My Lai massacre intervention[edit]
Main article:
My Lai massacre
Murdered Vietnamese civilians,
My Lai massacre,
Sơn Mỹ,
Quảng Ngăi Province, March 16, 1968; photography by
Ronald L. Haeberle
Dead man and two children (Truong Nam and Truong Thi Sau),
My Lai massacre, Sơn Mỹ,
Quảng Ngăi Province, March 16, 1968; photography by
Ronald L. Haeberle
Thompson and his crew attempted to evacuate Nguyễn Thị Tẩu (pictured above), but she was murdered in front of them by
Ernest Medina, the commanding officer of C Company, March 16, 1968; photography by
Ronald L. Haeberle[7][8]
Hiller OH-23 Raven, three-place, light observation
helicopter, similar to the one Thompson commanded during the massacre
On March 16, 1968, Thompson and his
Hiller OH-23 Raven observation helicopter crew,
Larry Colburn (gunner) and
Glenn Andreotta (crew chief), were ordered to support
Task Force Barker's search and destroy operations in
Sơn Mỹ, Quảng Ngăi Province, South Vietnam.
[2]:59 Song My Village was composed of four hamlets, Mỹ Lai, Mỹ Khę, Cổ Lũy and Tư Cung, and was suspected by the United States Army
Military Intelligence Corps to be a
Viet Cong stronghold.
[2]:59
Army intelligence concerning the presence of
Viet Cong in Sơn Mỹ was inaccurate, however, and the village's population was predominately composed of neutral, unarmed rice-farming families. Reconnaissance aircraft, including Thompson's OH-23 crew, flew over the Sơn Mỹ vicinity but received no enemy fire.
[2]:66 At 07:24, without validating intelligence reports, the United States Army shelled Sơn Mỹ, killing many Vietnamese civilians. Following the shelling, Company C (Charlie Company), 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment of Task Force Barker, led by Captain
Ernest Medina, moved into Sơn Mỹ.
Upon entering Sơn Mỹ, officers and soldiers of Company C moved through the Song My Village and vicinity, murdering civilians, raping women, and setting fire to huts.
[2]:69
[4]:137
[9] 1st Platoon of Company C, commanded by Lieutenant
William Laws Calley Jr., forced approximately 70–80 villagers, mostly women and children, into an irrigation ditch and murdered the civilians with knives, bayonets, grenades, and small arms fire.
[2]:73
Thompson recounted at an academic conference on My Lai held at
Tulane University in December, 1994: "We kept flying back and forth, reconning in front and in the rear, and it didn't take very long until we started noticing the large number of bodies everywhere. Everywhere we'd look, we'd see bodies. These were infants, two-, three-, four-, five-year-olds, women, very old men, no draft-age people whatsoever."
[7]
Thompson and his crew, who at first thought the artillery bombardment caused all the civilian deaths on the ground, became aware that Americans were murdering the villagers after a wounded civilian woman they requested medical evacuation for, Nguyễn Thị Tẩu (chín Tẩu), was murdered right in front of them by Captain Medina, the commanding officer of the operation. According to Larry Colburn,
"Then we saw a young girl about twenty years old lying on the grass. We could see that she was unarmed and wounded in the chest. We marked her with smoke because we saw a squad not too far away. The smoke was green, meaning it's safe to approach. Red would have meant the opposite. We were hovering six feet off the ground not more than twenty feet away when Captain Medina came over, kicked her, stepped back, and finished her off. He did it right in front of us. When we saw Medina do that, it clicked. It was our guys doing the killing."[8]
Immediately after the execution, Thompson discovered the irrigation ditch full of Calley's victims. Thompson then radioed a message to accompanying gunships and Task Force Barker headquarters, "It looks to me like there's an awful lot of unnecessary killing going on down there. Something ain't right about this. There's bodies everywhere. There's a ditch full of bodies that we saw. There's something wrong here."
[2]:75 Thompson spotted movement in the irrigation ditch, indicating that there were civilians alive in it. He immediately landed to assist the victims. Lieutenant Calley approached Thompson and the two exchanged an uneasy conversation.
[2]:77
Thompson: What's going on here, Lieutenant?Calley: This is my business.Thompson: What is this? Who are these people?Calley: Just following orders.Thompson: Orders? Whose orders?Calley: Just following...Thompson: But, these are human beings, unarmed civilians, sir.Calley: Look Thompson, this is my show. I'm in charge here. It ain't your concern.Thompson: Yeah, great job.Calley: You better get back in that chopper and mind your own business.Thompson: You ain't heard the last of this!As Thompson was speaking to Calley, Calley's subordinate, Sergeant David Mitchell, fired into the irrigation ditch, killing any civilians still moving.
[2]:78 Thompson and his crew, in disbelief and shock, returned to their helicopter and began searching for civilians they could save. They spotted a group of women, children, and old men in the northeast corner of the village fleeing from advancing soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, Company C. Immediately realizing that the soldiers intended to murder the Vietnamese civilians, Thompson landed his helicopter between the advancing ground unit and the villagers.
[2]:79 He turned to Colburn and Andreotta and told them he would shoot the men in the 2nd Platoon if they attempted to kill any of the fleeing civilians.
[2]:81 While Colburn and Andreotta focused their guns on the 2nd Platoon, Thompson located as many civilians as he could, persuaded them to follow him to safer location, and ensured their evacuation with the help of two
UH-1 Huey pilots he was friends with.
[4]:138–139
Low on fuel, Thompson was forced to return to a supply airstrip miles outside the village. Before they departed the village, Andreotta spotted movement in the irrigation ditch full of bodies. According to Trent Angers in
The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story (2014),
"The helicopter looped around then set down quickly near the edge of the ditch. Andreotta had maintained visual contact with the spot where he saw the movement, and he darted out of the aircraft as soon as it touched the ground. Thompson got out and guarded one side of the chopper and Colburn guarded the other. Andreotta had to walk on several badly mangled bodies to get where he was going. He lifted a corpse with several bullet holes in the torso and there, lying under it, was a child, age five or six, covered in blood and obviously in a state of shock."
The child, Do Ba, was pulled from the irrigation ditch and after failing to find any more survivors, Thompson's crew transported the child to a hospital in Quảng Ngăi.
[2]:215
After transporting the child to the hospital, Thompson flew to the Task Force Barker headquarters (Landing Zone Dottie), and angrily reported the massacre to his superiors.
[4]:176–179 His report quickly reached Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barker, the operation's overall commander. Barker immediately radioed ground forces to cease the "killings". After the helicopter was refueled, Thompson's crew returned to the village to ensure that no more civilians were being murdered and that the wounded were evacuated.
[2]:89
My Lai massacre 50 year anniversary
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