"It is one of the most recognizable photographs of the 20th century: a naked girl arms wide, face contorted, skin scorched and peeling running toward the camera as she flees a napalm attack in South Vietnam. To her right, a boy's face is frozen in a Greek tragedy mask of pain. To her left, two other Vietnamese children run away from the bombed village of Trang Bang. Behind them, an indistinguishable group of soldiers and, behind them, a wall of black smoke."
"Within hours of publication in June 1972, the photo, officially titled The Terror of War but colloquially known as Napalm Girl, went the analog version of viral; seen and discussed by millions of people around the world, it's widely credited with galvanizing public opinion against the US war in Vietnam. Susan Sontag later wrote that the horrifically indelible image of nine-year-old Kim Phuc in distress probably did more to increase the public revulsion against the war than a hundred hours of televised barbarities."
The photograph shows a naked nine-year-old Kim Phuc running with arms wide, skin burned, flanked by other fleeing children and soldiers amid black smoke after a napalm attack in Trang Bang. Publication in June 1972 made the image globally visible and helped galvanize public opposition to the US war in Vietnam. The photograph was credited for 53 years to Huynh Cong Nick Ut and brought him a Pulitzer and international acclaim. Influential commentators called it among the most important war photographs. A recent Netflix documentary, The Stringer, contends that a freelance stringer, not Ut, actually took the image.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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