My Lai Massacre
On the morning of March 16, 1968, soldiers of Charlie Company, a unit of the American Division's 11th Infantry Brigade arrived in the hamlet of My Lai in the northern part of South Vietnam. They were on a “search and destroy” mission to root out 48th Viet Cong Battalion thought to be in the area.
The unit met no resistance in My Lai, which had about 700 inhabitants. Indeed, they saw no males of fighting age. They only found villagers eating breakfast.
Nevertheless, over the next three hours they killed as many as 504 Vietnamese civilians. Some were lined up in a drainage ditch before being shot. The dead civilians included fifty ages 3 or younger, 69 between 4 and 7, and 27 in their 70s or 80s.
Stabbed. Some victims were mutilated with the signature "C Company" carved into the chest. One soldier would testify later, "I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongues, and scalped them. I did it. A lot of people were doing it and I just followed. I lost all sense of direction." Only one American was injured - a GI who had shot himself in the foot while clearing his pistol.
America’s excuse
When the American troops entered My Lai, they did not find any Viet Cong soldiers or weapons. Nonetheless, the platoon led by Second Lieutenant William Calley began to fire at what they claimed was an enemy position
In response, the US Army initiated a program of attacking villages that were suspected of harbouring (or sympathizing with) the Viet Cong. Their mandate was to burn houses, kill off livestock and spoil crops, and pollute wells, in order to deny food, water and shelter to the V.C. and their sympathizers.
The 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the 23rd Infantry Division, Charlie Company, had suffered almost 30 attacks via booby-trap or land mine, resulting in numerous injuries and five deaths. When Charlie Company received its orders to clear out possible V.C. sympathizers in My Lai, Colonel Oran Henderson authorized his officers to "go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good."
What happened to the American soldiers after the My Lai Massacre?
Army investigators concluded that 33 of the 105 members of Charlie Company participated in the massacre, and that 28 officers helped cover it up. Charges were brought against only 13 men. In the end, only one soldier – Lt. William Calley - was convicted. Calley was charged with murdering 104 villagers in the My Lai massacre. Army lawyers decided that only 14 officers should be charged with crimes. Meanwhile, a separate investigation by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division concluded that there was evidence to charge 30 soldiers with the crimes of murder, rape, sodomy, and mutilation. Seventeen men had left the Army, and charges against them were dropped.