Talk:No Gun Ri massacre/Archive 14

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Let's finally move on 'Events' (superseding above)

GeneralizationsAreBad, Wikimedes, Iryna Harpy, Irondome, Binksternet, Timothyjosephwood, a proposed revision of the "Events" section is below, preceded by a dissection of the existing section, in the style suggested by TJWood, with explanatory notes appended. I hope this helps speed things along. First, the current section:

As North Korean forces seized the central South Korean town of Yongdong on July 25, 1950, 1st Cavalry Division troops began evacuating villages in front of the enemy advance, including hundreds of residents of Chu Gok Ri and Im Ke Ri. As they headed south down the main road, they were joined by other refugees. That first night, the refugees were ordered to camp on a riverbank near the town of Ha Ga Ri. Several refugees were killed that first evening, and accounts differ as to why there were casualties among the refugees that first night. According to some Korean survivors, American soldiers shot several refugees as they strayed from a roadside assembly area or ignored instructions to remain in place. Other survivors recall refugees being injured in the crossfire between the advancing KPA and defending U.S. forces. NOTE 1

The next day, July 26, the refugees awoke to find most of the U.S. soldiers had left the positions they held the night before. The refugee column then proceeded towards the No Gun Ri area, 5 miles (8.0 km) from their homes. When they arrived at a U.S. roadblock, they were searched for weapons and contraband and made to move to the parallel railroad tracks to clear the road for vehicle traffic. Survivors said the U.S. troops who searched them radioed to overhead warplanes to attack the refugee group. NOTE 2 In a 2007 German television documentary, Yang Hae-chan described the air attack: "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." Due to the lack of a tactical air control party (TACP) assigned to the regiment, it was deemed highly improbable by both investigation teams that the soldiers who searched the civilians called in this airstrike, as they lacked the technical capability to do so.

An explanation for the strafing of refugees was never confirmed by investigators. While several of the U.S. veterans stated that airstrikes were occurring in the valley out of their line of sight and many Korean refugees recalled an attack from the air that day, no flight logs or action summaries from any air assets operating in or around the No Gun Ri area reported an attack of this type in that area. With aircraft flying too fast to positively identify a target and with a shortage of TACPs, friendly fire was always a concern; earlier on the 26th, the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry’s regimental command post was attacked by an F-80 and the strafing of the refugees was dangerously close to U.S. forces. NOTE 3

Early on the 25th, the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment broke ranks, abandoned its equipment and began a disorganized easterly retreat away from Yongdong, believing they were being enveloped by the KPA. Beginning that evening and continuing through the early hours of the 27th, the 2/7 was reorganized by Major William Witherspoon, the regimental operations officer, and ordered to dig in on a ridgeline adjacent to the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, just east of and overlooking No Gun Ri. NOTE 4

According to the South Korean government’s investigation, over the course of the next three days, dug-in troops of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, opened fire on the refugees, some of whom took shelter in a low, narrow culvert beneath the railroad embankment. The small arms and mortar fire forced them into a larger double tunnel beneath a railroad bridge. NOTE 5 Survivor Park Sun-yong said corpses were piled up as shields against the gunfire: "Children were screaming in fear and the adults were praying for their lives, and the whole time they never stopped shooting." Chung Koo-ho 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."

Interviews by news organizations and the inspector general of the army discovered a wide variety of recollections from the 7th Cavalry veterans. NOTE 6 Joseph Jackman, a G Company rifleman, told the BBC that he had deliberately shot people who were congregating around the tunnels: “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 all," Norman L. Tinkler, an H Company machine gunner, remembered firing on white-clad people coming down the railroad tracks toward the bridge, including "a lot of women and children." He stated that he had fired roughly 1,000 rounds and assumed "there weren't no survivors". Other veterans, such as Buddy Wenzel, recalled that they fired warning shots over the refugees to keep them contained when the group panicked and the refugees “started to run towards us. We were firing over them all this time. Then somebody yelled, 'We’re being fired at,' then there was a bunch that started shooting into the refugees." Wenzel and several other veterans stated that weapons, including a PPSh-41 and several grenades, were recovered after the shooting stopped. Retired colonel Robert Carroll, then a 25-year-old first lieutenant reconnaissance officer assigned to 2nd Battalion’s H Company, stated there was no order given to any machine gunner under his command to open fire and that none did. Carroll said that he did stop some sporadic shooting at refugees, but that they were over 300 yards away and were not being hit. After a young child running down the track was hit, Carroll carried the child back to the tunnel where the battalion surgeon was treating half a dozen individuals injured by shrapnel. NOTE 7

Veterans from the nearby 1st Battalion also witnessed the unfolding events. Thomas H. Hacha, dug in nearby with the 1/7, said that he “could see the tracers (bullets) spinning around inside the tunnel ... and they were dying down there. I could hear the people screaming."

The 7th Cavalry treated and evacuated a number of the wounded, but they did not allow the rest of the surviving refugees passage behind their lines, and kept them under the rail bridge. Over next two days, the refugees were kept in the tunnel by the 2/7 on one side and by the 1/7, who were defending against repeated infantry and armor incursions, probing attacks, and artillery barrages by the KPA’s 3rd Division.

On July 29, 1950, three days after the killings began, the 7th Cavalry Regiment was withdrawn from its positions to Hwanggan as the U.S. retreat continued.

References

• NOTE 1 – The official U.S. Army history makes clear the North Koreans were not advancing; the joint US-SK Statement of Mutual Understanding says the refugees at Ha Ga Ri were killed by U.S. soldiers. One of the dozens of Korean witnesses supposed, incorrectly, there was a “crossfire,” and that red herring was seized upon by the now-banned WN.

• NOTE 2 – a) The proposed edit will summarize the three days of action in a single paragraph, followed by many descriptive quotes. b) The fact some of these unsophisticated peasants thought they saw soldiers “radioing” for the air attack was seized upon, including here by the now-banned WN, as a diversion, since “that’s impossible” and so…. (See NOTE 3).

