Heinous – An Asian True Crime Podcast · Mediacorp

The No Gun Ri Massacre | Heinous History | 1950

·34 min·1 clip

It's the summer of 1950. Along a narrow dirt road in central Korea, a long line of civilians move slowly beneath the heavy afternoon sun.

It opens in summer. The Korean War has only been raging for weeks, but the countryside is already emptying out as civilians carry bundles, children, and babies south under the sun. Fear moves faster than the people do. Rumors of infiltrators, spies, and disappearances shape every decision, and the refugees keep moving because they have been told to obey soldiers and stay off the roads. Nogunri is not a stronghold. It is a small rural crossing of rice fields, low hills, and railway tracks, but that ordinary geography becomes decisive when the front collapses. Roads narrow. The fleeing civilians are funneled toward bridges and rail crossings that still stand, and Nogunri sits on one of the paths leading toward the southeast, toward the last ground still held. On July 25, 1950, they arrive there. It is midday, the heat is heavy, and the refugees are directed onto a raised embankment beside the tracks instead of being allowed to rest or find shade. Hundreds gather. Families who have already been stopped, searched, and disarmed of knives and farming tools do not resist because they believe they are in allied territory. The danger feels far away. Children drink from shared containers, adults lie flat against the dirt, and exhaustion settles in while soldiers keep control of the group. Then comes the killing. The massacre lasts less than a week, but it leaves hundreds dead beneath the railway bridge and turns a roadside bend into a place people still remember. Silence follows. The story then tracks the long effort to uncover the truth and the determination of Chung Joon Yong, who refused to let No Gun Ri disappear from the record. Recognition comes late. By the time a memorial park and public remembrance take shape, nearly half a century has passed, and the story closes on the memorial park and the weight of what took so long to name.

As heard by us

A measured account of a massacre, and the long silence that followed.

The episode moves through the No Gun Ri massacre with unusual patience, beginning with the refugee flight across central Korea and ending at the railway embankment where American soldiers stop hundreds of civilians. Its strength is the discipline of the telling.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want a sober true-crime history of the No Gun Ri massacre, hidden for decades.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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