The Bridge at No Gun Ri

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The true death count remains uncertain. "There were at least a couple of hundred lying in there," says Daily, who noted he was 150 yds. away. But Kerns says he saw only eight to 10 bodies from 50 yds. away. The Koreans say 300 died in the attack, along with 100 killed earlier by U.S. warplanes.

How was such an atrocity possible? Experts cite an absence of discipline and experience among the Americans, who had been badly shocked by the North Korean assault. "The first U.S. units into Korea were not much more than a mob in uniform," says Bernard Trainor, a military scholar and retired three-star Marine general who fought there. "They'd frighten quickly, and when they'd come under fire, they'd panic." But there was far more terror under the arches. "It was the worst hell that I could imagine," says Park Sun Yong, who was 23 at the time. The creek ran red with blood. Park's two-year-old daughter and five-year-old son were shot dead; she was wounded. "I can never forget that," she told TIME last week. "Never."

Now it's the Pentagon's turn to remember. The A.P. revelations have sparked a U.S. military investigation that could last at least a year. In the end it might provide some measure of justice, if little solace, for some 30 survivors and families of the victims, Park among them. The group has been pressing a claim for compensation for years, only to be spurned by Seoul and Washington after cursory reviews. The new testimony by G.I.s who admit pulling the triggers may change things for them. But it will not change the infamy of the event, if the accusations are proved to be true.

--With reporting by Stella Kim/Seoul