• NOTE 3 – This long discussion of “TACPs,” “air assets” etc. is utterly pointless, except to obfuscate. Firstly, there were many ways to call in air strikes, and they’re listed in the South Korean investigative report and can be found as well scattered throughout the U.S. report. (And at the risk of stating the obvious: All sides agree there was a strafing; this silly discussion might delude the less attentive into thinking otherwise.) Secondly, the flat statement about an absence of “action summaries” etc. is simply untrue; the U.S. report covered up many such incriminating documents, as shown in published RS. Thirdly, and this alone makes the entire "TACP" discussion moot, an “explanation for the strafing” can be found in the previous day’s Air Force memo saying all approaching refugee groups would be strafed. But this “Events” section should be limited to describing what happened, not why. The earlier “Background” section established generally that “kill” orders were issued. The specifics, such as the Air Force memo, will come in a later section, not here.

• NOTE 4 – This July 25 episode has been moved to the earlier “Background” section, where it belongs (if at all in the article).

• NOTE 5 – As with NOTE 2: The proposed edit will consolidate the basic action in a single paragraph.

• NOTE 6 – Superfluous.

• NOTE 7 – a) Wenzel is unreliable, his story having changed over time. Instead, the proposed edit will note simply that 3 of 52 men spoke of hostile fire, but no evidence of such emerged. (By the way, this entire "hostile fire" scenario is wildly implausible; for one of many things, remember that the attack began with a sudden strafing, not with soldiers returning "hostile fire"); b) Carroll’s self-excusing yarn is bizarrely out of place, obviously meant by the now-banned WN to sow doubt (the refugees “were not being hit”; oh, really?!) Carroll, ducking responsibility, told reporters he left the scene after the initial moments.

• NOTE 8 – The North Korean “attacks” are overstated. The proposed edit will render this more accurately. Also, the now-banned WN’s insertion of the “1/7” (oh, the jargon) implies culpability for that battalion, something far from established.

---

Here's the proposed revision, with a superfluity of quotes:

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.

A brief summary of subsequent events, based on South Korean government reports:

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, a 10-year-old boy in 1950, 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." 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." Others said some soldiers 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."

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.

References

--Charles J. Hanley (talk) 15:30, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Wherein timothyjosephwood continues to make everyone angry

Everyone should know by now that I am merciless when it come to trimming fat. If it feels adversarial then that means I'm doing things right. Most of the edits can be summarized thusly: There continues to be a significant problem with editorializing, sensationalizing, and otherwise not using a neutral encyclopedic tone. I only post here the strike-through version because what's stricken is so extensive that it plainly just needs a significant rewrite.

I know this is tedious, but we have to remember, the point here is not just to fix the article, but to fix it with a strong consensus. That way, if someone else comes along and tries to mess things up, we can say "big fat nope, see the consensus on the talk page here".

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. NOTE 1

A brief summary of subsequent events, based on South Korean government reports: NOTE 2

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. when they were attacked by aircraft 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. NOTE 3

Survivor Yang Hae-chan, a 10-year-old boy in 1950, 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." 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." Others said some soldiers 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."

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. HOLY CRAP, NOTE 4

During the refugee killings, the 2nd Battalion came under sporadic artillery and mortar fire from the North Koreans, who advanced only cautiously advancing 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. NOTE 5 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. Note 6

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.

References

• NOTE 1: If this isn't taken out it needs to be severely cut down. It seems, on the face of it, to be killings incidental to the main event, more than it does a crucial step leading up to the bulk of the killings. The proposal is entirely too long and the tone of this passage is entirely too weak and speculative (e.g., "possibly to relieve themselves or for other reasons"), in addition to it's dubious relevance and relative importance.

CJHANLEY COMMENT (and first see my general comment below): The Ha Ga Ri deaths can go; they did not appear in the June 2013 version, which still would be the best place to start rather than plow through all this.

• NOTE 2: The section header should indicate that this is supposed to be a brief explanation of the events.

• NOTE 3: There's quite a bit of this in here: speculative or colloquial language, or otherwise non-military terminology. Warplane is not a military term. It's properly an aircraft. To say that they were "suddenly" attacked sounds like something from a book Michael Bay wrote. Just the facts please.

CJHANLEY COMMENT: Disagree. We should place them up on an embankment and spread out to establish context for what comes. “Warplane” may not be a military term, but this is not a military document; the word conveys more meaning than “aircraft” (Piper Cub?). Same for “suddenly” but I’ll not fight over small stuff. As for the speculative “possibly bombed,” you’re surely not suggesting that only airtight, board-certified “facts” belong in an article, when uncertainties surround a situation. In this case, some witnesses said there were bombs, some remember only strafing; “possibly bombed” says it economically.

• HOLY CRAP, NOTE 4: All of this needs draconian condensing. If this long passage was a commercial it would have Sarah McLachlan playing in the background. We're not trying to guilt people into donating a dollar a day to Korean war refugees; we're trying to give a neutral historical overview of the events as they occurred. This needs to be combined with the last two sentences of the second paragraph into a well sourced one or two paragraphs with one or two quotes (that don't themselves take up 90% of the paragraphs). Compare section 2 of St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. I shouldn't feel like I'm reading a Wikiquote page about NGR. This needs to be written in WP:PROSE that explains what happened using the sources, and inserting quotes where they are elucidating, rather than listing what lots of people said and inserting a few contextual clues around the quoted text. We still have to avoid WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH; however, (as a thought experiment) if I were a college student writing a play on NGR, I should read this section and clearly understand what would be in acts 1, 2, and 3. Right now act 1 is how the refugees got to the the railroad tunnel. For acts 2 and 3, the narrator goes to find some coffee and all we have left are a series of monologues.

CJHANLEY COMMENT: Holy Crap, I think TJW missed my explanatory notes saying there’d be an overload of quotes to provide raw material to work with. (See my general comment below.)

• NOTE 5: This just doesn't jive. I don't know that you can be under artillery fire and also simultaneously be under no pressure. Needs clarifying. The "two miles" thing also feels like it is editorializing to people without a general understanding of military technology. Fifty years prior we had artillery that could shoot twice as far.

CJHANLEY COMMENT: The “no pressure” thing can be dropped, rather than waste words explaining. (The 7th Cav, not in contact with the enemy, was pulling back in a strategic withdrawal, not retreating under attack.) The reader must be informed of the whereabouts of the North Koreans.

