One of the most iconic images Haeberle took. The grandmother in the foreground rages against the American soldiers, while the daughter in black buttons her blouse after being molested by a soldier. Shortly after the photo was taken, the entire family was shot down and killed, including the children. Photo: Ronald L. Haeberle
An elderly woman rages against a group of American soldiers, but is restrained by a family member. In the background, the daughter buttons her blouse again with a small boy on her arm. She has just been molested by an American soldier. Soldier and war photographer Ronald L. Haeberle snaps a picture of the moment.
– I thought the soldiers were going to question them. Then I heard the shooting. I couldn’t look, but I saw out of the corner of my eye that they were falling, Haeberle told Time magazine in 2018, in connection with the 50th anniversary of the massacre during the Vietnam War.
The pictures that revealed the massacre
The then 26-year-old Haeberle took the pictures of corpses in rice fields, along country roads and in ditches with his private Nikon camera, not the Leica camera the US military had equipped him with. It became an important detail, as his employer did not have the same right to go through the pictures he took with the private camera.
The article continues below the advertisementThe article continues below the advertisement
But it would take a year and a half before anyone even knew about the pictures. For the American defense had no interest in people at home finding out what their young hopefuls were doing on missions in Vietnam. There was already a lot of opposition to the war. The massacre turned public opinion and in many ways was the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War.
The official version was that the American Charlie Company had killed 128 FNL fighters (Viet Cong ed. note) and that around 20 civilians had also lost their lives in the crossfire. It is true that some people were a little surprised that only four weapons had been seized even though 128 enemies had been killed, but beyond this there was little talk of what happened on this spring day in 1968.
The article continues below the advertisementThe article continues below the advertisement
Watch video from the archive: This is what it looked like when the Americans dropped napalm and phosphorus over Vietnam
The article continues below the ad
On a revenge spree
The special operation was called “Barker” and was launched after intelligence arrived that a significant FNL force would spend the night in the village of My Lai until the next day. My Lai was in South Vietnam, and although the FNL had little support in the cities of the south, support was strong in the countryside.
The operation took place a couple of months after the FNL’s famous Tet offensive, which had led to 5,000 South Vietnamese casualties and in addition 2,100 American soldiers were killed in the FNL offensive.
Charlie Company had experienced five deaths and 23 injuries during the Tet Offensive. These were mainly soldiers who had been taken out by traps and snipers. The frustration was great and was used as an explanation for how an unculture with a desire for revenge, racism, substance abuse and sexual abuse of local women could spread.
(The article continues below the picture).
The article continues below the ad
American soldiers were ordered to burn down the houses in My Lai. There were also reports that several of the houses were burnt down while people were still trapped in them. In the foreground is a dead person who is also being burned. Photo: Ronald L. Haeberle
Found no soldiers – slaughtered hundreds on foot
When the company was flown in by helicopter to My Lai on the morning of 16 March, they found no FNL soldiers, but several hundred elderly people, women and children.
The troops had been told to “shoot anything that moved”. They threw grenades into bunkers, burned down houses and lined people up along the ditches and routinely executed them.
At least 17 soldiers sexually assaulted some of the women before executing them. A few of the soldiers refused to shoot, but none of them did anything to stop the massacre.
The article continues below the ad
Somewhere between 349 and 504 civilians lost their lives.
– I heard a lot of shooting and thought ‘hell, we must be in an active zone’. But after a couple of minutes I realized we weren’t getting any counterfire, so we started walking towards the village. I saw what appeared to be civilians. Then soldiers who fired at them. I didn’t understand what was going on. I couldn’t understand it, Haeberle told Time.
The article continues below the ad
The action lasted for over four hours.
A helicopter crew stops the massacre
Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr from his time serving in Vietnam. He and the crew of the helicopter he piloted eventually stopped the massacre after he threatened to shoot his fellow soldiers if they continued to slaughter civilians. Thompson died in 2006. Foto: US Army
It was only when helicopter pilot Hugh C. Thompson Jr. realized what was happening from his helicopter that he and his crew decided to take action. They were professional soldiers with their own lines of command.
They landed the helicopter between the soldiers and civilians, mounted a machine gun on the ground by the helicopter and threatened the soldiers to open fire if they continued shooting. The helicopter was then filled with as many civilians as they could hold, who were then brought to safety.
– They say I screamed quite loudly, Thompson later told US News & World Report, about the reaction back in the military camp.
– I threatened never to fly again. I didn’t want to be a part of it. It wasn’t war.
He reported what he had seen, but the information was buried and there was even consideration of prosecuting him for threatening to shoot American soldiers. The military authorities dropped this as it would probably have led to his version becoming known to the population. The case was to be dropped. For the rest of the war, Thomson was sent out on dangerous missions without support and was shot down several times, but survived the war.
