~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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America's elite Tiger Force 'slaughtered civilians in Vietnam'

LOS ANGELES - An elite American military unit killed and mutilated hundreds of unarmed civilians, tortured prisoners and severed ears and scalps for souvenirs during the Vietnam war, according to a newspaper investigation.

The unit, Tiger Force, was sent on a six-month spying operation in areas controlled by the North Vietnamese. Members of the unit have revealed details of a rampage that began in May 1967 in which they dropped grenades into bunkers where villagers, including women and children, were hiding. Details of the unit's activities surfaced after an eight-month investigation by an American newspaper, The Blade, in Toledo, Ohio, that interviewed all but two of the unit's surviving members as well as Vietnamese witnesses. It also reviewed thousands of recently declassified documents.

If accounts of the atrocities are accurate, it would be one of the worst documented cases of war crimes committed by American soldiers. One member of the unit, William Doyle, a former sergeant, said he had killed so many civilians that he had lost count. "We didn't expect to live. Nobody out there with any brains expected to live," he said.

"The way to live is to kill because you don't have to worry about anybody who's dead." The newspaper found that the army had investigated Tiger Force for four and a half years and identified 18 soldiers who committed war crimes. The investigation's findings were sent to the defence secretary in 1975 and reports on its progress were passed on to the White House but no charges were filed. The soldiers who were under suspicion of committing war crimes were instead allowed to resign, it is alleged.

The official inquiry found 27 soldiers in the 45-man paratrooper unit who said the severing of ears from dead Vietnamese was routine. "There was a period when just about everyone had a necklace of ears," said Larry Cottingham, the platoon medic. The allegations include an incident in which the unit's field commander, Lt James Hawkins, shot dead an elderly carpenter who was pleading for his life.

Two soldiers who tried to stop the attacks were warned by their superiors to stay quiet and were then transferred to another unit. Vietnamese who witnessed the attacks told The Blade that they had dug dozens of mass graves. The atrocities were carried out the year before the infamous My Lai massacre in which an army unit killed around 500 civilians.

The Pentagon said yesterday it had no plans to re-open the investigation into the allegations.

By Oliver Poole - The telegraph (.uk) - October 21, 2003.


US defends Vietnam war crime probe

The United States Army says it acted properly in dropping an investigation into alleged war crimes by an elite army unit during the Vietnam war. Members of the unit are accused of killing and mutilating large numbers of civilians. A US army spokesman says it is looking into statements by veterans of the unit who were quoted by an Ohio newspaper, Toledo Blade, as admitting to having killed civilians.

The newspaper reported that hundreds of civilians were killed over a seven-month period in 1967 by the 101st Airborne Division's Tiger Force unit in the central highlands of South Vietnam. The army spokesman says an official investigation, which was opened in 1971, found evidence of some 20 war crimes. He says commanders concluded there was insufficient evidence to successfully try the case before a court martial and the investigation was closed in 1975 with no charges being laid.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation - October 21, 2003.