• NOTE 6: I don't even know. To continue to beat a dead horse, this isn't a movie where we need a climax and resolution to a moral dilemma. These guys have been shooting at people for days. Why is it so shocking to see bodies? Or is this put in here so that we have a quote using the word "slaughter"?

CJHANLEY COMMENT: No, not to use the word “slaughter,” but to deepen my fellow editors’ understanding of the realities of NGR, before trimming Jacobson and others out.

Timothyjosephwood (talk) 13:17, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

CJHANLEY GENERAL COMMENT: As said previously, this proposed edit was intended to provide a surfeit of quotes, so editors could zero in on the best for telling the story. A secondary purpose, as I’ve said, is to give you all a better appreciation of the breadth and depth of available information, from hundreds of interviews by journalists and academics, i.e., an appreciation of the solidity of the NGR narrative. Pending others’ comments, let me tomorrow hack away at my proposed edits, with an eye toward TJW’s (on-target) comments. Thanks. Charles J. Hanley (talk) 14:27, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Events: revised proposed edit 2

Here's a revised, heavily trimmed proposed edit for the "Events" section, following some of TJWood's suggestions, including eliminating the discussion of the preliminary deaths at Ha Ga Ri, and eliminating the discussion about "hostile fire," which is already dealt with in the "Investigations" section. This also reduces the survivors' quotes from 404 words to 235 words and the ex-soldiers' quotes from 410 words to 167 words. This horrific event plainly deserves more than that; My Lai Massacre has 1,800 words of description (without, disgracefully, having anything from Vietnamese, just GI quotes), while this totals just 700 words. But 1) TJW seems to fear arousing sympathy in the reader, and 2) I just want to get on with this and get it done. Therefore, please, let's do so. Charles J. Hanley (talk) 19:35, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

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. They spent the night by a riverbank near Ha Ga Ri village, 3.5 miles (5.5 km) west of No Gun Ri, and in the morning of July 26 found the soldiers had left. Continuing on the road south, the villagers were stopped by U.S. soldiers at a roadblock near No Gun Ri, and ordered onto the parallel railroad track, where soldiers searched them and their belongings. The refugees were resting, spread out along the railroad embankment around midday, when warplanes attacked them, strafing the group, possibly dropping bombs. The planes "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," recalled survivor Yang Hae-chan, a 10-year-old boy in 1950. Survivors initially sought protection in a small culvert beneath the tracks, but gunfire followed. "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 who was wounded. On the tracks above, Yang and Chung Koo-hun, then a teenager, said they saw soldiers walking among the wounded civilians and shooting them. “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, and it continued for the next three days. "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. At night, the Americans turned searchlights on the tunnels and continued firing, said survivor Chung Koo-ho. “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.”

Two 2nd Battalion communications specialists, Larry Levine and James Crume, said they remembered orders to fire on the refugees coming from a higher level, probably 1st Cavalry Division. They and others recalled the ground fire beginning with a mortar round landing among the refugee families, followed by what Levine called a “frenzy” of small-arms fire. Ex-rifleman Joseph Jackman said his G Company commander ran down the line shouting, “Kill ‘em all!” He said he opened fire, and “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." Said ex-rifleman Herman Patterson, "It was assumed there were enemy in these people." Others said some soldiers held their fire. One observing from a distance, Thomas H. Hacha, dug in nearby with the sister 1st Battalion, said he saw tracer bullets spinning around in the tunnel. “They were dying down there. I could hear the people screaming."

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. The 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from No Gun Ri in the predawn hours of July 29. That afternoon 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.

References

--Charles J. Hanley (talk) 19:35, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

General response: I think this looks good. The most constructive thing that I have to say this minute (although I'll think of more edits eventually) is that despite the extremely dramatic and frightening nature of this story, it's probably best to focus on wikifying it and avoiding a WP:QUOTEFARM, despite how graphic and intense said quotes are. So in any event, I think it's best to curb the quotes at some point. For example, My Lai Massacre has seven separate witness statements, even if they're not direct quotes. GAB^Hello! 01:47, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Events: revised proposed edit 3

Alright. This is mostly minor copy editing, which is a good sign if that's all I can find to bitch about. The only additional things that I would like to address are the two anonymous references to soldiers and the reference to the air attack. Do we know who these people were? I'm assuming they're all references to US or UN forces. But I think it would be clarifying if we could add that.

I know that this horse has been dead for a while, and I don't know if anyone else here has served, but as someone who's done a few too many pushups because I called my weapon a "gun" or my patrol cap a "hat", we really should be using correct terminology. "Military aircraft" can easily replace "aircraft" if you think the latter is ambiguous. I would like to go further and specify what types of aircraft if we have that information. I'm not sure were do. Strafing is a close-ish operation, but I don't think many civilians, and probably military personnel, could look up and say "gee, that's a C-10". Also "machine gun" is not a thing. It should be small arms or small arms and light weapons if it includes things like mortars, which it seems to. Alternatively we could say "automatic weapons fire" if you think "small arms" makes the average person think of a pistol rather than nearly anything that isn't vehicle mounted.

Change these edits:

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 traveling down the main road. They spent the night by a riverbank near Ha Ga Ri village, 3.5 miles (5.5 km) west of No Gun Ri, and in the morning of July 26 found the soldiers had left. Continuing on the road south, the villagers were stopped by U.S. soldiers at a roadblock near No Gun Ri, and ordered onto the parallel railroad track, where (US Soldiers?) soldiers searched them and their belongings. The refugees were resting, spread out along the railroad embankment around midday, when warplanes attacked them they were attacked by military aircraft (do we know who?), strafing the group, possibly and by some accounts dropping bombs. The planes aircraft "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," recalled survivor Yang Hae-chan, a 10-year-old boy in 1950.

Survivors initially sought protection in a small culvert beneath the tracks, but gunfire followed. "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 who was wounded. On the tracks above, Yang and Chung Koo-hun, then a teenager, said they saw soldiers (UN soldiers? Korean?) walking among the wounded civilians and shooting them. “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 small arms and light weapons, and this continued for the next three days. "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. At night, the Americans turned searchlights on the tunnels and continued firing, said survivor Chung Koo-ho. “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.”

