Colonel Recalls Being Ordered to Napalm Entire Village in Vietnam
The following event--an atrocity in Vietnam that was ordered by military brass--doesn't appear to have been reported in any other venue. The source is Colonel James Robert "Cotton" Hildreth, who offered his war recollections in the obscure book Salute to Veterans 1996: Oral Histories From Veterans and Their Relatives, edited by Mary Lewis Deans (North Carolina: Flatrock Books. Below is the relevant portion of his remembrances, titled "An Unacceptable Target."
One particular mission is as vivid in my memory now as the day it happened. I was leading a flight of two A-1s on an armed reconnaissance mission, but shortly after take-off we were diverted to a target on the coast of I Corps (northern quarter of South Vietnam.) On arriving in the target area, we contacted the FAC (forward air controller) who pointed out the target. It was a huge village of three or four hundred houses, probably twelve to fifteen hundred people. It was between the main north-south highway and the ocean, a pretty, clean village. I asked the FAC why the village was a target.
The FAC said, "That is a Vietcong village."
I said, "How do you know its a Vietcong village?"
He said, "Well we saw three Vietcong run in there."
Across the road from the village was a rice paddy.
He said, "We saw them run out of the rice paddy when we flew over, and they ran into the village."
I said, "And you want us to wipe out this whole village to get three Vietcong?" How do you know they were Vietcong? Were they armed?"
He said, "They had on black pajamas."
All of the farmers working in the fields had on black pajamas. That was their dress. And they carried tools like rakes and hoes.
He said, "They were armed."
I said, "How do you know they weren't carrying rakes and hoes?"
He said, "Don't argue with me. I've got the provincial governor in the back seat, and he says that is a Vietcong village."
I said, "Well, I'll go down and look around and see if I can draw any fire."
So we went down and flew over real low and slow. There were children in the courtyard, smiling and waving at us. This village had obviously been there for years, and it had never been touched. I pulled back up; and I said, "Okay, what are your instructions?"
He said, "The wind is blowing off-shore; so put your napalm down on that first row of houses, and the wind will carry the fire across the entire village."
So I said, ""Fine."
I pulled around and told my wingman to come in from one side and I would attack from the other. We would start our attack from opposite corners. I was coming in toward the corner hut. I looked up at the other end, and he had moved over the road and dropped his napalm on the road. As I approached my release point, a woman with a tiny baby strapped on her back, holding the hand of a small child three or four years old, came running from the hut. I pulled my aircraft over and dropped the napalm in a ditch beside the highway.
The FAC screamed and raised holy hell because he had this governor in the aircraft with him. He said, "You know I'm going to report you for this!"
I said, "You don't have to. I'll be on the ground before you are, and I'll report myself."
When we landed, my wingman walked over to my aircraft and said, "Sir, I have three small grandchildren, and I could never have faced them again if I had followed those orders." He said he didn't want to fly any more combat missions. Later, I had him transferred to a unit with an airborne command and control mission.
I went into Squadron Operations and called the Command Center at Seventh air Force and talked to the director, a brigadier general I had served with several years before. I told him what happened.
He said, "Damn, Cotton, don't you know what's going on? That village didn't pay their taxes. That lieutenant colonel, a provincial commander, is teaching them a lesson."
On returning from an interdiction mission several days later, we flew over the target area. The village had been totally destroyed. Nothing but a large, black, burned area remained. I'm sure when the FAC got a fast-mover (high-performance jet) on the target and destroyed the village the report read: Target 100 percent destroyed, body-count 1200 KBA (killed by air) confirmed.
I'm a grandfather now, and I can't watch my grandchildren at play or carry them in my arms without thinking of that village in Vietnam.
