My Lai massacre
The My Lai massacre was a United States war crime committed on the 16th of March 1968 in Son My village, Quang Ngai province, South Vietnam. That same day, an official press briefing nicknamed the Five O'Clock Follies handed reporters a mimeographed release. It announced a successful action near Quang Ngai City, backed all day by helicopter gunships and artillery. The enemy battalion the soldiers had been sent to destroy was not in the village. The people they found were women, children and elderly men, and hundreds of them were killed. For a year and a half, the Army's account stayed one of victory, and senior officers sent congratulations. The American public learned otherwise only in November 1969, after a former door gunner and a freelance reporter refused to let the matter drop. This documentary asks how a massacre came to be recorded as a battle. It follows the soldiers who carried it out, the helicopter crew who tried to stop it, and the officers who buried it. It also asks why, of the twenty-six men charged, only one was convicted.
Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, arrived in South Vietnam in December 1967. Its first three months passed without direct contact with North Vietnamese or Viet Cong forces. Even so, by mid-March the company had taken 28 casualties from mines and booby traps.
Military intelligence was looking at a different enemy. During the Tet Offensive in January 1968, the Viet Cong 48th Local Force Battalion had attacked targets in Quang Ngai province. American intelligence assumed the battalion had retreated, scattered and taken refuge in Son My village. Six hamlets there, labeled My Lai (1) through My Lai (6), were suspected of sheltering it. The village lay southwest of the Batangan Peninsula, a Viet Cong stronghold throughout the war.
In February and March 1968, the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, was working hard to regain the strategic initiative after Tet. The hunt for the 48th Battalion became one small piece of that effort. The job fell to Task Force Barker, a battalion-sized ad hoc unit built from three rifle companies of the 11th Brigade. Charlie Company was one of them. The task force had formed in January 1968 under Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker.
Its operating area was codenamed Muscatine, after Muscatine County, Iowa. That was the home county of Major General Samuel W. Koster, who commanded the 23rd Division. A first attempt to secure Son My in February met with limited success. Afterward, task force troops began calling the area Pinkville. Military maps used a reddish-pink shade for densely populated places, and the nickname stuck so firmly that the massacre was first called the Pinkville Massacre.
The task force planned to destroy the remnants of the 48th Battalion between the 16th and the 18th of March. Before it began, Colonel Oran K. Henderson, who commanded the 11th Brigade, urged his officers to "go in there aggressively, close with the enemy and wipe them out for good." Lieutenant Colonel Barker reportedly went further. He is said to have ordered his battalion commanders to burn houses, kill livestock, destroy food supplies, and destroy or poison the wells.
On the eve of the attack, Captain Ernest Medina briefed Charlie Company. He told the men that nearly all civilian residents would have left for market by 07:00. Anyone still there, he said, would most likely be Viet Cong or sympathizers. Someone asked whether the order included killing women and children. Those present later gave differing accounts of his reply.
Some men, including platoon leaders, testified that they understood the orders to mean killing all combatants and "suspects". That meant women, children and animals too, along with burning the village and polluting the wells. One account quotes Medina as saying, "They're all VC, now go and get them." At Calley's trial, a defense witness recalled him ordering the men to destroy everything in the village that was "walking, crawling or growing."
At 07:30 on the 16th of March, around 100 soldiers of Charlie Company, led by Medina, landed by helicopter at Son My. A short artillery and gunship barrage had come first. The village was a patchwork of homesteads, rice paddies, irrigation ditches, dikes and dirt roads linking many hamlets and sub-hamlets. The soldiers expected the 48th Battalion, one of the Viet Cong's most successful units.
Nobody fired on them as they landed. Even so, the men suspected enemy fighters were hiding underground or in the huts. Gunships engaged several Viet Cong near My Lai and killed four. Later, one weapon was recovered from the site.
At 08:00, the 1st Platoon under Second Lieutenant William Calley and the 2nd Platoon under Second Lieutenant Stephen Brooks entered the hamlet of Tu Cung in line formation. The 3rd Platoon, under Second Lieutenant Jeffrey Lacross, stayed outside with Medina's command post. On the approach, both platoons fired at people in the fields and brush. Inside, they found no soldiers. They found women, children and old men, many of them cooking breakfast over outdoor fires. It was market day, and at first the villagers neither panicked nor ran as they were herded into common spaces and yards.
