William Calley

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William Laws Calley, Jr. (born June 8, 1943 in Miami , Florida ) is a former American officer . He was the only one to be tried in court for the Mỹ Lai massacre , a war crime during the Vietnam War .

crime

On March 16, 1968, a group of soldiers, u. a. from the 1st platoon of the C Company of Task Force Barker under the command of Lieutenant Calley, the village of My Lai and other surrounding villages in the area in the South Vietnamese province of Quảng Ngãi , killing between 347 and 504 civilians. The American press reported for the first time on November 16, 1969 about the "My Lai massacre".

Court hearing

The court martial against William Calley was scheduled for November 17, 1969 at Fort Benning , but did not begin until November 16, 1970 due to multiple postponements.

On March 29, 1971, Calley was that to obey orders insisted, speaking of deliberate killing of 22 civilians guilty and on 31 March 1971 a life sentence convicted. No one else in his unit has been convicted of similar offenses in My Lai. The very next day, April 1, 1971, President Richard Nixon ordered his release. Calley was only given house arrest . On August 20, 1971, his nominal sentence was shortened by the Army to 20 years, then halved again by the United States Secretary of State Howard H. Callaway . In 1974 Callaway pardoned Calley for good .

Approval and rejection

Calley's conviction sparked outrage in the United States. In some states - Indiana , Utah , Mississippi - the flags were raised at half-mast in solidarity with the defendant and the governors called for sympathy rallies for Calley. Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter , later US President , introduced American Fighting Man's Day and asked the citizens of Georgia to drive with the lights on for a week in solidarity with Calley. The parliaments of Arkansas , Kansas , Texas , New Jerseys and South Carolina demanded a pardon for Calley. Alabama Governor George Wallace visited Calley. The White House received 5,000 telegrams at a ratio of 100 to 1 in favor of a pardon. In a telephone poll, 79% were in favor of Calley and against the verdict. 81% thought the verdict was too harsh and 69% thought Calley was just a scapegoat .

Others, however, supported the guilty verdict and were outraged that only Calley had been convicted. The Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit, organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War , protested in late January 1971 against what was considered to be inadequate prosecution.

The time after

In 1972 William Calley published his biography, which was published in German by Fischer Verlag under the title "I was happy in Vietnam" . He retired from work as a manager in his father-in-law's jewelry store in 2005. Calley lives with his son after separating from his wife. He also has a daughter. In August 2009 , Calley apologized to members of the Kiwanis Club of Columbus, Georgia for his actions.

Works

  • William Calley, John Sack: Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story . Viking Adult, 1971, ISBN 0-670-42821-3 .
  • William Calley: I loved being in Vietnam . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1972.

literature

  • Wayne Greenhaw: The Making of a Hero: The Story of Lieutenant William Calley Jr. Louisville . Touchstone, 1971.
  • Richard Hammer: The Court-martial of Lt. Calley . Coward-McCann, New York 1971.
  • Tom Tiede: Calley: Soldier or Killer? Pinnacle, New York 1971.
  • Michal R. Belknap: The Vietnam War on Trial: The My Lai Massacre and the Court-Martial of Lieutenant Calley . University Press of Kansas, Lawrence 2002.
  • Bernd Greiner: War without fronts - The USA in Vietnam . Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2007.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cordt Schnibben: My Lai - the career of a war crime. In: The time . September 12, 1986. Retrieved September 6, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b David Frum : How We Got Here: The 1970s . Basic Books, New York, New York 2000, ISBN 0-465-04195-7 , pp. 84-85.
  3. ↑ a b Cookman, Claude., Journal of American History; June 2007, Vol. 94, Issue 1, pp. 154-162
  4. ↑ Winter Soldier Investigation: Opening Statement of William Crandell . In: The 1960s Project . Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia . January 31, 1971.
  5. ↑ tagesanzeiger.ch: Vietnam war criminal: "I feel remorse" ( Memento from August 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Calley, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Calley, William Laws Jr. (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American officer
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Miami , Florida