The My Lai massacre occurred in Vietnam
On this day · 16 March 1968
On a single March morning in 1968, US soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese villagers, and the cover-up that followed scarred a war.
On the morning of March 16, 1968, soldiers of Charlie Company entered the hamlets of Son My village in Quang Ngai Province, expecting to meet Viet Cong fighters. They found mostly women, children, and elderly men. Over the next hours the troops killed somewhere between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians, many herded into ditches and shot. There was no enemy fire.
The atrocity was kept quiet for more than a year until investigative reporting and a soldier’s persistent letters forced it into the open in late 1969. A formal Army inquiry, the Peers Inquiry, documented both the killings and an extensive cover-up reaching up the chain of command.
Of the soldiers charged, only Lieutenant William Calley was ultimately convicted.
The revelations deepened domestic opposition to the Vietnam War and became a lasting case study in command responsibility and the laws of armed conflict, taught in military ethics courses to this day.
Sources & references
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