Machine gunner Harry Stanley later told Army investigators that the killing began without warning. He saw a member of 1st Platoon strike a man with a bayonet. The same soldier then pushed another villager into a well and threw a grenade in after him. Stanley also saw 15 or 20 people, mostly women and children, kneeling around a temple with burning incense. They were praying and crying, and they were shot in the head.
Most of the killing happened in the southern part of Tu Cung, a sub-hamlet of Xom Lang, which had 700 residents. U.S. maps wrongly labeled Xom Lang as My Lai, which is how the massacre got its name. Soldiers threw grenades into homes and shot elderly people sitting inside. Children running for cover were shot as they fled.
First Platoon rounded up about 70 to 80 villagers and led them to an irrigation ditch east of the settlement. They were pushed in and shot after repeated orders from Calley, who fired as well. Private Paul Meadlo testified that he emptied several rifle magazines. He remembered women saying "No VC" and trying to shield their children. Calley testified that he fired into the ditch from no more than five feet away. While this went on, a helicopter pilot landed beyond the ditch and asked whether he could help evacuate wounded civilians. Calley admitted replying that a hand grenade was the only evacuation he had.
Private Michael Bernhardt walked into Xom Lang while the killing was underway. He saw piles of bodies and soldiers gathering people into groups. He met no resistance and counted only three captured weapons. In his words, "I don't remember seeing one military-age male in the entire place, dead or alive." Another group of 20 to 50 villagers was herded south and killed on a dirt road.
At 11:00, Medina radioed an order to cease fire, and 1st Platoon stopped to eat lunch. Second Platoon had killed at least 60 to 70 people sweeping the northern half of My Lai and the small sub-hamlet of Binh Tay. Third Platoon was sent in afterward to deal with "remaining resistance" and reportedly killed a group of seven to 12 women and children. Livestock was shot, and homes were burned.
Charlie Company met no resistance and called for no backup. Even so, Bravo Company of the 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, was flown in two miles away between 08:15 and 08:30. It attacked the sub-hamlet of My Hoi, part of Co Luy, which the Army had mapped as My Khe. Between 60 and 155 people died there, including women and children. Courts-martial later noted that some Charlie Company soldiers took no part in the killing. They also noted that none protested openly or complained to superiors afterward.
By the time it stopped, Charlie Company had one casualty, a soldier who shot himself in the foot to avoid taking part. Only three enemy weapons had been seized. Military historian William Thomas Allison wrote that the company had killed hundreds of civilians and had raped or assaulted countless women and girls.
The true number of dead is hard to fix. The Army chose not to attempt a definitive count of noncombatant deaths in Vietnam, and the confusion of the war left no firm total. The figures most commonly cited are 347 and 504. A later Army investigation arrived at 347, the official U.S. estimate. The local government's official estimate remains 504. The memorial at the site lists 504 names, with ages running from one to 82.
The Peers Commission, the government inquiry into the incident, concluded that at least 20 women and girls were raped. It counted only cases with explicit signs such as torn clothing and nudity, so the real number is hard to estimate. The victims ranged in age from 10 to 45, and nine were under 18. The assaults included gang rapes and sexual torture.
Above the village, a helicopter crew was watching the same morning unfold.
Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr. was flying an OH-23 over Son My, providing observation for ground forces, when he began to see dead and wounded civilians. He served with Company B (Aero-Scouts), 123rd Aviation Battalion, of the Americal Division. His crew tried several times to radio for help for the wounded. Then they landed beside a ditch full of bodies, where they could see survivors moving.
Thompson asked a sergeant there, David Mitchell of 1st Platoon, whether he could help get the people out. Mitchell replied that he would "help them out of their misery." Shocked and confused, Thompson spoke with Calley, who said he was "just following orders." As the helicopter lifted off, Thompson saw Mitchell firing into the ditch. His crew also saw Medina kick an unarmed woman and shoot her at point-blank range. Medina later claimed he thought she had a hand grenade.
