My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness

by Howard Jones

Overview

On the early morning of March 16, 1968, American soldiers from three platoons of Charlie Company (1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division), entered a group of hamlets located in the Son Tinh district of South Vietnam, located near the Demilitarized Zone and known as "Pinkville" because of the high level of Vietcong infiltration. The soldiers, many still teenagers who had been in the country for three months, were on a "search and destroy" mission. The Tet Offensive had occurred only weeks earlier and in the same area and had made them jittery; so had mounting losses from booby traps and a seemingly invisible enemy. Three hours after the GIs entered the hamlets, more than five hundred unarmed villagers lay dead, killed in cold blood. The atrocity took its name from one of the hamlets, known by the Americans as My Lai 4.

Military authorities attempted to suppress the news of My Lai, until some who had been there, in particular a helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson and a door gunner named Lawrence Colburn, spoke up about what they had seen. The official line was that the villagers had been killed by artillery and gunship fire rather than by small arms. That line soon began to fray. Lieutenant William Calley, one of the platoon leaders, admitted to shooting the villagers but insisted that he had acted upon orders. An exposé of the massacre and cover-up by journalist Seymour Hersh, followed by graphic photographs, incited international outrage, and Congressional and U.S. Army inquiries began. Calley and nearly thirty other officers were charged with war crimes, though Calley alone was convicted and would serve three and a half years under house arrest before being paroled in 1974.

My Lai polarized American sentiment. Many saw Calley as a scapegoat, the victim of a doomed strategy in an unwinnable war. Others saw a war criminal. President Nixon was poised to offer a presidential pardon. The atrocity intensified opposition to the war, devastating any pretense of American moral superiority. Its effect on military morale and policy was profound and enduring. The Army implemented reforms and began enforcing adherence to the Hague and Geneva conventions. Before launching an offensive during Desert Storm in 1991, one general warned his brigade commanders, "No My Lais in this division—do you hear me?"

Compelling, comprehensive, and haunting, based on both exhaustive archival research and extensive interviews, Howard Jones's My Lai will stand as the definitive book on one of the most devastating events in American military history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190056704
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Series:	Pivotal Moments in American History
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	504
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Howard Jones is University Research Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Alabama, where he taught for thirty-nine years. He is a New York Times-bestselling author of Mutiny on the Amistad (the basis for Steven Spielberg's film Amistad), as well as The Bay of Pigs, Death of a Generation, and To the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. He lives with his wife, Mary Ann, in Northport, Alabama.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Editor's Note
Abbreviations

Prologue: The My Lai Story

Part I: Pinkville
One
Two
Three
Four
Five

Part II: Aftermath and Cover-Up
Six
Seven
Eight

Part III: My Lai on Trial
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen

Epilogue: The My Lai Story Continues

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

…a difficult book to read, but essential to understand the modern history of our nation…[Jones's] "just the facts" approach is appropriate. It is a book at once painful and useful, and is likely to become the standard reference work on My Lai.

The New York Times Book Review - Thomas E. Ricks

03/13/2017
Nearly 10 years in the making, this exhaustively researched and well-written narrative bores in on the details of what has become known as the My Lai Massacre—the slaughter of 504 old men, women, and children by American troops in the South Vietnamese village of Son My on Mar. 16, 1968—and the massacre’s legal and political aftermath. Jones (Blue and Gray Diplomacy), professor emeritus of history at the University of Alabama, mined an array of sources, including some original oral histories and interviews with Americans and Vietnamese, in producing this authoritative account of a dark moment in American history. To Jones’s credit, he succeeds in his goal of presenting a “balanced and accurate account” of the still-controversial incident. He also tackles the thorny questions of why the massacre took place, and whether it was an aberration. Jones boils down the answer to the former question to character flaws and the lack of “a notion of decency” among the troops who did the killing and raping. As for whether My Lai was a Vietnam War aberration, Jones cites other massacres in Vietnam and previous U.S. wars, but notes that My Lai “stands out, in part because of the numbers” of people killed. Maps & Illus. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"This book about the famous massacre of Vietnamese villagers by American soldiers may be difficult to read - but it is essential for understanding our recent history, and should become the standard reference on the subject." -The New York Times

"Empirically, Jones has succeeded in including the perspective of Vietnamese victims and Viet Cong commanders — a focus that the existing historiography lacks." — Marcel Berni, Journal of Contemporary History

"Jones is a versatile historian . . . and here, he successfully accomplishes two tasks: first, he provides as comprehensive a history of My Lai as we are likely to see for some time. Second, he thoughtfully probes the myriad ways that the My Lai story has been told. Jones succeeds on all counts." -Kirkus, Starred Review

