My Lai Massacre (1968)

16 March 1968

Between 0700 and 1100  on the morning of 16 March 1968, members of “Charlie” Company, US 1st Battalion 20th Infantry Regiment, entered My Lai (pronounced “me lie”) – a sub-hamlet of the village of Son My in Quang Ngai Province, Republic of Vietnam – with orders to find and kill members of the Viet Cong.

Despite finding no Viet Cong, the American soldiers went on a killing spree and were responsible for the mass murder of hundreds (estimates range between 347 and 504) of unarmed Vietnamese civilians – predominantly elderly people, women, children and infants – in one of the most horrific incidents of violence against civilians during the Vietnam War.

Some women and young girls were gang raped and shot, while the soldiers either shot or stabbed infants and children using the fixed bayonets on their rifles before burning down the village.

Villagers who refused to come out of their huts were killed by grenades.

Harry Stanley, a machine gunner from Charlie Company, said during the US Army Criminal Investigation Division inquiry that the killings started without warning.

He first observed a member of 1st Platoon strike a Vietnamese man with a bayonet. Then the same trooper pushed another villager into a well and threw a grenade in the well. Next, he saw fifteen or twenty people, mainly women and children, kneeling around a temple with burning incense. They were praying and crying. They were all killed by shots to the head.

A group of approximately 80 villagers was rounded up by 1st Platoon and led to an irrigation ditch east of the settlement. They were then pushed into the ditch and shot dead by soldiers after repeated orders issued by Second Lt. William Calley, who was also shooting. PFC Paul Meadlo testified that he expended several M16 rifle magazines.

Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson of the 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Americal Division was piloting a helicopter over My Lai when he witnessed American soldiers pursuing unarmed Vietnamese civilians.

Thompson marked the positions of various wounded Vietnamese around the village with smoke grenades and radio calls for medical assistance.

Returning later, he and his crew observed that the civilians he had marked with smoke had now been shot dead. Hovering above another wounded woman on the ground, Thompson watched as a US soldier approached, prodded the woman with his foot, and shot her in the head.

Shocked by this illegal behaviour, Thompson landed his helicopter and appealed to a soldier to help the civilians. The soldier responded that he was “putting them out of their misery” and shot the group down moments after Thompson’s departure.

Landing a second time, Thompson placed his helicopter between the soldiers and the fleeing civilians and prevented further carnage by ordering his crew – crew chief Glenn Andreotta and door gunner Specialist Four Larry Colburn –  to train the chopper’s guns on the members of Charlie Company – who were in pursuit of a group of Vietnamese women, children, and elderly men – and instructing them to fire on the Americans if they refused his direction to break off the chase.

After a tense confrontation with the officer leading the soldiers – later identified as Second Lieutenant Stephen Brooks – the Americans ceased their pursuit. Calling in assistance from other nearby choppers, Thompson (pictured) and his men took the group of fleeing Vietnamese to safety four miles away.

By 11:15, Thompson’s helicopter had returned to the base. Enraged by the morning’s events, Thompson confronted his section leader about the atrocities. By noon, Thompson had filed an action report with the company commander, Major Fred Watke.

Watke stated that he had passed the information to Calley’s battalion commander but took no further action to report possible war crimes to higher headquarters.

For his interference during the Massacre and his subsequent reporting of the events to his superiors, Thompson was ostracised by many of his peers but earned respect from others.

In March 1998, he was awarded the Soldier’s Medal for his courage and valour. He died on 6 January 2006.

Although Major General Samuel Koster (the Americal Division commander) and Colonel Oran Henderson (the 11th Infantry Brigade commander) received reports that more than 125 civilians had been killed at My Lai – many of whom were women and children – the two commanders failed to investigate the event properly.

On 24 April 1968,  Henderson falsely reported to Koster that “no civilians were gathered together and shot by US soldiers” and that the claim of a massacre at My Lai was “obviously a Viet Cong propaganda move to discredit the United States in the eyes of the Vietnamese people.”

As a result of Henderson’s false report and Major General Koster’s failure to make adequate additional inquiries into what had occurred at My Lai, the incident remained hidden until April 1969, when an ex-soldier named Ronald L. Ridenhour wrote letters to the White House, the State Department, the Defense Department, and twenty-three congressmen, describing the murders.

In fact, the world might have never learned about the death and torture visited by American troops upon the villagers at My Lai had it not been for Army photographer Sergeant Ron Haeberle.

Following Charlie Company’s 3rd platoon into the tiny hamlet and expecting to document a battle between American and Viet Cong fighters, Haeberle instead ended up chronicling (with his own camera, not his Army-issue camera) a scene of unspeakable carnage.

More than a year later, when he returned to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, he shared some of the pictures from the massacre with the city’s newspaper, The Plain Dealer, which published them in late November 1969.

A few weeks later, LIFE magazine published a series of Haeberle’s photos and the whole story of what happened halfway around the world the previous March.

Thirteen officers and enlisted men were charged with “war crimes or crimes against humanity.” Another twelve officers were charged with actively covering up the My Lai incident, including Major General Koster (who had his Distinguished Service Medal revoked and was reduced to the permanent rank of Brigadier General), Brigadier General George Young (Koster’s deputy), and Major Watke (to whom Thompson had complained).

Yet only four officers and two enlisted soldiers were tried, while charges against twelve officers and seven enlisted men were dismissed on grounds of lack of evidence. In four cases, charges against officers were dismissed without an investigation.

Following this mass slaughter, only one man, Second Lt. William Calley (pictured below) – who led a platoon into “My Lai 4” –  was convicted of any crime. He was found guilty in March 1971 of the premeditated murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians and initially sentenced to life in prison.

He only spent a few days in jail before President Richard Nixon ordered him to be transferred to house arrest. His sentence was eventually reduced to 10 years in prison before he was freed on bail and granted parole in 1974.

Ultimately, the Army court-martialed Calley, Captain Ernest Medina (his company commander), Captain Eugene Kotouc (the battalion intelligence officer, charged with cutting off the finger of a VC prisoner during interrogation), and Colonel Oran Henderson (the brigade commander).

Two noncommissioned officers were also tried by general courts-martial: Sergeant David Mitchell and Sergeant Charles Hutto, both of whom were charged with shooting unarmed villagers. All those court-martialed were found not guilty, except for Calley.

Lieutenant Colonel Barker, the battalion commander who was probably the most culpable officer in the subsequent cover-up of the war crime, escaped a court-martial because he was killed in a helicopter crash in June 1968.

William Calley died in July 2024, aged 80. As recently as 2009, he insisted he was “only following orders” at My Lai.