Thompson next spotted a group of civilians sheltering in a bunker as ground troops approached. He landed and gave his crew an order. If the soldiers shot at the villagers while he was getting them out, the crew were to open fire on the soldiers. Thompson later testified that he found Lieutenant Brooks and asked for help. Brooks answered that the only way to get them out was with a hand grenade. Thompson told him to hold his men right where they were, and said, "I'll get the kids out."
He coaxed 12 to 16 people out of the bunker and led them to his helicopter. They were flown to safety in two groups. When Thompson returned, he and other air crew saw several large groups of bodies. He landed again at the ditch after spotting survivors. Specialist Glenn Andreotta climbed in and came back with a four-year-old girl, bloodied but apparently unharmed. She was flown out.
Back at the LZ Dottie base, Thompson told his section leader, Captain Barry Lloyd, that the infantry were no different from Nazis in their killing of innocent civilians. "It's mass murder out there," he said. "They're rounding them up and herding them in ditches and then just shooting them." He then reported to his company commander, Major Frederic Watke, using words such as "murder" and "needless and unnecessary killings." Other pilots and air crew confirmed what he said.
The Army gave Thompson the Distinguished Flying Cross. His crewmen Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn received the Bronze Star. Andreotta's came after his death, as he was killed in Vietnam on the 8th of April 1968. Thompson's citation contained a made-up account of rescuing a young girl from "intense crossfire," and he threw the medal away.
In March 1998, the Army replaced the crew's medals with the Soldier's Medal. It is the highest award the Army can give for bravery not involving direct conflict with the enemy. The citations credit them with saving the lives of at least 10 Vietnamese civilians. Thompson at first refused the medal when the Army wanted to present it quietly. He demanded a public ceremony, with his crew honored in the same way.
Thompson's report reached Lieutenant Colonel Barker, the operation's overall commander, soon after he landed. Barker radioed his executive officer to ask Medina what was happening on the ground. Thompson was interviewed by Colonel Henderson, and worried senior officers canceled similar planned operations against other villages in Quang Ngai province.
The warnings changed little. On the 27th of March 1968, Henderson issued Medina a Letter of Commendation. The next day, Barker filed a combat action report calling the operation a success, with 128 Viet Cong combatants killed. General Koster sent Charlie Company a congratulatory message. General William C. Westmoreland, who headed the U.S. command in Vietnam, praised the company for "outstanding action" and said it had "dealt the enemy a heavy blow." After learning the truth, he wrote in his memoir of "the conscious massacre of defenseless babies, children, mothers, and old men in a kind of diabolical slow-motion nightmare that went on for the better part of a day, with a cold-blooded break for lunch."
The early reports spoke of "128 Viet Cong and 22 civilians" killed in a "fierce fire fight." Military newspapers carried the same story. Stars and Stripes ran a laudatory piece on the 18th of March headlined "U.S. troops Surrounds Red, Kill 128." On the 12th of April, the 11th Brigade newsletter, the Trident, said the raids had cost the Viet Cong 276 killed. A press release on the 4th of April, titled Recent Operations in Pinkville, said nothing of mass civilian deaths.
A photographer and a reporter from the 11th Brigade Information Office had landed with Charlie Company. A later criminal investigation found that both failed to report what they saw. The reporter wrote a false and misleading account, and the photographer withheld photographic evidence of atrocities.
The first official look at the operation fell to Henderson himself. He interviewed several soldiers and issued a written report in late April. It said about 20 civilians had been killed by accident, mostly by long-range artillery. The Army still described the day as a victory over 128 enemy combatants.
Six months later, a 21-year-old soldier named Tom Glen wrote to General Creighton Abrams, the new commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. He described routine brutality against Vietnamese civilians that he had seen himself. He did not mention My Lai by name, because he knew little about the events there. He wrote that he feared the abuse was universal, and he urged firmer enforcement of military codes and the Geneva Conventions.
The letter went to Major Colin Powell, then 31, who served on the Americal Division staff. His report said, "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between Americal Division soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." A 2018 Army case study noted that Powell found no widespread unnecessary killings, no war crimes and no facts related to My Lai. Some observers later called his handling of the assignment a whitewash. In May 2004, as Secretary of State, Powell told CNN's Larry King that he had arrived in the unit after My Lai happened. In war, he said, such horrible things happen now and again but are still to be deplored.
