File:Prisoners on ground before execution,Taejon, South Korea.jpg

Summary

In this July 1950 U.S. Army file photograph once classified "top secret," prisoners lie on the ground before their execution by South Korean troops in Taejon (now known as Daejeon), South Korea. Shutting down its inquiry into South Korea's hidden history, a government commission investigating a century of human rights abuses will leave unexplored scores of suspected mass graves believed to hold remains of tens of thousands of South Korean political detainees summarily executed by their government early in the Korean War, sometimes as U.S. officers watched. In a political about-face, the commission, which also investigated the U.S. military's large-scale killing of Korean War refugees, has ruled the Americans in case after case acted out of military necessity. 1,800 South Korean political prisoners were executed by the South Korean military at Taejon, South Korea, over three days in July 1950.[1] National Archives, Major Abbott/U.S. Army - copy via AP Photo SOURCE