Two 2nd Battalion communications specialists, Larry Levine and James Crume, said they remembered orders to fire on the refugees coming from a higher level, probably 1st Cavalry Division. They and others recalled the ground fire beginning with a mortar round landing among the refugee families, followed by what Levine called a “frenzy” of small-arms fire. Ex-rifleman Joseph Jackman said his G Company commander ran down the line shouting, “Kill ‘em all!” He said he opened fire, and “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." Said ex-rifleman Herman Patterson, "It was assumed there were enemy in these people." Others said some soldiers held their fire. One observing from a distance, Thomas H. Hacha, dug in nearby with the sister 1st Battalion, said he saw tracer bullets spinning around in the tunnel. “They were dying down there. I could hear the people screaming."

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 two miles or more from No Gun Ri late on July 28, third day of the massacre, when US forces began a strategic withdrawal. The 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from No Gun Ri in the predawn hours of July 29. That afternoon North Korean soldiers appeared arrived outside the tunnels and helped those still alive, perhaps about two dozen, mostly children, feeding them and sending them back toward their villages.

References

To get this:

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 traveling down the main road. They spent the night by a riverbank near Ha Ga Ri village, 3.5 miles (5.5 km) west of No Gun Ri, and in the morning of July 26 found the soldiers had left. Continuing on the road south, the villagers were stopped by U.S. soldiers at a roadblock near No Gun Ri, and ordered onto the parallel railroad track, where (US Soldiers?) soldiers searched them and their belongings. The refugees were resting, spread out along the railroad embankment around midday, when they were attacked by military aircraft (do we know who?), strafing the group, and by some accounts dropping bombs. The aircraft "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," recalled survivor Yang Hae-chan, a 10-year-old boy in 1950.

Survivors initially sought protection in a small culvert beneath the tracks, but gunfire followed. "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 who was wounded. On the tracks above, Yang and Chung Koo-hun, then a teenager, said they saw soldiers (UN soldiers? Korean?) walking among the wounded civilians and shooting them. “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 opened fire with small arms and light weapons, and this continued for the next three days. "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. At night, the Americans turned searchlights on the tunnels and continued firing, said survivor Chung Koo-ho. “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.”

Two 2nd Battalion communications specialists, Larry Levine and James Crume, said they remembered orders to fire on the refugees coming from a higher level, probably 1st Cavalry Division. They and others recalled the ground fire beginning with a mortar round landing among the refugee families, followed by what Levine called a “frenzy” of small-arms fire. Ex-rifleman Joseph Jackman said his G Company commander ran down the line shouting, “Kill ‘em all!” He said he opened fire, and “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." Said ex-rifleman Herman Patterson, "It was assumed there were enemy in these people." Others said some soldiers held their fire. One observing from a distance, Thomas H. Hacha, dug in nearby with the sister 1st Battalion, said he saw tracer bullets spinning around in the tunnel. “They were dying down there. I could hear the people screaming."

During the killings, the 2nd Battalion came under sporadic artillery and mortar fire from the North Koreans, who advanced cautiously from Yongdong. Declassified Army intelligence reports showed the enemy front line was two miles or more from No Gun Ri late on July 28, third day of the massacre, when US forces began a strategic withdrawal. The 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from No Gun Ri in the predawn hours of July 29. That afternoon North Korean soldiers arrived outside the tunnels and helped those still alive, about two dozen, mostly children, feeding them and sending them back toward their villages.

References

Timothyjosephwood (talk) 13:32, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

To clarify and reply to TJW:

• Only U.S. soldiers were in the No Gun Ri area. I thought the context and occasional repetition of that made that clear. If it's felt every soldier needs U.S. or American in front of him, fine.
• Soldier witnesses saw the U.S. star and knew these were U.S. planes, but the precise ID remains unknown. Air Force F-80s (jets) and F-51s (prop) and Navy Corsairs (prop) were all doing close-air-support missions. Some witnesses say props, some jets. (See "Elaborating on air operations," below.)
• "Warplane" appears in 1,607 WP articles, including Military Aircraft: "Combat aircraft, or 'Warplanes', are divided broadly into multi-role, fighters, bombers, and attackers." Merriam-Webster agrees. But if you really, really hate the word, well, I just want to move ahead.
• I will, however, insist on "machine guns." Please read your "Field Manual 3-22.68, Crew-Served Machine Guns, 5.56-mm and 7.62-mm," and myriad others. Plus WP's M60 machine gun. No one ever called our M60 in VN anything other than an MG. The reader knows "machine gun" and the damage it does; he/she doesn't know from "light weapons." I suggest "opened fire with machine guns and rifles." Mortar fire is mentioned a couple of sentences further along.
• The sourcing got a little jumbled in your final graf; the withdrawal did not begin on July 28, but the 29th; and I suggest the reader doesn't understand "strategic withdrawal." Therefore, I'd suggest making it (can copy from raw-edit version):

... Declassified Army intelligence reports showed the enemy front line was two miles or more from No Gun Ri late on July 28, third day of the massacre. In the predawn hours of July 29, the 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from No Gun Ri. ...

If we can agree on the above, and without further comment from others, will you post the new section, TJW? Thanks.

--Charles J. Hanley (talk) 16:27, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

1. I think we should specify, given the apparent close proximity of the two forces. We can just insert "US".

2. That's fine. We can skip a non-essential digression into the possible types of aircraft.

3. I'll stand by this one. "Warplane" is colloquial.

4. You are correct. they are properly both machine guns, automatic weapons, as well as small arms. My last issued fully automatic weapon was the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, and the terminology stuck.

