The My Canh Girl
One of the most searing phographs from the Vietnam War is the terrifying image of a badly injured child being rescued by a man in civilian clothes after Viet Cong terrorists bombed the My Canh restaurant in Saigon on June 25, 1965. Symbolic of the war’s innocent civilian casualties, the picture appeared in several newspapers and a military publication, but later was overshadowed by the dramatic photograph of the “Napalm Girl,” a running 9-year-old child who had ripped the clothing off her burning skin after napalm bombs from a South Vietnamese air force plane struck her village on June 8, 1972. That photograph was shown on the front page of The New York Times. The My Canh photo was not in the Times.
The graphic My Canh photo was on the cover of a 16-page pamphlet issued by the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office to focus attention and fix blame on the Viet Cong “atrocity,” a double bombing of the floating restaurant on the Saigon River. Total casualties exceeded 100, and the public affairs office listed more than 20 Americans killed or wounded.
The incident received extensive media coverage, with many photos of the carnage. However, relatively few people saw the military pamphlet, which had 17 pictures, including one showing a hospital visit by U.S. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, seen comforting the toddler who was on the cover and incorrectly identified as a small boy.
about the My Canh
