Napalm Attack

I have already covered this event before, and Nick Ut’s photo I posted back then was the definitive photo of the event. However, I just recently came across other photos in the series and became instantly intrigued. Although they were not seen in the most famous photo, there are other photographers in the background trying to take the picture (one of them was David Burnett, who missed the famous scene because he was changing his film).

The photographers were of course to cover the Battle of Trang Bang. The first photo, in all its hazy demonic fire, showed the moment when napalm bombs were fired. The second photo was the shot. The third photo was taken moments after, as you can see by the distance from the billboards on the right. The crying girl had stopped crying; two children running together had sort of split up and veered to the left while the little kid at the back was now wayback, having either stopped running or turned back. The runners either overtook the photographers, or the photgraphers arrived from the righthand side, where there is a big commotion.

In the last photo, there was ITN reporter Christopher Wain who captured the scene on video.

Liked it? Take a second to support Iconic Photos on Patreon!