5. That's fine.

I'm fine with going ahead and moving on given the above changes. I will let one of the other editors make the edit since I have apparently taken over as devil's advocate. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 17:07, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

ELABORATING ON AIR OPERATIONS (to aid your understanding;might be important for later discussions): In late July 1950, only U.S. planes were operating in the 1st Cavalry Division area; a few Australians had arrived but were flying elsewhere; the SKs had no air force, and the tiny NK air force had been eliminated two weeks earlier. Each U.S. Air Force mission (four planes jointly flying one operation) produced a mission report, written by a unit intelligence officer who debriefed the pilots upon return to base. Roughly half the mission reports from this period, as of the early 2000s, were either missing from the archives or inaccessible because they had not been processed. But those that were available showed extensive attack operations in the 1st Cav area, including the No Gun Ri area, particularly by two Air Force fighter-bomber squadrons, the 8th and the 35th. The U.S. Army investigators of 1999-2001 suppressed the 35th FBS mission reports, claiming to the SKs they couldn't be found. But they were found by journalists and were particularly incriminating, showing strafing attacks on obvious civilians (not at NGR) in July, and attacks on "troops," an "unidentified object" and a "road" in the NGR vicinity on July 26-27. None of these could be precisely correlated, however, with a "midday" attack on July 26 on a "white-clad group" or a "group on railroad tracks" or such, and so the unit affiliation of the initial air attackers at NGR remains, essentially, a mystery. (Some Korean witnesses recall further air attacks when they were under the bridge; these 35th FBS reports might refer to those.) --Charles J. Hanley (talk) 17:27, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Wait, I thought we had reached agreement... Timothyjosephwood (talk) 21:20, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

No, no, I meant that "elaboration" only for editors' background as we go along, not at all for inclusion in the text, which we have agreed on. I thought my first brief explainer to you on air operations might have raised questions, and it seemed a good time to provide more detail. But only as background knowledge. We can't get into the weeds. Charles J. Hanley (talk) 21:26, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

GeneralizationsAreBad, Wikimedes, Iryna Harpy, Irondome, Binksternet, Timothyjosephwood, to help speed things along, below is a finished version of the proposed Events section as agreed to by TJWood, me and, I believe, GAB, with the latest changes in bold, including a couple of clarifying words just now added by me. Unless there's further comment, TJW has asked that another editor post the new text (remembering to un-bold the bold). I hope one of you will do so. Meanwhile, let’s move on to the “Casualties” section. Thanks. Charles J. Hanley (talk) 14:50, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

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 traveling down the main road. They spent the night by a riverbank near Ha Ga Ri village, 3.5 miles (5.5 km) west of No Gun Ri, and in the morning of July 26 found the escorting soldiers had left. Continuing on the road south, the villagers were stopped by American troops at a roadblock near No Gun Ri, and ordered onto the parallel railroad track, where U.S. soldiers searched them and their belongings. The estimated 600 refugees were resting, spread out along the railroad embankment around midday, when they were attacked by military aircraft, which strafed them and by some accounts dropped bombs. The aircraft "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," recalled survivor Yang Hae-chan, a 10-year-old boy in 1950.

Survivors first sought protection in a small culvert beneath the tracks, but gunfire followed. "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 who was wounded. On the tracks above, Yang and Chung Koo-hun, then a teenager, said they saw U.S. soldiers walking among the wounded civilians and shooting them. “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 opened fire with machine guns and rifles, and this continued for the next three days. "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. At night, the Americans turned searchlights on the tunnels and continued firing, said survivor Chung Koo-ho. “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.”

Two 2nd Battalion communications specialists, Larry Levine and James Crume, said they remembered orders to fire on the refugees coming from a higher level, probably 1st Cavalry Division. They and others recalled the ground fire beginning with a mortar round landing among the refugee families, followed by what Levine called a “frenzy” of small-arms fire. Ex-rifleman Joseph Jackman said his G Company commander ran down the line shouting, “Kill ‘em all!” He said he opened fire, and “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." Said ex-rifleman Herman Patterson, "It was assumed there were enemy in these people." Others said some soldiers held their fire. One observing from a distance, Thomas H. Hacha, dug in nearby with the sister 1st Battalion, said he saw tracer bullets spinning around in the tunnel. “They were dying down there. I could hear the people screaming."

During the killings, the 2nd Battalion came under sporadic artillery and mortar fire from the North Koreans, who advanced cautiously from Yongdong. Declassified Army intelligence reports showed the enemy front line was two miles or more from No Gun Ri late on July 28, third day of the massacre. In the predawn hours of July 29, the 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from No Gun Ri. That afternoon North Korean soldiers arrived outside the tunnels and helped those still alive, about two dozen, mostly children, feeding them and sending them back toward their villages.

References

--Charles J. Hanley (talk) 14:50, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I need a break from the drama surrounding this article, so decide things without me for a while, but here are my thoughts, to be used or ignored as is appropriate:

I cannot support this proposed edit due to the over-reliance on quotations to present basic facts and the sensationalist tone. IMHO, a quotation means that there is not sufficient evidence in the reliable sources for Wikipedia to present the information in Wikipedia’s voice. This only perpetuates the impression that there are multiple versions of events. The article should avoid this impression if there is only one accepted version of events, or describe the other versions of events if they have sufficient support in the literature. I also think that one of the main efforts at this point should be to reduce the sensationalist tone of the article, and this version increases it.

If I were familiar enough with the literature to be confident of what the actual events were, I would offer a counter proposal. Since I am not, I’ll offer Lynching of Jesse Washington as an example of how a Featured Article describes a horrific event. (I hope this rises above WP:other stuff exists.) This is the version of the article that was promoted to Feature Article status. The second paragraph of the lead and the “Trial and lynching” section are worth considering when deciding how to cover the events at No Gun Ri. (The rest of the article isn’t bad either.) Other example articles can be found at Category:FA-Class Death articles and Category:GA-Class Death articles.

--Wikimedes (talk) 20:12, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree that there is an over-reliance on quotes, but I admit that all the activity on this page has made it difficult for me to stay up-to-date on each proposal and change. GAB^Hello! 20:35, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Messing everything up

Thanks for the comments. I think we've all bowed out of this discussion at times, and I think we all know this can be exhausting. I fear the over reliance on quotes was a bit lost on me because, in my mind, I was focused on how much less reliant on quotes it was than what we started with. So I've tried my hand at a pretty significant rewrite, to try to say what the sources say without the section being 70% in quotation marks.

