Hugh Thompson Jr.

During the massacre, Thompson and his Hiller OH-23 Raven crew, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn, stopped a number of killings by threatening and blocking American officers and enlisted soldiers of Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division.

Additionally, Thompson and his crew saved a number of Vietnamese civilians by personally escorting them away from advancing United States Army ground units and assuring their evacuation by air.

Thompson reported the atrocities by radio several times while at Sơn Mỹ.

Although these reports reached Task Force Barker operational headquarters, nothing was done to stop the massacre.

After evacuating a child to a Quảng Ngãi hospital, Thompson angrily reported to his superiors at Task Force Barker headquarters that a massacre was occurring at Sơn Mỹ.

Immediately following Thompson's report, Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker ordered all ground units in Sơn Mỹ to cease search and destroy operations in the village.

Thompson's brother and only sibling, Tommie Norman Thompson, was born in 1938 and served in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War.

Thompson was a member of the Boy Scouts of America and his family was actively involved in the Episcopal Church.

Hugh Clowers Thompson Sr. educated his children to act with discipline and integrity.

The Thompson family denounced racism and ethnic discrimination in the United States and assisted many ethnic minority families in their community.

Coming from a working-class family, Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. plowed fields and later worked as an assistant for a funeral mortuary to support his family during his adolescence.

Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. (April 15, 1943 – January 6, 2006) was a United States Army officer, serving as a warrant officer in the 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Division.

Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. was born on April 15, 1943, in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, to Wessie and Hugh Clowers Thompson.

His family is from the Province of Georgia and Great Britain.

He identified his paternal grandmother as being of Cherokee descent.

Hugh Clowers Thompson Sr. was an electrician and served in the United States Navy during the Second World War.

In 1946, the Thompson family relocated from Atlanta to Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Thompson graduated from Stone Mountain High School on June 5, 1961.

Following graduation, Thompson enlisted in the United States Navy and served in a naval mobile construction battalion at Naval Air Station Atlanta, Georgia, as a heavy equipment operator.

Thompson married Palma Baughman in 1963.

In 1964, Thompson received an honorable discharge from the Navy and returned to Stone Mountain to live a quiet life and raise a family with his wife.

He studied mortuary science and became a licensed funeral director.

When the Vietnam War began, Thompson felt obliged to return to military service.

In 1966, Thompson enlisted in the United States Army and completed the Warrant Officer Flight Program training at Fort Wolters, Texas, and Fort Rucker, Alabama.

In late-December 1967, at the age of 25, Thompson was ordered to Vietnam and assigned to Company B, 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Division.

He is credited with ending the Mỹ Lai Massacre of the South Vietnamese village known as Sơn Mỹ on March 16, 1968, alongside and hierarchically above Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn.

On March 16, 1968, Thompson and his Hiller OH-23 Raven observation helicopter crew, Lawrence Colburn (gunner) and Glenn Andreotta (crew chief), were ordered to support Task Force Barker's search and destroy operations in Sơn Mỹ, Quảng Ngãi Province, South Vietnam.

Song My Village was composed of four hamlets, Mỹ Lai, Mỹ Khê, Cổ Lũy and Tư Cung, and was suspected by the United States Army Military Intelligence Corps to be a Viet Cong stronghold.

Army intelligence concerning the presence of Viet Cong in Sơn Mỹ was inaccurate, however, and the village's population was predominately composed of neutral, unarmed rice-farming families.

Reconnaissance aircraft, including Thompson's OH-23 crew, flew over the Sơn Mỹ vicinity but received no enemy fire.

At 07:24, without validating intelligence reports, the United States Army shelled Sơn Mỹ, killing many Vietnamese civilians.

Following the shelling, Company C (Charlie Company), 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment of Task Force Barker, led by Captain Ernest Medina, moved into Sơn Mỹ.

In 1970, Thompson testified against those responsible for the Mỹ Lai Massacre.

Twenty-six officers and enlisted soldiers, including William Calley and Ernest Medina, were charged with criminal offenses; many were either acquitted or pardoned, notably excepting Calley, who was convicted and never pardoned.

Thompson was condemned and ostracized by many individuals in the United States military and government, as well as the public, for his role in the investigations and trials concerning the Mỹ Lai massacre.

As a result of what he experienced, Thompson experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, divorce, and severe nightmare disorder.

Despite the adversity he faced, he remained in the United States Army until November 1, 1983, then continued to make a living as a helicopter pilot in the Southeastern United States.

In 1998, 30 years after the massacre, Thompson and the two other members of his crew, Andreotta and Colburn, were awarded the Soldier's Medal (Andreotta posthumously), the United States Army's highest award for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy.

Thompson and Colburn returned to Sơn Mỹ to meet with survivors of the massacre at the Sơn Mỹ Memorial in 1998.

In 1999, Thompson and Colburn received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award.