By then, the story was no longer confined to the Army. A former door gunner had been gathering accounts from men who were there.
In March 1969, Specialist 5 Ronald Ridenhour mailed a letter to 30 members of Congress. He asked them to investigate the "Pinkville" incident. Ridenhour had served as a door gunner with the 11th Infantry Brigade, and he had not been at My Lai during the massacre. His account came from long conversations with Charlie Company soldiers who had witnessed the killing and, in some cases, joined in.
He had also seen the aftermath himself. A few days after the operation, he and his pilot, Warrant Officer Gilbert Honda, flew over My Lai and saw total destruction. At one point they hovered above a dead Vietnamese woman with an 11th Brigade patch lying on her body. Ridenhour became convinced that something "rather dark and bloody did indeed occur." Within three months of his discharge he wrote to Congress, to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and to the President. He named Michael Bernhardt as an eyewitness willing to testify.
Bernhardt had refused to kill civilians at My Lai. He later said Medina threatened him to keep him quiet, and he was given more dangerous assignments, including point duty on patrol. A form of trench foot followed. It was Bernhardt who told Ridenhour what happened and pushed him to keep investigating. He later gave press interviews and testified for the prosecution at Medina's trial, where defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey cross-examined him hard.
Most recipients of Ridenhour's letter ignored it. Congressman Mo Udall, Senator Barry Goldwater and Senator Edward Brooke did not. Udall urged the House Armed Services Committee to press Pentagon officials for an investigation. In early September 1969, the Army quietly charged Calley with six specifications of premeditated murder, covering the deaths of 109 South Vietnamese civilians. Fort Benning issued a press release about the charges on the 5th of September, and NBC aired a segment on killings of civilians on the 10th.
Seymour Hersh, an investigative reporter working as a freelancer, heard of the prosecution. After extensive interviews with Calley, he published the story through the Dispatch News Service on the 13th of November 1969. Thirty-five newspapers ran it. The Alabama Journal and the New York Times ran their own stories on the allegations against Calley on the 12th and 13th.
On the 20th of November, The Cleveland Plain Dealer published color photographs and eyewitness testimony from Army combat photographer Ronald Haeberle. Time, Life and Newsweek covered the story the same day. CBS televised an interview with Paul Meadlo, a soldier from Calley's unit.
Haeberle had carried two Army-issued cameras loaded with black and white film, and his own camera loaded with color slides. His official photographs generally left out soldiers doing the killing. His personal camera captured soldiers killing elderly men, women and children. He destroyed most of the slides that incriminated individual soldiers, because he thought it unfair to blame only a few men. Why not hand the photos in? He said an Army photographer learns to destroy a picture if a general is smiling the wrong way in it. He gave the color images to his hometown newspaper and then sold them to Life.
The photographs changed everything inside the government. The day after publication, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird told National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger that he would like "to sweep it under the rug," but the pictures made that impossible. "There are so many kids just laying there," he said. "These pictures are authentic." Army investigator André Feher had reached the same conclusion in August, after Haeberle showed him the photographs. He judged that news of the massacre could not be contained.
On the 21st of November, Kissinger said the White House needed a "game plan," a "press policy" and a "unified line." The administration set up a "My Lai Task Force" to control the problem. Its aims included "dirty tricks," such as discrediting key witnesses and questioning Hersh's motives. Army General Counsel Robert Jordan, speaking to the press, declined to confirm the allegations against Calley. ABC's Bill Downs noted that the statement amounted to a high defense official admitting that American troops "might have committed genocide."
On the 24th of November 1969, the Secretary of the Army and the Army Chief of Staff appointed Lieutenant General William R. Peers to review the incident and the Army's handling of it. His final report, delivered on the 17th of March 1970, sharply criticized officers at brigade and division level for taking part in the cover-up. It also criticized the Charlie Company officers. Peers found that members of the 1st Battalion had killed at least 175 to 200 Vietnamese men, women and children. Only three or four were confirmed as Viet Cong. He called it "a tragedy of major proportions."