I initially tried to do the strike through pre-edit thing, but I changed so much around that it just became a jumbled mess and I couldn't make heads or tails of where I was and what I was changing or not. So I abandoned that and just edited it. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 12:28, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

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 traveling down the main road, and spent the night by a riverbank near Ha Ga Ri village, 3.5 miles (5.5 km) west of No Gun Ri. In the morning of July 26 they found the escorting soldiers had left. Continuing on the road south, the villagers were stopped by American troops at a roadblock near No Gun Ri, and ordered onto the parallel railroad track, where they and their belongings were searched. The estimated 600 refugees spread out along the railroad embankment around midday, when they were attacked by military aircraft, which strafed them and by some accounts dropped bombs. The aircraft "came back again and again firing at us. Chaos broke out among the refugees." recalled Yang Hae-chan, who was 10 years old at the time.

Survivors sought protection in a small culvert beneath the tracks, but were driven out of the position and eventually made their way to the nearby twin underpasses of the No Gun Ri railroad bridge. Each tunnel of the bridge measured 80 feet long, 22 feet wide and 40 feet high. There, the 7th Cavalry troops opened fire on the group, which included women and children, beginning with a mortar strike. This continued using machine guns and rifles, and went on through the next three days, including night firing with the use of search lights. Those in the tunnel were pinned in their position by fire from both sides, and eventually resorted to using bodies as barricades to provide cover.

Some disagreement exists as to the source of the orders to fire on the refugees, with some indicating that they originated at the divisional level, and others recalling orders issued on the line from their company commander. While it was assumed at the time that there were enemies among the group, as many as half of soldiers in places refused to fire.

During the killings, the 2nd Battalion came under sporadic artillery and mortar fire from the North Koreans, advancing cautiously from Yongdong. As of 28 July, the third day of the massacre, the enemy front line was at least two miles from No Gun Ri. In the predawn hours of July 29, the 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from the area. That afternoon North Korean soldiers arrived outside the tunnels and helped those still alive, about two dozen, mostly children, feeding them and sending them back toward their villages.

References

This may be overkill, as I've reduced the section to exactly one quote. Maybe it's easier to pick what we add rather than starting with tons of quotes and picking what we take away. I do agree that it seems like the quotes, while they may be accurate and correctly sourced, are a bit handed-picked to select for the ones that use the most sensationalist language. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 12:41, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

It occurs to me that a subtle change may have had an unintended consequence: The first proposed edit (“Let’s finally move on Events”) led off with a “brief summary from South Korean government sources,” a fat graf wrapping up four days’ action in a nutshell. That was dropped in later versions, and its absence may have left Wikimedes with the impression that there’s no consensus account. That approach could be restored.

As for the use of quotations, my reading of WP:Quotations suggests our use of quotes is not at all out of line with WP practice. I look at not only My Lai Massacre, but Haditha Killings and even Wounded Knee Massacre and find a similar use of quotes. A couple of those cases, in fact, make our too-brief Events section look modest in its tight quotations. A name attached to a voice adds authority and authenticity to a text. I see the Lynching of Jesse Washington has little of that. I don’t know why; might be no quotes were available. But I also see that action is largely sourced to one historian’s book. That needs to be avoided here. It’s important to show a multiplicity of media and academic sources, to disarm the ignorant denialists.

We could do a bit more of something that WP:Quotations suggests: paraphrasing instead (as TJW has attempted), and consigning the quote to the footnote. That was already done with the line re some soldiers not shooting. I’ll see if it won’t work with another quote or two.

As for sensationalizing, it’s very difficult to sensationalize a mass slaughter of innocents. People are shocked by the realities of NGR, but that’s different from “describing or showing something in a way that makes it seem more shocking than it really is” (Merriam-Webster). In fact, we’re making it seem less shocking than it really is. Here’s some more of what it really was: Two babies were born and died under the bridge; one father drowned his infant son in the stream under the bridge to stop him from crying and attracting gunfire; people resorted to drinking blood-filled water; the NKs said women were raped, found half-naked and dead (something otherwise unconfirmed, but rapes had occurred in Chu Gok Ri, before NGR); GIs shot wandering children.

Quotes were not selected to sensationalize, but to fill in the picture and inform readers of the reality.

Let me try restoring the “nutshell account” and some quotes, as TJW suggests, trimming some, dropping a couple, using one or two in footnotes. (Also, one misconception was newly introduced: Orders coming from above would have been repeated down the command chain, so there’s not necessarily any disagreement as to the source of the orders.) Thanks.

--Charles J. Hanley (talk) 18:01, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I think this version is a good, bare-bones place to start. Perhaps we could select a few quotes that are "representative" of witness testimony; this way, we can perhaps distill the abundance of graphic, memorable quotes from the veterans and victims into a handful of choice examples. On a horrific historical event such as this, I understand that we could go on and on and on, and I realize the critical importance of using a variety of sources. GAB^Hello! 21:57, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Trying again, dropping some quotes

Here’s another revision, leading off with a simple synopsis clearly attributed to an official source, the inquest committee whose report was the most recent compilation of consensus knowledge. That's followed by material from individual witnesses advancing the narrative by elaborating on the spare statements in the synopsis. Some quotes are dropped, some are relegated to footnotes. Charles J. Hanley (talk) 18:46, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

A synopsis of the July 25-29, 1950, events based on a South Korean government inquest committee’s report of 2005:

As North Korean forces on July 25 seized the town of Yongdong, 7 miles (11 km) west of No Gun Ri, U.S. troops were evacuating nearby villages, including hundreds of residents of Chu Gok Ri and Im Ke Ri. These villagers were joined by others as they walked down the main road south, and the estimated 600 refugees spent the night by a riverbank near Ha Ga Ri village, 3.5 miles (5.5 km) west of No Gun Ri. Seven refugees were shot dead by U.S. soldiers when they strayed from the group in the night. In the morning of July 26, the group found the escorting soldiers had left. They continued down the road, were stopped by American troops at a roadblock near No Gun Ri, and were ordered onto the parallel railroad tracks, where U.S. soldiers searched them and their belongings, confiscating knives and other items. The refugees were resting, spread out along the railroad embankment around midday, when military aircraft appeared and strafed and bombed them. Panicked survivors first sought shelter in a small culvert beneath the tracks, but soldiers and U.S. ground fire drove them from there into a double tunnel beneath a concrete railroad bridge. The U.S. soldiers then fired into both ends of the tunnels over four days (July 26-29, 1950).

