Top Secret

This U.S. Army photo, once considered “top secret,” is one of a series of photographs from the summer execution of 1,800 South Korean political prisoners at Taejon in July 1950. Historians and survivors say South Korean troops executed many civilians behind the front lines as U.N. forces retreated before the North Korean army in the mid – 1950s. They were executed on suspicion of communist sympathies and possible collaboration with the enemy.