In 2003, Hugh Thompson praised the inquiry. Peers, he said, pulled no punches and recommended court-martial for about 34 people, mostly for the cover-up rather than the murders. Congress, Thompson recalled, did not like it. In his words, "the cover-up phase was probably as bad as the massacre itself."
The trials told a different story. On the 17th of November 1970, charges were brought against 14 officers, including Major General Koster, for suppressing information. Most were later dropped. Colonel Henderson was the only high-ranking commander to stand trial over the cover-up, and he was acquitted on the 17th of December 1971.
Calley's own trial lasted four months. He claimed throughout that he was following Medina's orders. On the 29th of March 1971, he was found guilty of premeditated murder of at least 20 people and sentenced to life in prison. Two days later, President Nixon had him released from custody at Fort Benning and placed under house arrest while he appealed. In August 1971, the convening authority reduced the sentence from life to twenty years. Higher military courts upheld the conviction in 1973 and 1974.
Public sympathy ran toward the convicted man. After the verdict, the White House received 5,000 telegrams backing Calley. American soldiers painted "KILL A GOOK FOR CALLEY" on buildings in Saigon. Calley served three-and-a-half years under house arrest at Fort Benning, including three months in the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Howard Callaway, the Secretary of the Army, paroled him in September 1974. In 1976, Callaway told The New York Times that the sentence was reduced because Calley honestly believed he was following orders.
That reasoning troubled legal scholars. Telford Taylor, a senior American prosecutor at Nuremberg, wrote that the principles from the war crimes trials could have been used against senior American commanders who failed to prevent atrocities like My Lai. Obeying orders was not a defense at Nuremberg or Tokyo.
Medina was tried separately. He denied giving the orders and was acquitted of all charges. The verdict effectively sank the prosecution's theory of "command responsibility," now called the "Medina standard." When Medina was acquitted, the judge wished him a happy birthday. Several months later, Medina admitted that he had suppressed evidence and lied to Henderson about the number of civilian deaths. Captain Eugene Kotouc, an intelligence officer, was also tried and found not guilty.
Koster was demoted to brigadier general and lost his post as Superintendent of West Point. His deputy, Brigadier General George Young, received a letter of censure. Both lost the Distinguished Service Medals they had earned in Vietnam. Across the whole war, the Army held 36 trials for crimes against civilians in Vietnam between January 1965 and August 1973.
Ronald Ridenhour gave Nick Turse the phrase that frames his research. My Lai, Ridenhour said, was "an operation, not an aberration." Turse argues that it grew from deliberate policies, including free-fire zones and body counts that rewarded commanders for high numbers of enemy dead. Racism played its part. Accounts of training describe drill instructors who used slurs for the Vietnamese and called them animals. In the field, troops were told to distrust everyone. One officer said a few women and children getting killed would teach the survivors a lesson.
Seven months before My Lai, on Robert McNamara's orders, the Defense Department's Inspector General looked into press reports of atrocities in South Vietnam. The 200-page report, "Alleged Atrocities by U.S. Military Forces in South Vietnam," was finished in August 1967.
Operation Speedy Express offers a second example, according to Turse. Between December 1968 and May 1969, the 9th Division under General Julian Ewell killed thousands of civilians in the Mekong Delta. The division reported an official enemy body count of 10,899. A 1972 Inspector General report concluded that civilian casualties may have reached between 5,000 and 7,000. In May 1970, a sergeant wrote to Westmoreland describing the killings as "a My Lai each month for over a year." Two more letters signed "Concerned Sergeant" followed in 1971.
In September 1969, Ewell himself told Westmoreland and other generals in a confidential report that parts of the countryside resembled the battlefields of Verdun. The journalist Jonathan Schell reported in 1968 that up to 70% of the villages in Quang Ngai province had been destroyed by air strikes and artillery. Forty percent of the population were refugees, and civilian casualties were close to 50,000 a year. Schell wrote that such an atrocity was possible only because other ways of killing civilians and destroying villages had become the rule.
After My Lai, the Pentagon set up the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group. It compiled a secret archive of about 9,000 pages covering 320 alleged incidents between 1967 and 1971. Of those, 203 U.S. personnel were charged, 57 were court-martialed and 23 were convicted. The group also looked into more than 500 other alleged atrocities that it could not verify.
