10 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About The Vietnam War

5. The US Is Often Blamed For The Incident Which Saw A Nine-Year-Old Girl Running Away From A Napalm Strike... But No American Was Involved In This Mission

This is one of the most infamous and iconic images of the entire Vietnam War and has regularly been used to condemn the American military for their conduct throughout the conflict - yet the US had zero involvement in this mission. American television replayed the napalm strikes on Trang Bang and nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running away naked and screaming countless times - but the Americans have no involvement in the mission at all. In fact, it was the Vietnam Air Force who burned Trang Bang with napalm after dropping the chemical weapon in order to support South Vietnamese ground troops in the area. The pilot who dropped the napalm was eventually given asylum in the US - but he was actually Vietnamese. Nick Ut, the AP photographer who captured the image and then won countless prizes for it, was also Vietnamese. It was an atrocity committed by allies of the Americans, but the US themselves were not directly responsible for this napalm strike.