Lieutenant William Calley charged for My Lai massacre

On September 5, 1969, Lieutenant William Calley is charged with six specifications of premeditated murder in the deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai the year before. Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade (Light) of the 23rd (Americal) Division, had led his men in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, on March 16, 1968. The company had been conducting a search and destroy mission as part of the yearlong Operation Wheeler/Wallowa (November 1967 through November 1968).

In search of the 48th Viet Cong Local Force Battalion, the unit visited My Lai 4, a cluster of hamlets that made up Son My village in Son Tinh District in Quang Ngai Province in the coastal lowlands of I Corps Tactical Zone. The company found only women, children and old men after entering Son My village. Frustrated by unanswered losses due to snipers and mines, the soldiers took out their anger on the villagers, indiscriminately shooting people as they ran from their huts and systematically rounding up the survivors, allegedly leading them to a nearby ditch where they were executed.

Reportedly, the killing was only stopped when Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, an aero-scout helicopter pilot, landed his helicopter between the Americans and the fleeing South Vietnamese, confronting the soldiers and blocking them from further action against the villagers. The incident was subsequently covered up but eventually came to light a year later.

An Army board of inquiry, headed by Lieutenant General William Peers, investigated the massacre and produced a list of 30 persons who knew of the atrocity, but only 14, including Calley and his company commander, Captain Ernest Medina, were charged with crimes. All eventually had their charges dismissed or were acquitted by courts-martial except Calley, whose platoon allegedly killed 200 innocent people. He was found guilty of personally murdering 22 civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Later, Calley’s sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and further reduced to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army. Proclaimed by much of the public as a “scapegoat,” Calley was pardoned by President Richard Nixon in 1974 after serving about a third of his 10-year sentence.