Who took Napalm Girl photograph? Doc explores alleged AP coverup of Vietnam’s most horrifying picture

It is likely one of the most visceral conflict pictures of all time: A unadorned, crying 9-year-old woman, her arms outstretched and her face contorted with ache within the aftermath of a napalm assault.

Behind her loom troopers, whereas she is surrounded by the wailing faces of 4 different fleeing youngsters, your entire sky behind them blotted out by thick black smoke.

It’s hailed as probably the most well-known picture of the Vietnam battle and gained a Pulitzer Prize following publication in 1972 for photographer “Nick” Huynh Cong Ut.

But a documentary now claims the Associated Press has been deceived about who took the body for over 50 years.

Adding gasoline to the film’s theories, it was nominated for 4 News & Documentary Emmy Awards, together with “Outstanding Investigative Documentary,” this yr.

There is not any query Ut was on the scene and taking pictures footage of the woman in query, later revealed to be named Phan Thị Kim Phúc, now 63.

But Netflix documentary “The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo” alleges it was really a contract photographer named Nguyễn Thành Nghe who took the famed photograph, and he was paid simply $20 as a “stringer” by the company for submitting his footage.

The documentary claims Horst Faas, the AP’s photograph director in Saigon, acknowledged the photograph’s iconic potential and insisted it’s falsely credited to Ut, so the company and their workers photographer would take all of the credit score.

The photograph, formally referred to as “Terror of War,” was taken round seven years after US floor troops began preventing within the conflict on June 8, 1972. South Vietnamese troopers had napalmed the village of Trảng Bàng, considering North Vietnamese troops had been hiding in it, however as a substitute hit civilians on their very own aspect.

Phúc was fleeing, her again burning from the after-effects of the chemical bombing.

Underscoring the body’s impression, a voiceover in “The Stringer” states, “It was such a shocking image that it has seared itself into the collective consciousness of the American people.”

Ut was simply 21 on the time and was working for AP in Saigon, following within the footsteps of his older brother, who additionally took photographs for the wire service and had been killed within the battle in 1965. Another brother, who was within the navy, died in fight as effectively.

Ut maintains that, with out query, he took the image.

“These accusations strike at the very core of who I am. My entire career has been built on telling the truth, often at great personal risk,” he stated in a public assertion this yr. 

Questions first emerged in December 2022 when Gary Knight, producer of “The Stringer” and a extremely regarded photojournalist, was contacted by Carl Robinson, a former photograph editor within the AP Saigon workplace.

Robinson, round 80 on the time, said Nick Ut didn’t take the “Napalm Girl” photograph, as it’s colloquially recognized.

“It was weighing on my shoulders for all those years,” he instructed The Post. “I had flashbacks every time the picture would appear. When the 50th anniversary came around in 2022, it was all over the news. I really wanted to tell Nghe that I was sorry.”

Robinson was working underneath Faas in ’72. He claimed his take-charge boss ordered him to change the photograph credit score earlier than the picture — which Robinson initially feared could be unpublishable because it depicted a unadorned baby — went out over the wire to newspapers around the globe.

“I looked over my shoulder, [toward] the notebook where all the film had been logged in, to get the stringer’s name,” Robinson added.

“That’s when Horst leaned down into my right ear and said, ‘Make it Nick Ut.’”

Robinson, who didn’t wish to cross Faas, instructed The Post he did as he was instructed.

In a 2019 article revealed within the Australian Financial Review, Robinson wrote he “hated that damn photo editor’s job at AP and wanted to quit.”

He additionally references that “opium allowed me to accept the way things were” and that he “came back to work in the afternoon stoned … [before] the late afternoon workload sobered everyone up.” Robinson instructed The Post that he was not underneath the affect of medication that day.

Nghe’s photographs could have been purchased by AP however he had been working as a driver for an NBC information crew on the fateful day. He says he took the photographs because the woman and a boy got here working down the highway.

Asked which photograph is his, Nghe says within the doc, “The one with the naked girl whose clothes were burned. Nick Ut came with me on the assignment, but he did not take that photo. He just took some photos from afar. That photo was mine.”

Nghe had been working for NBC, which was positioned subsequent to AP’s workplaces. He has claimed he submitted his photographs to AP and was paid shortly after and given a print of what got here to be referred to as “Napalm Girl.” Not questioning issues additional, he added, “I took the $20 and took the other guys for a drink and that was it.”

AP’s workplace supervisor in command of funds on the time, Tu Tran Pease, disputes this model of occasions.

Decades later, his perspective modified. Nghe, who now lives in California, said within the doc, “I worked hard for it. But that guy [Ut] got to have it all. He got the recognition. He got the rewards.”

In the documentary, Nghe’s members of the family preserve he steadily talked about having taken the photograph. It is alleged his spouse, upset by the subject material of it, tore up his authentic print.

Ut didn’t cooperate with the documentary and has launched a defamation lawsuit towards Netflix and Knight in a French courtroom, claiming he’s being defamed by the film.

“It accuses Nick of having built his reputation and fame on a picture he knew he didn’t take. That he built his reputation fraudulently, that’s the essence of the defamation,” Ut’s lawyer, James Hornstein, instructed The Post. The trial is scheduled to begin in Feb. 2027.

Haas died in 2012. Another photographer who was on the scene on the identical time, David Burnett, has lengthy claimed Ut took the image.

“It was chaotic and it was loopy. But I’ve a strong reminiscence of what occurred that day, and I see Nick take the image.

“I have nothing but sympathy for what Mr. Nghe and his family went through. But they’ve done nothing to prove that he shot the picture. What they’ve tried to do is prove that Nick did not shoot it,” Burnett instructed The Post.

The AP launched their very own investigation. It discovered that though Ut has all the time claimed the picture was taken with a Leica digital camera, the photograph was really extra possible taken with a Pentax, the model Nghe was utilizing on the time.

However, AP famous Ut additionally carried a Pentax digital camera with him. His lawyer claims it was Haas who instructed him it was a Leica print.

The investigation discovered solely two adverse photographs from the movie roll in its archive, however stated this was normal process on the time. It concluded the image may have been shot by Ut, however couldn’t conclusively show it. Robinson declined to talk with AP for the investigation.

“The AP has concluded that there is not the definitive evidence required by AP’s standards to change the credit of the 53-year-old photograph,” the report states.

However, the World Press Photo Foundation has suspended Ut’s credit score for the photograph.

Part of the proof filed by Ut’s legal professional with the courtroom in France is a sworn declaration by Pease sustaining that on June 8, 1972 and the next day, “No stringer was paid for the ‘Terror of War’ [aka, “Napalm Girl”] photograph … If that had occurred, I used to be the one who saved the money readily available, and I used to be the individual at AP who needed to make the fee.”

As for Phúc, the woman within the photograph, she was taken to a close-by hospital — by Ut himself, in some tellings. The two have since turn into pals. Although she has undergone many remedies to her wounds, Phúc nonetheless bares scars throughout her again and arm from the assault.

She studied in Cuba and married in 1992, and is now a mom of two who lives close to Toronto along with her husband.