Mass Graves for Civilians

Mass Graves for Civilians: How South Korea’s First President, Rhee Syngman, Slaughtered His Own People Alongside the U.S. Military 

While we know about American massacres at My Lai, at Wounded Knee and in Iraq’s Fallujah, massacres against the South Korean population by American soldiers were extremely brutal. Its efforts were complemented by the Rhee Syngman government of South Korea, which, which ordered the killings of tens of thousands on the basis of anti American or pro North Korean sympathies - politicide and slaughter. 

Excerpt from ‘Immovable Object: North Korea's 70 Years at War with American Power’ by A. B. Abrams. Published in December 2020 and available on Amazon:

"The Rhee government, like the Americans, was well aware of the alienation of its own population, and after regaining control of South Korean territory it quickly arranged mass executions of suspected KPA sympathisers.

 According to the former U.S. diplomat Gregory Henderson, by November 1950: “16,115 suspects had been arrested and over 500 condemned to death, often after summary trial: “Additional tens of thousands—probably over 100,000—were killed without any trial whatsoever when ROK soldiers and the Counter-intelligence Corps re-captured...areas of leftist repute.”17 In towns and villages known to hold pro-North Korean sympathies, brutal massacres by Rhee’s forces were the norm. 

An assessment of military records sheds light on the orders given to American units to massacre South Korean civilians from the earliest days of the war, although not all reports from this time have been made available. Groups of Korean refugees displaced by the scorched earth campaign, and at times by American bombing raids on their homes, were particularly prominent targets. 

An example of such orders to kill refugees came on July 25, 1950, when the U.S. 5th Air Force Advanced Headquarters reported: “The army has requested that we strafe all civilian parties that are approaching our positions.

 To date we have complied with the army request.” The following day the 25th Infantry Division reported: “General [William B.] Kean directed that all civilians moving around in the combat zone will be considered as unfriendly and shot.” It later became increasingly clear that what was considered the combat zone was far from limited to the frontlines of conflict.

One of the most notorious massacres of South Korean civilians was that at the village of No Gun Ri. Survivor Suh Jong Gap recalled in an interview: “The Americans forced us out of our village. We didn’t know anything, so we just followed them because they said they would take us to safety… Just after 1 o’clock I could see a reconnaissance plane circling above us.

 Then the Americans seemed to talk to each other on the radio.” Planes from the U.S. Air Force appeared overhead, “and then they dropped bombs on the contained group of people.” Survivor Cho Soo Jaoc recalled of the same event: “I crawled out from under my mother and climbed on top of her. I shouted “mum, mum” but she was dead. When I stroked her head with my hand, I found my hand sliding inside. I didn’t know what hit my mother, but the back of her head was blown off.”

Joe Jackman from the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry 2nd Battalion re- called of the targeting of civilians near No Gun Ri that, in regard to the Korean civilians, he and his unit were ordered to: 

“‘kill them all.’ Then of course there was a lieutenant who was screaming like a mad man “fire on everything, kill them all”... There was a hell of a lot of fire going. Hell of a lot of shooting. A hell of a lot of shooting. Because I know the infantrymen, the infantrymen, we used to carry 10–15 bandoliers of ammunition, and even help machine gunners carrying ammunition. There was a hell of a lot of expenditure of ammunition.” "

Extracted From: pp. 154-156. Chapter 6: As if All Koreans Were the Enemy: American Wartime Conduct Towards South Korean Civilians 

Full references provided in the book: Immovable Object: North Korea's 70 Years at War with American Power by A. B. Abrams