The bloody atrocity at No Gun Ri, a hamlet 100 miles south of Seoul, has been known in South Korea for decades, but a series of pro-US military dictatorships suppressed any public protest or investigation. The facts were kept secret in America as well, until several US veterans who witnessed the events gave interviews to the Associated Press this fall.

Six veterans of the 1st Cavalry Division of the US Army told AP they fired on the refugees at No Gun Ri and six others said they saw the shootings. Army units retreating through South Korea in the face of the North Korean offensive at the beginning of the war had been ordered to shoot civilians on the pretext that North Korean soldiers might be hiding among them. In the neighboring 25th Infantry Division, the commander told his troops that "all civilians seen in this area are to be considered as enemy and action taken accordingly." The Korean survivors say there were no North Korean troops within miles and the killings were not related to combat.

American soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division drove out the population from two villages near No Gun Ri, telling them North Koreans were coming. As the refugees neared No Gun Ri, US soldiers ordered them off the road and onto a parallel railroad track. US planes strafed the area, killing100. Americans then directed the refugees into the railroad bridge underpass and after dark opened fire on them. One veteran, Eugene Hesselman of Kentucky, recalled that Capt. Melbourne C. Chandler ordered machine gunners to open fire, with the statement, "Let's get rid of all of them."