Hugh Thompson, a former US Army helicopter pilot honoured for rescuing Vietnamese civilians from his fellow soldiers during the My Lai massacre, died early yesterday. He was 62.
Thompson, whose role in the 1968 massacre did not become widely known until decades later, died at the Veterans Affairs Medical Centre in Alexandria, hospital spokesman Jay DeWorth said.
Trent Angers, Thompson’s biographer and family friend, said Thompson died of cancer.
“These people were looking at me for help and there was no way I could turn my back on them,” Thompson recalled in a 1998 interview.
Early in the morning of March 16, 1968, Thompson, door-gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Glenn Andreotta came upon US ground troops killing Vietnamese civilians in and around the village of My Lai.
They landed the helicopter in the line of fire between American troops and fleeing Vietnamese civilians and pointed their own guns at the US soldiers to prevent more killings.
Colburn and Andreotta had provided cover for Thompson as he went forward to confront the leader of the US forces. Thompson later coaxed civilians out of a bunker so they could be evacuated, and then landed his helicopter again to pick up a wounded child they transported to a hospital. Their efforts led to the cease-fire order at
My Lai.
My Lai massacre
Hugh Thompson, a former US Army helicopter pilot honoured for rescuing Vietnamese civilians from his fellow soldiers during the My Lai massacre, died early yesterday. He was 62.
Thompson, whose role in the 1968 massacre did not become widely known until decades later, died at the Veterans Affairs Medical Centre in Alexandria, hospital spokesman Jay DeWorth said.
Trent Angers, Thompson’s biographer and family friend, said Thompson died of cancer.
“These people were looking at me for help and there was no way I could turn my back on them,” Thompson recalled in a 1998 interview.
Early in the morning of March 16, 1968, Thompson, door-gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Glenn Andreotta came upon US ground troops killing Vietnamese civilians in and around the village of My Lai.
They landed the helicopter in the line of fire between American troops and fleeing Vietnamese civilians and pointed their own guns at the US soldiers to prevent more killings.
Colburn and Andreotta had provided cover for Thompson as he went forward to confront the leader of the US forces. Thompson later coaxed civilians out of a bunker so they could be evacuated, and then landed his helicopter again to pick up a wounded child they transported to a hospital. Their efforts led to the cease-fire order at My Lai.
My Lai massacre