For the survivors, the story did not end in 1968. In early 1972, the camp at My Lai (2), where they had been relocated, was largely destroyed by South Vietnamese artillery and aerial bombardment, and witnesses scattered. Quaker service workers in the area testified about it in May 1972, and The New York Times published the account that June.
Many of the Americans there accepted some responsibility. Medina said, "I have regrets for it, but I have no guilt over it because I didn't cause it." Lawrence La Croix, a squad leader, told the Los Angeles Times in 1993 that he still could not touch a weapon without vomiting. Varnado Simpson, who spoke often of his remorse, died by suicide on the 4th of May 1997. In 2010, La Croix said a soldier cannot refuse an illegal order in the military, because he would be put against a wall and shot.
On the 16th of March 1998, local people and former American and Vietnamese soldiers gathered at the site for the 30th anniversary. Thompson and Colburn spoke. In the crowd was Phan Thi Nhanh, who was 14 at the time of the massacre and had been saved by Thompson. "We don't say we forget," she said. Colburn challenged Calley to face the women he had met that day and explain why it happened. No American diplomats or officials attended.
More than a thousand people came to the Son My Memorial on the 16th of March 2008. A volunteer group from Wisconsin called the Madison Quakers represented the United States unofficially. In ten years they had built three schools in My Lai and planted a peace garden.
On the 19th of August 2009, Calley made his only public apology, to a Kiwanis club in Columbus, Georgia. "There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai," he said. He added that he had followed orders "foolishly, I guess." He died on the 28th of April 2024. Tran Van Duc, who was seven at the time of the massacre and now lives in Remscheid, Germany, called the apology terse. He wrote Calley an open letter saying that time had not eased the pain, and that grief would stay in My Lai forever.
Updated
Common questions
What was the My Lai massacre?
The My Lai massacre was a United States war crime committed on the 16th of March 1968 in Son My village, Quang Ngai province, South Vietnam. U.S. Army soldiers murdered unarmed civilians, almost all of them women, children and elderly men.
How many people died in the My Lai massacre?
The most commonly cited figures are 347 and 504 dead. The Army's later investigation produced the official U.S. estimate of 347, while the local government's official estimate and the names on the memorial at the site both total 504.
Who stopped the My Lai massacre?
Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr. and his helicopter crew, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn, intervened. They led 12 to 16 people out of a bunker and flew a four-year-old girl out of a ditch. Thompson reported what he saw to his superiors.
Who was convicted for the My Lai massacre?
Lieutenant William Calley Jr. was the only soldier convicted. He was sentenced to life in prison on the 29th of March 1971, but served three-and-a-half years under house arrest after his sentence was reduced.
How did the public learn about the My Lai massacre?
Veteran Ronald Ridenhour wrote to Congress in March 1969, and journalist Seymour Hersh published the story on the 13th of November 1969. Ronald Haeberle's color photographs followed in The Cleveland Plain Dealer on the 20th of November.
Why was the My Lai massacre called Pinkville?
Pinkville was the Army slang name for hamlets in the Son My area. It came from the reddish-pink color used on military maps to mark densely populated places, and the massacre was first called the Pinkville Massacre.
Was the My Lai massacre an isolated incident?
No. Researcher Nick Turse describes it as part of a larger pattern of atrocities enabled by free-fire zones and body counts. A Pentagon task force later documented 320 alleged incidents between 1967 and 1971.
All sources
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- 116NewsEx-Vietnam lieutenant apologizes for massacre21 August 2009
- 117NewsCalley expresses remorse for role in My Lai massacre in Vietnam22 August 2009
- 119Ltc Frank Akeley BarkerThewall-usa.com — 26 November 1967
- 124Peers Report: Captain Ernest MedinaLaw.umkc.edu
- 127Peers, William R., Joseph Goldstein, Burke Marshall, and Jack Schwartz. The My Lai Massacre and Its Cover-Up: Beyond the Reach of Law?: The Peers Commission Report. New York: Free Press, 1976.
- 128Hersh, Seymour M. Cover-Up: the Army's Secret Investigation of the Massacre at My Lai 4. New York: Random House, 1972.
