William Calley, who led the My Lai massacre that shamed US military in Vietnam, has died

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — William L. Calley Jr., who as an Army lieutenant led the U.S. soldiers who killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre, the most notorious war crime in modern American military history, has died. He was 80.

Calley died on April 28 at a hospice center in Gainesville, Florida, The Washington Post reported Monday, citing his death certificate. The Florida Department of Health in Alachua County didn’t immediately respond to Associated Press requests for confirmation.

Calley had lived in obscurity in the decades since he was court-martialed and convicted in 1971, the only one of 25 men originally charged to be found guilty in the Vietnam War massacre.

On March 16, 1968, Calley led American soldiers of the Charlie Company on a mission to confront a crack outfit of their Vietcong enemies. Instead, over several hours, the soldiers killed 504 unresisting civilians, mostly women, children and elderly men, in My Lai and a neighboring community.

The men were angry: Two days earlier, a booby trap had killed a sergeant, blinded a GI and wounded several others while Charlie Company was on patrol.

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