Vet Admits He Learned of No Gun Ri Secondhand

One of the Korean War veterans who described a U.S. Army massacre of refugees at No Gun Ri says he now knows that he could not have been at the scene and, instead, learned of the killing secondhand from soldiers who had been there.

Wartime documents found in government archives show that Edward L. Daily of Clarksville was in another unit elsewhere in Korea when 7th Cavalry Regiment companies fired on civilians heading south in late July 1950.

Daily’s credibility came under fire in recent news reports, seven months after an Associated Press report cited him among a dozen former soldiers supporting the allegations of two dozen survivors that U.S. troops killed a large number of refugees at No Gun Ri, a hamlet in central South Korea.

“I have to agree with your records. I can’t dispute them,” Daily, 69, said after reviewing the documents. Asked whether he agreed that the records showed that he could not have been at No Gun Ri, he replied simply, “Yes.”

His accounts of what happened at No Gun Ri, given to the AP and other news organizations, may have stemmed from years of attending veterans’ reunions and hearing from men who had participated in or witnessed the killings, Daily said.

“I still feel as though I was at No Gun Ri,” he said, his voice haggard. “I did not intend to be deceptive.”

The archival documents show that Daily did join a 7th Cavalry combat unit in March 1951, months after No Gun Ri. In fact, he is a past president of the 7th U.S. Cavalry Assn.--a veterans’ group--and has written two published histories of the regiment in Korea, in which he mentions himself as a front-line soldier, both in 1950 and 1951.

The September AP report prompted the U.S. and South Korean governments to launch investigations. Thus far, Defense Department investigators have interviewed more than 100 veterans and others, including Daily. Earlier this month, senior Pentagon officials said they determined that U.S. troops did indeed kill a large number of civilians at No Gun Ri. A source close to the South Korean investigation said it had reached a similar conclusion.

The shootings occurred at a time when U.S. commanders, in retreat before the North Korean army, feared that enemy infiltrators were disguised among refugee groups.

Korean survivors say about 300 villagers, mostly women and children, were killed by U.S. ground troops under and around the No Gun Ri railroad trestle, and about 100 in an earlier U.S. air attack.

Daily was the seventh of nine veterans quoted in the AP story.