- 129Peers, William R. The My Lai Inquiry. New York: Norton, 1979. ISBN 0394474600
- 131Oliver (2006) p. 34.Oliver — 2006
- 132The Ethical Humanist Award: New York Society for Ethical CultureNysec.org — 7 September 2010
- 137NewsArmed Forces: The My Lai Trials Begin2 November 1970
- 138NewsWar Hero Relives Day He Refused to MurderOrlando Sentinel — 19 November 1989
- 145BookInvestigation of the My Lai Incident, Ninety-First Congress, Second SessionUnited States. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Armed Services Investigating Subcommittee Investigations — U.S. Government Printing Office — 1976
- 147ReportReport of the Department of the Army Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai IncidentLibrary of Congress — 1970-03-14
- 148Four Hours in Mỹ Lai: A Case StudyFsa.ulaval.ca
- 155U.S. troops Surrounds Red, Kill 128. Pacific Star and Stripes (Three Star edition), 18 March 1969.
- 157Roberts, Jay A. Recent Operations in Pinkville. Press-Release No. 112–68–75, Information office, 11th Infantry Brigade, 4 April 1968.
- 160Belknap, Michael R. (2002). The Vietnam War on Trial. The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas.
- 162Hersh, Seymour M. Mỹ Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and its Aftermath. New York: Random House, 1970.
- 164"The massacre at Mỹ Lai", Life, Vol. 67, No. 23, 5 December 1969.
- 165NewsNation: The My Lai Massacre28 November 1969
- 166Christian Science Monitor, 24 November 1969.
- 167The Vietnam War: A History in SongJustin Brummer
- 168Music of My LaiCori Brosnahan
- 169MagazineBillboard Hot 100May 1971
- 170MagazineCap Nixes Disk; Seeks Not to Glorify CalleyJune 19, 1971
- 171MagazineBubbling Under the Hot 100May 1971
- 172Kronos Quartet: Mỹ LaiAugust 16, 2023
- 173NewsReview: Kronos Quartet Revisits Vietnam Horror in 'My Lai'James R. Oestreich — 28 September 2017
- 175Gripping monodrama 'My Lai' evokes dark moment of Vietnam WarJohn von Rhein — February 2016
- 178NewsMy Lai Revisited
- 182VideoThe My Lai Tapes, 1968 Myth or RealityBBC Radio 4 — 15 March 2008
- 183VideoThe My Lai Tapes (audio file in English)BBC
- 185My Lai
- 189Frascina, Francis, Art, Politics, and Dissent: Aspects of the Art Left in Sixties America, pp. 175–86.
- 192BookWar and American Popular CultureM. Paul Holsinger — Greenwood Press — 1999
- 193Bilton, Michael, and Kevin Sim. Four Hours in My Lai: A War Crime and Its Aftermath. London: Viking, 1992.
- 194LHCMA Catalogue: Papers of Four Hours in My Lai television documentary archive, 1964–1992King's College, London
- 195ReportReport of the Department of the Army Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai IncidentWilliam R. Peers — U.S. Government Printing Office — 14 March 1970
- 196NewsPsychiatrist backs Hutto defense12 January 1971
- 197When the Whole Village Died – My Lai MassacreRough Guides
- 198Introduction generalWar Remnants Museum
- 199My Lai: Ghosts in another Vietnam wallBrad Lendon — CNN Travel — 2021-03-21
- 201MagazineThe Ghosts of My LaiShaun Raviv — January 2018
- 202JournalBearing Witness to the Inhuman at Mỹ Lai: Museum, Ritual, PilgrimageR Tamashiro — ASIANetwork Exchange — 2018
- 203NewsPhotos of Son My massacre to be displayed again2023-03-11
- 204Remembering the Unforgettable: The Memorial at My LaiKaril Kucera — Studies on Asia — 2008
- 205Facing Up to the Horrors of the Mỹ Lai MassacreMichael G. Vann — 2026-04-23
- 206Tale of children who survived My Lai massacre falls on deaf earsSen — VN Express — 2019-05-17
- 210BookVietnam, an Epic TragedyMax Hastings — Harper — 2018
- 211NewsMy Lai: An American Tragedy5 December 1969
- 212BookThe Phoenix ProgramDouglas Valentine — iUniverse — 1990