diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index af6e7579833..70004ff25f4 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -348,6 +348,8 @@ Trunk (Unreleased)
     HADOOP-9099. NetUtils.normalizeHostName fails on domains where 
     UnknownHost resolves to an IP address. (Ivan Mitic via suresh)
 
+    HADOOP-9397. Incremental dist tar build fails (Chris Nauroth via jlowe)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
     HADOOP-7761. Improve the performance of raw comparisons. (todd)
diff --git a/hadoop-dist/pom.xml b/hadoop-dist/pom.xml
index 44ed4012642..5f063e91212 100644
--- a/hadoop-dist/pom.xml
+++ b/hadoop-dist/pom.xml
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@
                       }
 
                       run tar cf hadoop-${project.version}.tar hadoop-${project.version}
-                      run gzip hadoop-${project.version}.tar
+                      run gzip -f hadoop-${project.version}.tar
                       echo
                       echo "Hadoop dist tar available at: ${project.build.directory}/hadoop-${project.version}.tar.gz"
                       echo