Recalling the air strike in a 2007 German television documentary, Yang Hae-chan, a 10-year-old boy in 1950, said the attacking planes returned repeatedly and “chaos broke out among the refugees. We ran around wildly trying to get away.” He and another survivor said soldiers reappeared and began shooting wounded people on the tracks. Inside the bridge underpasses (each 80 feet long, 22 feet wide and 40 feet high), under machine gun and rifle fire from 7th Cavalry troops, “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 while she was badly wounded. Trapped refugees began piling up bodies as shields.

Two 2nd Battalion communications specialists, Larry Levine and James Crume, said they remembered orders to fire on the refugees coming from a higher level, probably 1st Cavalry Division. They recalled the ground fire beginning with a mortar round landing among the refugee families, followed by what Levine called a “frenzy” of small-arms fire.Some battalion veterans recalled front-line company officers ordering them to open fire. "It was assumed there were enemy in these people," said ex-rifleman Herman Patterson. Others said some soldiers held their fire. “They were dying down there. I could hear the people screaming," recalled Thomas H. Hacha of the sister 1st Battalion, observing from a nearby foxhole. Although some refugees managed to escape that first night, the U.S. troops turned searchlights on the tunnels at nighttime and continued firing, said survivor Chung Koo-ho, whose mother died shielding him and his sister.

During the killings, the 2nd Battalion came under sporadic artillery and mortar fire from the North Koreans, who advanced cautiously from Yongdong. Declassified Army intelligence reports showed the enemy front line was two miles or more from No Gun Ri late on July 28, third day of the massacre. In the predawn hours of July 29, the 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from No Gun Ri. That afternoon North Korean soldiers arrived outside the tunnels and helped those still alive, about two dozen, mostly children, feeding them and sending them back toward their villages.

References

--Charles J. Hanley (talk) 18:46, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Charles J. Hanley,

Some copy editing. I shuffled the first two paragraphs together so that things flow more chronologically. (Looking back, I didn't include this in the strike through version. Apologies.)

I tried to move things around some in the third paragraph. I moved the Hacha quote and trimmed the Park quote (two quotes about screaming is redundant). I moved the night fire sentence because it actually advances the story so-to-speak. And...then...I don't know. The first two paragraphs gives a clearish chronology of "day prior, night prior, morning of, day of, night of..." and then the story goes away. We wake up two days later with the 2D BN in retreat. Granted, I've gutted the third para, but I think it lacked focus to begin with. It's still out of chronological order, returning briefly to how the attacks began, digressing to issues of where the orders came from, and making some statements that don't clearly fit in the time line.

I guess my question is what happens between the night fire and the few refugees escaping on the first night, and the morning of the 29th when the CAV was in retreat? It just seems a little bit like cheating to say "this continued for four days", and treat the whole period as an instantaneous event. Is this a story we can tell? Are things really so uncertain that the most we can say is "this continued for four days"?

I apologize again for being such a thorn. I'm still trying, as best I can, to approach this from a state of relative ignorance to try to evaluate how things look to a relatively ignorant reader. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 14:03, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

A synopsis of the July 25-29, 1950, events based on a South Korean government inquest committee’s report of 2005:

As North Korean forces on July 25 seized the town of Yongdong, 7 miles (11 km) west of No Gun Ri, U.S. troops were evacuating nearby villages, including hundreds of residents of Chu Gok Ri and Im Ke Ri. These villagers were joined by others as they walked down the main road south, and the estimated 600 refugees spent the night by a riverbank near Ha Ga Ri village, 3.5 miles (5.5 km) west of No Gun Ri. Seven refugees were shot dead killed by U.S. soldiers when they strayed from the group in the night. In the morning of July 26, the group found the escorting soldiers had left. They continued down the road, were stopped by American troops at a roadblock near No Gun Ri, and were ordered onto the parallel railroad tracks, where U.S. soldiers searched them and their belongings, confiscating knives and other items. The refugees were resting, spread out along the railroad embankment around midday, when military aircraft appeared and strafed and bombed them. Recalling the air strike in a 2007 German television documentary, Yang Hae-chan, a 10-year-old boy in 1950, said the attacking planes returned repeatedly and “chaos broke out among the refugees. We ran around wildly trying to get away.” He and another survivor said soldiers reappeared and began shooting the wounded people on the tracks.

Panicked Survivors first sought shelter in a small culvert beneath the tracks, but soldiers and U.S. ground fire drove them from there into a double tunnel beneath a concrete railroad bridge. The U.S. soldiers then fired into both ends of the tunnels over four days (July 26-29, 1950). Inside the bridge underpasses (each 80 feet long, 22 feet wide and 40 feet high), they came under heavy machine gun and rifle fire from 7th Cavalry troops from either sides of the tunnel, “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 while she was badly wounded. “They were dying down there. I could hear the people screaming," recalled Thomas H. Hacha of the sister 1st Battalion, observing from a nearby foxhole. Trapped refugees began piling up bodies as shields barracades and digging makeshift foxholes. Although some refugees managed to escape that first night, the U.S. troops turned searchlights on the tunnels at nighttime and continued firing. , said survivor Chung Koo-ho, whose mother died shielding him and his sister.

Two 2nd Battalion communications specialists, Larry Levine and James Crume, said they remembered orders to fire on the refugees coming from a higher level, probably 1st Cavalry Division. They recalled the ground fire beginning with a mortar round landing among the refugee families, followed by what Levine called a “frenzy” of small-arms fire.Some battalion veterans recalled front-line company officers ordering them to open fire. "It was assumed there were enemy in these people," said ex-rifleman Herman Patterson. Others said some soldiers held their fire. “They were dying down there. I could hear the people screaming," recalled Thomas H. Hacha of the sister 1st Battalion, observing from a nearby foxhole. Although some refugees managed to escape that first night, the U.S. troops turned searchlights on the tunnels at nighttime and continued firing, said survivor Chung Koo-ho, whose mother died shielding him and his sister.

During the killings, the 2nd Battalion came under sporadic artillery and mortar fire from the North Koreans, who advanced cautiously from Yongdong. Declassified Army intelligence reports showed the enemy front line was two miles or more from No Gun Ri late on July 28, third day of the massacre. In the predawn hours of July 29, the 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from No Gun Ri. That afternoon North Korean soldiers arrived outside the tunnels and helped those still alive, about two dozen, mostly children, feeding them and sending them back toward their villages.

