KIM PHUC PHAN THI

Vietnam War ‘napalm girl’ Kim Phuc Phan Thi: ‘I hated that photo, but the world needed to see it’

A nine-year-old Vietnamese girl was the subject of one of the most horrifying war photographs ever taken. Fifty years on, she reveals what happened next, and how she has learnt to live with being the ‘napalm girl’

The Pulitzer prizewinning picture of Kim Phuc, taken by Nick Ut, who saved her life
The Pulitzer prizewinning picture of Kim Phuc, taken by Nick Ut, who saved her life
NICK UT/AP
The Sunday Times

I grew up in the small village of Trang Bang in South Vietnam. My mother said I laughed a lot as a young girl. We led a simple life with an abundance of food, since my family had a farm and my mom ran the best restaurant in town. I remember loving school and playing with my cousins and the other children in our village. All that changed on June 8, 1972. I have only flashes of memories of that horrific day. I was playing with my cousins in the temple courtyard. The next moment, there was a plane swooping down close and a deafening noise. Then explosions and smoke and excruciating pain. I was nine years old.

Napalm sticks to you, no matter how