Newly declassified witness testimony and photographs from the American army's own secret inquiry into "The My Lai Massacre". Incredibly an army photographer, Ronald L. Haeberle covered the assault and helicopter transmissions throughout the early part of the attack were recorded. The first voice is Colonel Frank Barker directing the attack while flying over My Lai on March 16th 1968.
Lt General Peers led the army's inquiry. By the time he submitted his report on March 15th 1970, he had interviewed and tape recorded over 400 witnesses and uncovered damning and conclusive evidence that in just a few hours 504 unresisting civilian Vietnamese, old men, women, children and babies, had been murdered.
This material (much of it never broadcast before) exposes the myth about a single rogue soldier (Lt William Calley) in a single Company (Charlie) being responsible for the massacre. The Peers Inquiry uncovered a much more complicated and painful truth; that "Operation Pinkville" was no aberration, but rather a carefully co-ordinated attack on not one but a group of villages, by not one but two Companies of soldiers, each given the same order to "kill everything and anything" and that very large numbers of normal young Americans did exactly that.
Peers also uncovered another remarkable truth; that there were heroes that day, a few young men of extraordinary courage who defied the order to kill and risked their own lives to save others.
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Lt General Peers led the army's inquiry. By the time he submitted his report on March 15th 1970, he had interviewed and tape recorded over 400 witnesses and uncovered damning and conclusive evidence that in just a few hours 504 unresisting civilian Vietnamese, old men, women, children and babies, had been murdered.
This material (much of it never broadcast before) exposes the myth about a single rogue soldier (Lt William Calley) in a single Company (Charlie) being responsible for the massacre. The Peers Inquiry uncovered a much more complicated and painful truth; that "Operation Pinkville" was no aberration, but rather a carefully co-ordinated attack on not one but a group of villages, by not one but two Companies of soldiers, each given the same order to "kill everything and anything" and that very large numbers of normal young Americans did exactly that.
Peers also uncovered another remarkable truth; that there were heroes that day, a few young men of extraordinary courage who defied the order to kill and risked their own lives to save others.
Subscribe NOW to The Economist: http://econ.st/1Fsu2Vj
Get more The Economist
Follow us: https://twitter.com/TheEconomist
Like us: https://www.facebook.com/TheEconomist
View photos: https://instagram.com/theeconomist/
The Economist videos give authoritative insight and opinion on international news, politics, business, finance, science, technology and the connections between them.
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