A former US army helicopter pilot honoured for rescuing Vietnamese civilians from his fellow troops during the My Lai massacre has died aged 62.
Mr Hugh Thompson, whose role in the 1968 massacre did not become widely known until decades later, died at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Alexandria.
The Mai Lai massacre became one of the pivotal events as opposition to the war was growing in the United States.
Early in the morning of March 16, 1968, Mr Thompson, door-gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Glenn Andreotta came upon US ground troops killing Vietnamese civilians in and around the village of My Lai.
They landed the helicopter in the line of fire between American troops and fleeing Vietnamese civilians. Thompson ordered his men to shoot the US soldiers if they continued killing civilians.
Mr Colburn and Mr Andreotta provided cover for Mr Thompson as he went forward to confront the leader of the US forces. Thompson later coaxed civilians out of a bunker so they could be evacuated, and then landed his helicopter again to pick up a wounded child they transported to a hospital. Their efforts led to the cease-fire order at My Lai.
Lt. William L. Calley, a platoon leader, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the killings, but then-President Nixon reduced his sentence to just three years house arrest.
Author Seymour Hersh won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for his expose of the massacre in 1969 while working as a freelance journalist.
Mr Hersh called Thompson "one of the good guys."
"You can't imagine what courage it took to do what he did," Hersh said.
Mr Thompson's role in ending the massacre wasn't widely known until the late 1980s, when David Egan, a professor emeritus at Clemson University, saw an interview in a documentary and launched a letter-writing campaign that eventually led to the awarding of the medals in 1998.
The three men were awarded the Soldier's Medal, the highest US miltiary award for bravery when not confronting an enemy.
Mr Andreotta's award was posthumous as he was killed in Vietnam less than a month after My Lai.
For years Mr Thompson was shunned by fellow soldiers and received death threats over his actions. One congressman famously remarked that Thompson should be the only serviceman who should be punished over the massacre.
Mr Colburn was at his side when he died.
AP