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No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident. By Robert L. Bateman. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2002. ISBN 0-8117-1763-1. Maps. Photographs. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. XVII, 302. $22.95.
American soldiers committed atrocities during the Korean War, but not at No Gun Ri. In this study, Robert L. Bateman, a retired U.S. Army officer and fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, presents evidence discrediting the Associated Press (AP) story printed in December 1999 that quoted veterans of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, who confirmed South Korean accounts that on 26 July 1950, American soldiers ordered an aerial strafing that killed 100 refugees and then fired for three days into a tunnel where survivors had fled, resulting in 300 more deaths. These eyewitnesses, Bateman argues, were recalling "a collage of several different events" (p. 127) to gain part of $400 million in reparations. His...