Chaplain–Medic massacre

Chaplain–Medic massacre
Herman G. Felhoelter, the U.S Army chaplain who was killed in the massacre.
Location	Tuman, South Korea
Date	July 16, 1950 21:30 (KST)
Target	U.S. Army prisoners of war
Attack type	Mass execution
Deaths	30 U.S. soldiers and one Roman Catholic chaplain executed
Non-fatal injuries	1 (U.S. soldier)
Perpetrators	North Korean army soldiers
Motive	Retribution

The Chaplain–Medic massacre was a war crime that took place in the Korean War on July 16, 1950, on a mountain above the village of Tuman, South Korea. Thirty unarmed, critically wounded United States Army soldiers and an unarmed chaplain were murdered by members of the North Korean army during the Battle of Taejon.

Operating at the Kum River during the Battle of Taejon, troops of the U.S. Army's 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, were cut off from resupply by a roadblock established by North Korean troops of the NK 3rd Division. The roadblock proved difficult to break, and forced U.S. troops to move through nearby mountains to evacuate their wounded.

Thirty critically wounded U.S. troops were stranded at the top of a mountain. Attended to by only two non-combatants, a chaplain and a medic, the wounded were discovered by a North Korean patrol. Though the medic was able to escape, the North Koreans executed the unarmed chaplain as he prayed over the wounded, then killed the rest of them. The massacre was one of several incidents that led U.S. commanders to establish a commission in July to look into war crimes during the war. The same month, the North Korean commanders, concerned about the way their soldiers were treating prisoners of war, laid out stricter guidelines for handling enemy captives. Other than this change, the historiography of the incident in North Korean sources is largely unknown; as a result, sources detailing the incident are almost exclusively from the United States and other United Nations allies.

Following the invasion of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) by its northern neighbor, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), the United Nations committed troops to the conflict to prevent the collapse of the South Korean state. However, the number of U.S. forces in the Far East available to support this effort had been steadily decreasing since the end of World War II, five years earlier. The closest U.S. division, the 24th Infantry Division of the Eighth United States Army, headquartered in Japan, was understrength, and most of its equipment was antiquated due to defense cutbacks enacted in the first Truman administration. Nevertheless, the 24th Infantry Division was the first US unit sent into Korea to absorb the initial "shock" of North Korean advances and to buy time for the deployment of additional forces, such as the 7th Infantry Division, 25th Infantry Division, 1st Cavalry Division, 1st Provisional Marine Brigade and other Eighth Army supporting units.