References

--

As North Korean forces on July 25 seized the town of Yongdong, 7 miles (11 km) west of No Gun Ri, U.S. troops were evacuating nearby villages, including hundreds of residents of Chu Gok Ri and Im Ke Ri. These villagers were joined by others as they walked down the main road south, and the estimated 600 refugees spent the night by a riverbank near Ha Ga Ri village, 3.5 miles (5.5 km) west of No Gun Ri. Seven refugees were killed by U.S. soldiers when they strayed from the group in the night. In the morning of July 26, the group found the escorting soldiers had left. They continued down the road, were stopped by American troops at a roadblock near No Gun Ri, and were ordered onto the parallel railroad tracks, where U.S. soldiers searched them and their belongings, confiscating knives and other items. The refugees were resting, spread out along the railroad embankment around midday, when military aircraft strafed and bombed them. Recalling the air strike Yang Hae-chan, a 10-year-old boy in 1950, said the attacking planes returned repeatedly and “chaos broke out among the refugees. We ran around wildly trying to get away.” He and another survivor said soldiers reappeared and began shooting the wounded on the tracks.

Survivors first sought shelter in a small culvert beneath the tracks, but soldiers and U.S. ground fire drove them from there into a double tunnel beneath a concrete railroad bridge. Inside the bridge underpasses (each 80 feet long, 22 feet wide and 40 feet high), they came under heavy machine gun and rifle fire from 7th Cavalry troops from either side of the tunnel, “the whole time they never stopped shooting," said survivor Park Sun-yong, whose 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter were killed while she was badly wounded. “They were dying down there. I could hear the people screaming," recalled Thomas H. Hacha of the sister 1st Battalion, observing nearby. Trapped refugees began piling up bodies as barricades and digging makeshift foxholes. Although some refugees managed to escape that first night, U.S. troops turned searchlights on the tunnels and continued firing.

Two 2nd Battalion communications specialists, Larry Levine and James Crume, said they remembered orders to fire on the refugees coming from a higher level, probably 1st Cavalry Division. They recalled the ground fire beginning with a mortar round landing among the refugee families, followed by what Levine called a “frenzy” of small-arms fire.Some battalion veterans recalled front-line company officers ordering them to open fire. "It was assumed there were enemy in these people," said ex-rifleman Herman Patterson. Others said some soldiers held their fire.

During the killings, the 2nd Battalion came under sporadic artillery and mortar fire from the North Koreans, who advanced cautiously from Yongdong. Declassified Army intelligence reports showed the enemy front line was two miles or more from No Gun Ri late on July 28, third day of the massacre. In the predawn hours of July 29, the 7th Cavalry Regiment withdrew from No Gun Ri. That afternoon North Korean soldiers arrived outside the tunnels and helped those still alive, about two dozen, mostly children, feeding them and sending them back toward their villages.

References

Do we have detailed information on troop positions during the period? I may be able to edit this map (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Map_of_NoGeunRi.png) to approximate the positions at the time.

No one, including the Army investigators, was able to pinpoint placement of units beyond the general location of the 2nd Battalion at No Gun Ri, i.e., the men's recollections were too scattered to be able to place each of the battalion's four companies in one spot or another at No Gun Ri. Charles J. Hanley (talk) 17:03, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Regarding TJW's latest, it seems we're whipsawing ourselves between wanting less and wanting more.

First of all, in answer to TJW, material can be added about the second and third days of killings. The AP journalists' book, by far the most thorough and honest account, describes the 60-plus hours of killing over 27 pages. I'm trying to rely as little as possible on The Bridge at No Gun Ri, but an element or two could be added.

Wikimedes's main point, however, as I understood it, was that quotations from this or that witness made it seem, to him, that there was no accepted "version" of what happened. (Plus, he seemed to feel there was too much description.) Well, that's why I restored a single lead-off paragraph from a single official, authoritative source that told the story in a nutshell. But that police blotter-style outline (soldiers opened fire, bunch of people died, let's move on) hardly suffices for such an event. The reader needs to understand the reality, via the quotes, or paraphrases of quotes.

Now TJW's latest version sort of blurs the distinction between the official, general bare-bones account and people's individual recollections (jumbling or dropping some sources in the process.)

I would urge all at this point to please look at the 24 June 2013 version of "Events" (sorry, seems I haven't mastered linking to old revisions; you'll have to search history) to see how such a bare-bones account stands alone as a shaded, boxed section at the side, while the main text carries the more detailed material. The reader sees that one can learn the established basics with the box, and if one wishes can learn more with the text.

Your thoughts on returning to that format? It would make clear that here are the established basics, and there are the individual recollections. Otherwise, I'll be happy to take TJW's, add a bit from July 27-28, fix sources, and hope to move on. Thanks.

__Charles J. Hanley (talk) 17:07, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

My intention is to be adversarial but not obstructionist. I apologize if I've approached or crossed that line. I also apologize if I jumbled or dropped sources. My intention was just to move things around, beyond basic copy edit changes. I do think that the 2013 version suffers from the same problem though: you have a coherent narrative of events up until the first shots are fired at the bridge, and then you have lots of quotes about how terrible things were. It's as if the days from the first shot to the retreat happen instantaneously.

Personally, I don't have a problem relying on Bridge at NGR, with, of course, the inclusion of corroborating sources as they exist. I think that was mostly an issue with Weld, who fundamentally questioned the veracity of it.

One way or the other, I do absolutely think that all of these quotations should be added to Wikiquote. I've created a page here (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri_Massacre). At the very least, everything quote-wise should be added to the Wikiquote page an linked to from the Wikipedia article.

More generally I think we may just at the point where we need a second opinion. I think a lot of people have tired of this and I will see if I can recruit some of our article veterans to join back in at least briefly. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 19:37, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Very good idea to make a Wikiquote page: I'll add what I can. GAB^Hello! 19:40, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Ack, sorry. I just posted on your talk page about this. We really could use some substantive comments on this section though. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 19:44, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Added the Wikiquote template to the page. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 20:28, 17 September 2015 (UTC)