"Nearly 10 years in the making, this exhaustively researched and well-written narrative bores in on the details of what has become known as the My Lai Massacre. . . . Jones, professor emeritus of history at the University of Alabama, mined an array of sources, including some original oral histories and interviews with Americans and Vietnamese, in producing this authoritative account of a dark moment in American history." —Publishers Weekly

"This important work deserves a wide audience and is essential for anyone interested in the Vietnam War." -LIBRARY JOURNAL

"Jones' volume is a meticulous and detailed review of what happened in My Lai, the subsequent investigations and the courts-martial. His analysis is brutally frank yet fair, objective and balanced . . . Every graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, ROTC and OCS should be required to read this book before pinning on the gold bars." -Brigadier General David T. Zabecki, for HistoryNet

"Howard Jones has produced the definitive work on My Lai. Beautifully written, balanced, and thorough, it makes full use of all the diverse sources previously unavailable to those who have written about My Lai, including those directly involved in its aftermath. Henceforth this significant work will be the go-to book on and authoritative reference to this American tragedy." —William G. Eckhardt, Col. (Ret.) JAGC, Chief Prosecutor My Lai Ground Action, Teaching Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Law

"The best book by far on the My Lai massacre and its aftermath—exhaustively researched, persuasively argued, and a page-turner to boot. A must-read for anyone interested not only in the Vietnam era, but also in how things can go terribly wrong in the midst of armed conflict, the laws of war notwithstanding. Truly exceptional!" —Ralph B. Levering, author of The Cold War: A Post-Cold War History

"Nearly 10 years in the making, this exhaustively researched and well-written narrative bores in on the details of what has become known as the My Lai Massacre. . . . Jones, professor emeritus of history at the University of Alabama, mined an array of sources, including some original oral histories and interviews with Americans and Vietnamese, in producing this authoritative account of a dark moment in American history." —Publishers Weekly

"My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness"... is a masterpiece. Jones utilizes virtually every document available about the massacre." - Counterpunch

"Jones's book on My Lai is a great addition to the canon on the infamous massacre that came to portray the darkest side of American involvement in Vietnam. This book works as a note to our present and future leaders to think twice before going to war as atrocities will happen. For the everyday reader, it reminds us about the violent potential of ordinary human beings in the context of war." — Olli Siitonen, H-War

From the Publisher

05/01/2017
In March 1968, U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in an attack on Son My village in South Vietnam; victims included pregnant women, infants, and the elderly. Jones (history, emeritus, Univ. of Alabama; Death of a Generation) offers a thoroughly researched and detailed account of the massacre, and the subsequent cover-up, investigations, and trials. Readers will learn about the complexities of the tragedy and how it became public knowledge more than a year later despite efforts to conceal it. Although investigations found evidence that dozens of soldiers participated in the massacre, only Lt. William Calley was convicted of war crimes. The author explains how this led the public to sympathize with Calley, believing he was a scapegoat for mistakes made by military and government leaders. Ultimately, Calley only served three and a half years of house arrest. VERDICT Vivid descriptions of sexual assault and murder make this an emotionally challenging read at times. However, this important work deserves a wide audience and is essential for anyone interested in the Vietnam War.—Joshua Wallace, Tarleton State Univ. Lib. Stephenville, TX

Library Journal

★ 2017-03-20
A scrupulous history of one of the darkest moments in American military history.On March 16, 1968, troops from the United States Army entered a series of villages in South Vietnam, and what ensued has been called the "My Lai Massacre," one of the most shameful events in the history of U.S. foreign affairs. Although the numbers remain in dispute, perhaps the most reliable indicate 504 dead, more than half of whom were under 20 years of age. The slaughter served no larger strategic or tactical purpose. It was murder in cold blood, and an out-of-his-depth 24-year-old soldier, William Calley, who was guilty of an array of crimes against humanity that day, would serve as the focal point of the criminal investigations that followed. Calley would be found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. This book is part of the publisher's Pivotal Moments in American History series, and the events of My Lai—indeed, all of 1968—certainly fit. "My Lai was a turning point for so many reasons," writes Jones (Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations, 2010, etc.), "not least for the ways in which it tarnished the image many Americans had of their soldiers, and that the soldiers had of themselves." The story of that day did not emerge, however, until 1969, primarily due to the investigative journalism of Seymour Hersh, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on My Lai. Jones is a versatile historian—his work has ranged from the nation's founding era to the modern U.S.—and here, he successfully accomplishes two tasks: first, he provides as comprehensive a history of My Lai as we are likely to see for some time. Second, he thoughtfully probes the myriad ways that the My Lai story has been told. Jones succeeds on all counts in a book that, due to its subject matter, is not pleasant to read but is powerful and important.

Kirkus Reviews