gun Ri shootings were confirmed, South Koreans have reported to their government more than 60 such episodes of alleged refugee killings by the U.S. military in 1950-51.

Last May, The Associated Press reported the discovery of a declassified July 1950 document in which the U.S. ambassador in South Korea informed Washington the U.S. military had adopted a policy of shooting approaching refugees, to guard against North Korean infiltrators. A subsequent series of such U.S. Army orders, once secret, has been found in the U.S. National Archives.

About 2,000 South Korean refugees had gathered on the Pohang beach, 230 miles southeast of Seoul, after North Korean troops took over their villages in an August 1950 offensive.

They believed they'd be safe because warships of their U.S. allies were just offshore, said Bang Il-jo, 68. He said he'd been there about 10 days with his parents, a sister and a brother.

But at 2:08 p.m. on Sept. 1, the USS DeHaven received the order from its Shore Fire Control Party to open fire, according to the ship's declassified war diary, found at the National Archives by the South Korean newspaper Busan Ilbo and authenticated by the AP.

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[Buzz Clik]

1. Maybe we can get Imus to apologize for us. He's already got the script prepared.

It would be best, of course, if he left out the part about "those bastards".

[babylonsister]

2. Why you even thought of Imus in relation to this is beyond me. nt

[Buzz Clik]

6. Well, my guess is that the point of this thread was to point out another wart.

Horrible things happen in wars; we have rules of engagement, treaties for behavior, and various other conventions to try to minimize the amount of these kinds of things. But, it still happens.

So, over fifty years ago, some atrocities apparently were committed. Since then we have fought in Vietnman and numerous other conflicts where both sides did horrible things to each other.

I see no particular reason to hide this discovery, but I am neither shocked nor horrified by the revelation.

In answer to your question, the only possible conclusion of this is that the US will issue an apology for something that was done when most of us either were yet to be born or very young. So let's find someone who has an apology on hand and is practiced at apologizing. Why go to the trouble of dredging up some other flunky to read yet another insincere letter of regret?

[Selatius]

3. They want the list of names of those who ordered troops to fire on unarmed civilians.

It is likely a war crime. I say we should give them the list.

[Buzz Clik]

5. Sure. Why not. It was 50+ years ago. Maybe they're still alive.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Americans commit war crimes?!!? Perish the thought.

All of those millions of bodies littered around the world all were the result of suicide to embarrass us.

"There remains an experience of incomparable value . . . to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled ---- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer . . . to look with new eyes on matters great and small."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Letters and Papers from Prison)