HISTORY IN IMAGES: Pictures Of War, History , WW2: AMAZING VIDEO: Napalm attack on Vietnamese villagers

In the clip below is shown Vietnamese children burnt by Napalm bomb, dropped mistakenly by South Vietnamese planes on a village near Saigon. Gruesome stuff.

I wonder how could some one make such a stupid mistake.

The Vietnamese villagers suffered for no fault of theirs. The poor old lady running around clutching that little boy in her arms, probably dead. Who is responsible. That stupid South Vietnamese pilot? Or the US? May be the US was fighting for a noble cause. Spreading democracy. But why should that poor Vietnamese villagers suffer? They did not ask for it. It is the always the common people who suffer.

Sad.

THE NAPALM ATTACK: PERSONAL ACCOUNT

Vietnamese photographer Nick Ut describes the day in June 1972 when he photographed a nine-year-old girl, Kim Phuc, fleeing her village after a napalm attack - a picture that won him a Pulitzer prize.

The picture shows Kim, when her skin is burned so badly.

Behind Kim, you see all the South Vietnamese armies running with her, together.

And next to Kim, her older brother and one young brother looking back to the black smoke, and another two [members of] her family.

She looked ever so bad - I thought that she would die.

You know, I had been outside the village that morning and I took a lot of pictures. I was almost leaving the village when I saw two aeroplanes.

The first dropped four bombs and the second aeroplane dropped another four napalm [bombs].

Water

And five minutes later, I saw people running, calling "Help! Please help!"

Listen to Nick Ut
As soon as she saw me, she said: "I want some water, I'm too hot, too hot," - in Vietnamese, "Nong qua, nong qua!"

And she wanted something to drink. I got her some water. She drank it and I told her I would help her.

I picked up Kim and took her to my car. I ran up about 10 miles to Cu Chi hospital, to try to save her life.

At the hospital, there were so many Vietnamese people - soldiers were dying there. They didn't care about the children.

Then I told them: "I am a media reporter, please help her, I don't want her to die."

And the people helped her right away.

Source: BBC

Points To Ponder

WHY WAS THE FIGHTING ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT SO FIERCE DURING WW2?

It is difficult to distinguish between the quality of both the German and Russian soldiers. Both were motivated by their love for their motherland. But there were others factors that drove the two sides to such desperate fighting.

One, both sides knew that this was a no-holds bar war. Not fighting was thus not an option.

Second, both Hitler and Stalin had squads that killed any deserter. Turning away from fighting was just not possible.

Thus was seen some of the most bitter, brutal and desperate fighting on the WW2 eastern (Russian) Front.

Quotes....

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
--Hermann Goering