The
Mỹ Lai Massacre ( , ; , , or ) was the
Vietnam War mass killing of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in
South Vietnam on March 16, 1968. It was committed by U.S. Army soldiers from the
Company C of the 1st
Battalion,
20th Infantry Regiment,
11th Brigade of the
23rd (Americal) Infantry Division. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated. Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant
William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence, but served only three and a half years under
house arrest.