🔗 Share this article

One of some of the most famous photographs of modern history shows a naked young girl, her limbs extended, her face twisted in pain, her flesh blistered and raw. She is fleeing toward the lens while fleeing an airstrike during the Vietnam War. To her side, additional kids also run from the destroyed hamlet in the area, against a scene of black clouds along with troops.

This Worldwide Influence of an Seminal Image

Shortly after its release in the early 1970s, this photograph—officially called "The Terror of War"—evolved into an analog phenomenon. Witnessed and debated by countless people, it is generally credited with galvanizing worldwide views against the US war in Southeast Asia. One noted critic later commented that this profoundly indelible photograph of the child Kim Phúc in distress possibly had a greater impact to heighten public revulsion against the war compared to a hundred hours of broadcast atrocities. A legendary British documentarian who documented the fighting described it the most powerful photograph from what would later be called “The Television War”. Another veteran combat photographer declared that the picture represents simply put, a pivotal photographs ever made, especially from that conflict.

A Long-Standing Claim and a Recent Assertion

For 53 years, the photograph was attributed to the work of Huynh Cong “Nick” Út, a then-21-year-old local photojournalist working for a major news agency in Saigon. But a disputed recent film on a streaming service claims that the famous photograph—long considered as the apex of combat photography—was actually taken by another person at the location in the village.

According to the investigation, "Napalm Girl" was actually captured by a stringer, who sold the images to the AP. The assertion, and the film’s subsequent inquiry, originates with a former editor Carl Robinson, who states how the influential editor directed the staff to alter the image’s credit from the original photographer to the staff photographer, the sole employed photographer present that day.

This Quest to find the Truth

Robinson, currently elderly, contacted an investigator in 2022, requesting support in finding the unknown photographer. He stated that, if he was still living, he hoped to offer a regret. The journalist considered the freelance photojournalists he had met—comparing them to modern freelancers, who, like independent journalists in that era, are often ignored. Their contributions is often questioned, and they operate in far tougher circumstances. They have no safety net, no long-term security, they don’t have support, they usually are without good equipment, making them extremely at risk while photographing in their own communities.

The filmmaker asked: Imagine the experience for the individual who made this iconic picture, if indeed it wasn't Nick Út?” From a photographic perspective, he imagined, it must be profoundly difficult. As an observer of the craft, specifically the celebrated combat images of Vietnam, it might be reputation-threatening, maybe reputation-threatening. The hallowed heritage of the image in the community is such that the creator whose parents fled during the war was reluctant to take on the project. He expressed, I hesitated to challenge the established story that Nick had taken the image. I also feared to disturb the current understanding of a community that always admired this accomplishment.”

This Search Progresses

However the two the filmmaker and the creator concluded: it was worth posing the inquiry. As members of the press must hold others in the world,” said one, “we have to be able to ask difficult questions of ourselves.”

The investigation follows the journalists as they pursue their inquiry, including eyewitness interviews, to public appeals in modern the city, to reviewing records from related materials taken that day. Their work lead to a candidate: a freelancer, employed by a television outlet during the attack who occasionally sold photographs to foreign agencies on a freelance basis. As shown, an emotional the man, like others elderly and living in California, claims that he handed over the image to the agency for $20 and a print, only to be haunted by the lack of credit for decades.

The Reaction and Ongoing Investigation

The man comes across in the footage, thoughtful and calm, however, his claim turned out to be explosive among the field of war photography. {Days before|Shortly prior to