My Lai Massacre - Photographs

Photographs

The massacre, like many other operations in Vietnam, was captured in photographs by U.S. Army personnel. The most published and graphic ones were taken by Ronald Haeberle, a U.S Army 'Public Information Detachment' photographer who accompanied the men of Charlie Company that day. Some of the black-and-white photographs he took were with an Army camera and were either subject to censorship or did not depict any Vietnamese casualties when published in an Army newspaper. Haeberle also took color photographs with his own camera while on duty the same day, which he kept and later sold to the media.

The derision "baby killers" was often used by anti-war activists against American soldiers, largely as a result of the Mỹ Lai Massacre. Although American soldiers had been so taunted since at least 1966, Mỹ Lai and the Haeberle photographs further solidified the stereotype of drug-addled soldiers who killed babies—according to M. Paul Holsinger, the And babies poster, which used a Haeberle photo, was "easily the most successful poster to vent the outrage that so many felt about the conflict in Southeast Asia. Copies are still frequently seen in retrospectives dealing with the popular culture of the Vietnam War era or in collections of art from the period."

Another soldier, John Henry Smail of the 3rd Platoon, took at least 16 color photographs depicting U.S. Army personnel, helicopters, and aerial views of Mỹ Lai. These, along with Haeberle's photographs, were included in the "Report of the Department of the Army review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident". Roger Louis Alaux, an artillery lieutenant who was with Captain Medina during the massacre, also took some photographs that day, including aerial views of Mỹ Lai from a helicopter and of the landing zone.

• Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Tẩu (chín Tẩu), killed by US soldiers

• Unidentified dead Vietnamese man

• Unidentified dead body thrown down a well

• SP5 Capezza burning a dwelling

• PFC Mauro, PFC Carter, and SP4 Widmer (Carter shot himself in the foot with a .45 pistol during the My Lai Massacre)

• SP4 Dustin setting fire to a dwelling

• Unidentifed Vietnamese man

• More victims at My Lai.