The article continues below the advertisementThe article continues below the advertisement
The massacre is revealed
But the rumors spread and reached helicopter gunner Ronald Ridenhour. After getting the story from several independent sources, he sent out a letter to 30 military and civilian leaders and politicians. An investigation was started and it was quickly realized that a massacre had actually taken place.
Front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, the local newspaper that was the first to publish the photos of Ronald L. Haeberle. Photo: Facsimile/Cleveland Plain Dealer
By November 1969, the grave journalist Seymour Hersh had also caught wind of the massacre and published a number of revelations. It was also when Haebert’s pictures saw the light of day. He had already deleted some photos by then, those that identified soldiers shooting civilians.
– As a photographer, my role was to capture what happened during the operation. I didn’t feel that what I captured on film was historical, especially the carnage. I just thought ‘this is not right’.
It was only after an internal investigation was started that Haeberle realized how extensive the massacre had been.
The article continues below the ad
– Babies, children, young people raped and mutilated. I thought to myself that maybe the public should know about what actually happened in Vietnam. I didn’t believe in the anti-war protests and the violence, but as soon as I realized that it was about women and girls – and what age they were – I couldn’t accept it.
Only one was held accountable
According to Haeberle, both himself and Thompson tried at least twice to tell Charlie Company Captain Ernest Medina about what had happened, but to no avail.
The only person held responsible for the massacre was Lieutenant William Calley. He had commanded the troops was in 1971 sentenced to life in prison as responsible for the murders. He was pardoned by President Richard Nixon three days later and spent about three and a half years under house arrest. His superior Medina escaped prosecution, despite pressure from several groups.
The article continues below the advertisementThe article continues below the advertisement
It was not until 2009 that he spoke about the incident for the first time and apologized for his participation in the massacre.
(The article continues below the picture).
William L. Calley, Jr was the only person punished for the My Lai massacre. Here from the court in 1971. He was sentenced to life in prison, but a few days later had the sentence overturned by President Nixon. He ended up serving three and a half years under house arrest before being released. Photo: Jr Joe Holloway/AP
Received death threats – honored 30 years later
Thompson, and his gunners Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta only received the Soldier’s Medal, the highest award the US military can receive for exploits performed in a non-combat situation, in 1998 – 30 years after the massacre. Only Thompson and Colburn were then alive to receive the medal.
In a 2004 television interview with “60-Minutes,” Thompson said of the My Lai soldiers:
– I wish I was man enough to forgive them, but I swear to God I can’t.
He died of cancer two years later. For several years after he returned home from the war, he received death threats for standing up to his fellow soldiers.
(The article continues below the picture).
In 1998, veterans Hugh Thompson (center) and Lawrence Colburn received the Soldier’s Medal, the highest award the U.S. military can receive for exploits performed in a non-combat situation. Glenn Andreotta also received the medal posthumously. On the left, General Michael Ackerman who handed out the medals. Photo: Ron Edmonds/AP
Back in Vietnam several times
This photo was taken by Ronald L. Haeberle of Duc Tran Van and his little sister. The two were among the few who survived the massacre. Duc and Haeberle later stayed in touch after the American photographer returned to Vietnam in the early 2000s. Haerberle also took a picture of the mother of the siblings, after she had been shot dead. Photo: Ronald L. Haeberle
Haeberle has subsequently been back to Vietnam and the village several times. In 2011, he met Duc Tran Van, who survived the massacre.
The article continues below the ad
He was only eight years old in 1968 and survived when his mother ordered him to run with his 20-month-old little sister to his grandmother in the neighboring village. As luck would have it, both his fate and that of his mother were immortalized in one of Haeberle’s pictures. She was photographed lying dead behind a rock.
Haeberle later kept in touch with Duc and visited him several times in Germany later and donated, among other things, the Nikon camera with which he took the pictures, to a memorial Duc has set up to remember those killed in the massacre.
(The article continues below the picture).
Tran Van Duc survived the massacre and befriended the photographer who took the last picture of his mother Nguyen Thi Tau. Here he is at a memorial for the massacre in 2018. Photo: Hau Dinh / AP
Support for the war at home in the United States dropped considerably after the revelations. The first also to a number of reforms and since 1973 the USA has only used professional soldiers in war.
The Pentagon also prepared a series of war ethics manuals with detailed regulations, which several experts believe contributed to fewer military abuses in the years that followed.
Sources: Time, New York Times, Britannica, Wikipedia, Store Norske Lexikon
2024-03-16 16:51:37
#horrors #Lai #massacre #shook #United #States
