Months before the Army's private correspondence with the church group, Associated Press reporters, researching those same 1950 operational records, found orders to shoot South Korean civilians.
The U.S.-based news agency, which reported the rejection of the survivors' claim in April 1998, had begun investigating the No Gun Ri allegations earlier that year, trying to identify Army units possibly involved, and to track down their ex-soldiers.
On September 29, 1999, after a year of internal struggle over releasing the article, the AP published its investigative report on the massacre, based on the accounts of 24 No Gun Ri survivors, corroborated by a dozen 7th Cavalry Regiment veterans. "
We just annihilated them," it quoted former 7th Cavalry machine gunner Norman Tinkler as saying.
The journalists' research into declassified military documents at the U.S. National Archives uncovered recorded instructions in late July 1950 that front-line units shoot South Korean refugees approaching their positions.
A liaison officer of the sister 8th Cavalry Regiment had relayed word to his unit from 1st Cavalry Division headquarters to fire on refugees trying to cross U.S. front lines.
Major General William B. Kean of the neighboring 25th Infantry Division advised that any civilians found in areas supposed to be cleared by police should be considered enemies and "treated accordingly", an order relayed by his staff as "considered as unfriendly and shot".
On the day the No Gun Ri killings began, the Eighth Army ordered all units to stop refugees from crossing their lines.

In subsequent articles, the AP reported that many more South Korean civilians were killed when the U.S. military blew up two Naktong River bridges packed with refugees on August 4, 1950, and when other refugee columns were strafed by U.S. aircraft in the war's first months.

The AP team (Sang-hun Choe, Charles J. Hanley, Martha Mendoza and Randy Herschaft) was awarded the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for their reporting on No Gun Ri, along with receiving 10 other major national and international journalism awards.

Expanding on the AP's work, in June 2000, CBS News reported the existence of a U.S. Air Force memo from July 1950, in which the operations chief in Korea said the Air Force was strafing refugee columns approaching U.S. positions.
The memo, dated July 25, the day before the No Gun Ri killings began with such a strafing, said the U.S. Army had requested the attacks on civilians, and "to date, we have complied with the army's request".
A U.S. Navy document later emerged in which pilots from the aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge reported that the Army had told them to attack any groups of more than eight people in South Korea. "
Most fighter-bomber pilots regarded Korean civilians in white clothes as enemy troops," South Korean scholar Taewoo Kim would later conclude after reviewing Air Force mission reports from 1950.

In May 2000, challenged by a skeptical U.S. News & World Report magazine article, the AP team did additional archival research and reported that one of nine ex-soldiers quoted in the original No Gun Ri article, Edward L. Daily, had incorrectly identified himself as an eyewitness, and instead had been passing on second-hand information.
A Pentagon spokesman said this would not affect an ongoing Army investigation of No Gun Ri, noting Daily was "just one guy of many we've been talking to".
Army officer Robert Bateman, a 7th Cavalry veteran who collaborated on the U.S. News & World Report article with a fellow 7th Cavalry association member, later published a book, No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident, repeating his contentions that the AP reporting was flawed.
The AP's methods and conclusions were defended by the AP in a lengthy, detailed refutation and by others.
The Pulitzer committee reaffirmed its award and the credibility of the AP reporting.
Months before the Army's private correspondence with the church group, Associated Press reporters, researching those same 1950 operational records, found orders to shoot South Korean civilians. The U.S.-based news agency, which reported the rejection of the survivors' claim in April 1998, had begun investigating the No Gun Ri allegations earlier that year, trying to identify Army units possibly involved, and to track down their ex-soldiers. On September 29, 1999, after a year of internal struggle over releasing the article, the AP published its investigative report on the massacre, based on the accounts of 24 No Gun Ri survivors, corroborated by a dozen 7th Cavalry Regiment veterans. "We just annihilated them," it quoted former 7th Cavalry machine gunner Norman Tinkler as saying. The journalists' research into declassified military documents at the U.S. National Archives uncovered recorded instructions in late July 1950 that front-line units shoot South Korean refugees approaching their positions. A liaison officer of the sister 8th Cavalry Regiment had relayed word to his unit from 1st Cavalry Division headquarters to fire on refugees trying to cross U.S. front lines. Major General William B. Kean of the neighboring 25th Infantry Division advised that any civilians found in areas supposed to be cleared by police should be considered enemies and "treated accordingly", an order relayed by his staff as "considered as unfriendly and shot". On the day the No Gun Ri killings began, the Eighth Army ordered all units to stop refugees from crossing their lines.
In subsequent articles, the AP reported that many more South Korean civilians were killed when the U.S. military blew up two Naktong River bridges packed with refugees on August 4, 1950, and when other refugee columns were strafed by U.S. aircraft in the war's first months.
The AP team (Sang-hun Choe, Charles J. Hanley, Martha Mendoza and Randy Herschaft) was awarded the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for their reporting on No Gun Ri, along with receiving 10 other major national and international journalism awards.
Expanding on the AP's work, in June 2000, CBS News reported the existence of a U.S. Air Force memo from July 1950, in which the operations chief in Korea said the Air Force was strafing refugee columns approaching U.S. positions. The memo, dated July 25, the day before the No Gun Ri killings began with such a strafing, said the U.S. Army had requested the attacks on civilians, and "to date, we have complied with the army's request". A U.S. Navy document later emerged in which pilots from the aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge reported that the Army had told them to attack any groups of more than eight people in South Korea. "Most fighter-bomber pilots regarded Korean civilians in white clothes as enemy troops," South Korean scholar Taewoo Kim would later conclude after reviewing Air Force mission reports from 1950.
In May 2000, challenged by a skeptical U.S. News & World Report magazine article, the AP team did additional archival research and reported that one of nine ex-soldiers quoted in the original No Gun Ri article, Edward L. Daily, had incorrectly identified himself as an eyewitness, and instead had been passing on second-hand information. A Pentagon spokesman said this would not affect an ongoing Army investigation of No Gun Ri, noting Daily was "just one guy of many we've been talking to". Army officer Robert Bateman, a 7th Cavalry veteran who collaborated on the U.S. News & World Report article with a fellow 7th Cavalry association member, later published a book, No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident, repeating his contentions that the AP reporting was flawed. The AP's methods and conclusions were defended by the AP in a lengthy, detailed refutation and by others. The Pulitzer committee reaffirmed its award and the credibility of the AP reporting.
No Gun Ri massacre