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In the Face of American Amnesia, The Grim Truths of No Gun Ri Find a Home

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Charles J. Hanley
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On the 70th anniversary of the division of the Korean peninsula, the Korea Policy Institute, in collaboration with The Asia-Pacific Journal, is pleased to publish a special series, “The 70th Anniversary of the U.S. Division of the Korean Peninsula: A People's History.” Multi-sited in geographic range, this series calls attention to the far-reaching repercussions and ongoing legacies of the fateful 1945 American decision, in the immediate wake of U.S. atomic bombings of Japan and with no Korean consultation, to divide Korea in two. Through scholarly essays, policy articles, interviews, journalistic investigation, survivor testimony, and creative performance, this series explores the human costs and ground-level realities of the division of Korea. In Part 1 of the series Hyun Lee interviews Shin Eun-mi on The Erosion of Democracy in South Korea.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 10 , March 2015 , e3
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2015

References

Notes

1 Information about the No Gun Ri Peace Park was obtained during a visit by author in September 2014.

2 Charles Hanley, “No Gun Ri: Official Narrative and Inconvenient Truths.” Critical Asian Studies 42:4 (2010): 589-622; also in Truth and Reconciliation in South Korea: Between the Present and the Future of the Korean Wars, ed. Jae-Jung Suh (London and New York: Routledge 2013),68-94.

3 Suhi Choi, Embattled Memories: Contested Meanings in Korean War Memorials (Reno: University of Nevada 2014), 17.

4 See Charles J. Hanley, Sang-Hun Choe, Martha Mendoza, The Bridge at No Gun Ri (New York: Henry Holt.2001), 286. See also Hanley, Critical Asian Studies, 609.

5 See Hanley, “No Gun Ri: Official Narrative and Inconvenient Truths,” 607.

6 The U.S. Army investigation's handling of these three documents is detailed in Hanley, Critical Asian Studies, 599-609.

7 Office of the Inspector General, Department of the Army, No Gun Ri Review (Washington, D.C. January 2001), xi, 98.

8 Office of the Inspector General, Department of the Army, No Gun Ri Review, xiii.

9 Hanley, “No Gun Ri: Official Narrative and Inconvenient Truths,” 609.

10 Ibid.

11 Sahr Conway-Lanz, “Beyond No Gun Ri: Refugees and the United States Military in the Korean War”. Diplomatic History 29:1 (2005): 49-81.

12 “US Still Says South Korea Killings ‘Accident’ Despite Declassified Letter,” Yonhap News Agency, 30 Oct. 2006; Hanley and Mendoza, “1950 ‘Shoot Refugees’ Letter Was Known to No Gun Ri Inquiry, but Went Undisclosed,” The Associated Press, 14 April 2007.

13 Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage: Americans, Noncombatant Immunity, and Atrocity after World War II (New York: Routledge 2006), 99.

14 U.S. State Department cable. 31 August 2006. “Response to Demarche: Muccio Letter and Nogun-ri.” From Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to U.S. Embassy, Seoul.

15 See Choi 11.

16 Hanley, “No Gun Ri: Official Narrative and Inconvenient Truths,” 609-610.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Namely, writer-director Lee Saang-woo's film A Little Pond; the graphic narrative No Gun Ri Story, by Park Kun-woong and Chung Eunyong; Munwha Broadcasting Corp.'s series “No Gun Ri Still Lives On.”

21 “Welcome Address,” “Tragic Memories of the No Gun Ri Victims' Community,” Report of the 8th International Conference of Museums for Peace, Sept. 19-22, 2014, The No Gun Ri International Peace Foundation.

22 British Broadcasting Corp., Kill 'em All, Timewatch, 1 Feb. 2002.

23 Robert L. Bateman, No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2002)

24 John Tirman, The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars (New York: Oxford.2011).

25 Hanley and Hyung-Jin Kim, “Korea Bloodbath Probe Ends; US Escapes Much Blame.” The Associated Press (Seoul), 11 July 2010.