WHAT’S THE STORY?

IT was 50 years ago today that the mass murder of hundreds of civilians took place at a clutch of peasant hamlets known as My Lai, My Khe, and Cu Tung forming Son My village seven miles north east of Quang Ngai city in what was then South Vietnam.

In the west it has become known as the My Lai Massacre. In Vietnam it is known as the Song My Massacre. Whatever the name, it remains the biggest stain on the reputation of the US military in the Vietnam War.

WHAT HAPPENED?

ON the morning of March 16, 1968, about 100 soldiers from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion of the 20th Infantry Regiment, under the command of Captain Ernest Medina, marched into the hamlets having been ordered to search for, locate and kill Viet Cong guerrillas allied to North Vietnam. In reality, the Viet Cong had pulled back from the area before that morning, as was shown when US helicopters engaged them well outside My Lai. Only a few men and hundreds of women and children were left in the hamlets.

The US soldiers had been in continuous stressful action for weeks having only arrived in Vietnam in December, 1967. They had suffered heavy casualties from mines and booby traps, and intelligence officers had briefed them that they would face an area entirely populated by Viet Cong. Captain Medina also said they could treat every villager as a Viet Cong member or sympathiser, effectively allowing them to shoot anyone on sight, but that was no excuse for what happened next.

At 7.30am, Lieutenant William Calley Jnr, leader of 1st platoon, marched into My Lai, known locally as Xom Lang, and personally started firing at civilians. His men followed and within minutes the operation had turned into an orgy of raping and killing. Women protecting their babies were shot in the head, and on Calley’s direct orders, grenades and heavy machine guns were used to murder dozens of villagers crouched in an irrigation ditch.

The killing went on all day, even after the troops involved stopped for lunch. Two other platoons joined in, the last of them ensuring that every building in the area was razed to the ground.

DID ANYONE TRY TO STOP IT?

ONE brave US helicopter pilot, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, spotted wounded civilians and called for aid from the US troops on the ground. He came back and found that the soldiers had killed the wounded people. He saw a section of the troops approaching a group of women and children and landed his helicopter between them with his crewmen, Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta, defying Calley’s murderous mob. They managed to evacuate some civilians, but got no thanks for it until 1998 when all three, Andreotta posthumously, were awarded the US Soldier’s Medal for their gallantry.

Some troops on the ground also refused to shoot children. They were sent to Coventry, and perhaps worse, by their colleagues.

HOW MANY WERE KILLED?

THE US authorities put out a statement saying 128 communists had been killed, and later inquiries determined that from the American point of view, 347 civilians died. The Vietnamese memorial at My Lai contains the names of 504 slain villagers. Survivors’ testimony accords with that total.

There was one US casualty, a soldier who shot himself in the foot.

WHAT WAS THE REACTION?

THERE had been previous instances of US troops killing prisoners and innocent civilians in wartime, such as the mass killing of Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1890 and the slaughter of around 400 refugees at No Gi Run in 1950 during the Korean War.

My Lai was different. The US authorities were aware of what happened practically from day one – Thompson and other helicopter pilots reported what they had seen to their superiors – and a full cover up was ordered. Charlie Company was even praised for the action by General William Westmoreland, US commander in chief in Vietnam. But they only managed to keep a lid on the atrocity for just over a year when helicopter gunner Ronald Ridenhour wrote to members of Congress with the eyewitness accounts he had gathered. The lid blew off the scandal when investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in November, 1969, on what he had been told by Vietnam veterans.

Within days, photographs emerged showing the bodies of old men, women and children including babes-in-arms lying in the roads around My Lai. Some of the people had clearly been shot at close range, others – including the body of a young woman – showed bayonet wounds in the back.

The reaction across the world was one of utter disgust, and the anti-war movement in the USA grew apace.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PERPETRATORS?

FROM mid-1969 onwards the US military investigators began a very thorough inquiry. Eventually some 26 officers and men were charged with offences including murder. Calley himself was charged with the murder of 109 civilians, and was found guilty of 22 killings. The accused infantry got off because they argued they had only been following orders.

An inquiry by General William Peers found that “at every command level from company to division, actions were taken or omitted which together effectively concealed from higher headquarters the events which transpired.”

Only Calley was ever convicted. He was sentenced in 1971 to life imprisonment but was paroled after only three years. He eventually did apologise for his actions. Now 74 he lives openly in Florida.

In the US and Vietnam, no national ceremony of remembrance is planned for My Lai 50 years on.