Mark Edward Harris: Let’s go back to the morning of June 8, 1972.

Nick Ut: I left Saigon around seven A.M. by car and arrived outside of Trang Bang around 7:30 A.M. During the war, I traveled up and down Highway 1 all the time. There were no traffic lights on the highway back then. It was a very dangerous drive. The Viet Cong were hiding everywhere. After the Americans and South Vietnamese military shot the Viet Cong, they would leave dead bodies by the side of the road as a warning to not join or assist the Vietcong. Some Viet Cong were very young—15 years old.

June 8, 1972, was the second day of heavy fighting around Trang Bang. As I drove up there, I saw thousands of refugees coming down the road. I was an Associated Press photographer and there were many other media there that day—ABC News, CBS, BBC. More than 10 cameramen were there.

In the morning, there was very heavy fighting and bombing in the village, so some of the media left before they dropped the napalm because they thought they had gotten enough material. They dropped the napalm around 12:30 P.M.

What camera equipment did you bring with you that day?

I had four cameras: two Nikons and two Leicas, and 24-mm., 35-mm., 50-mm., 105-mm., 200-mm., and 300-mm. lenses. Forty years ago, you needed to carry around a lot of lenses. It’s not like now where we have very sharp and fast zoom lenses. I had around 50 rolls of Tri-X film and some color negative film and a couple of rolls of slide film.

When I first saw the napalm explosion, I didn’t think there were any civilians in the village. Four napalm bombs were dropped. In the previous two days, thousands of refugees had already fled the village. Then I started to see people come out of the fireball and smoke. I picked up my Nikon camera with a 300mm and started shooting. As they got closer I switched to my Leica. First there was a grandmother carrying a baby who died in front of my camera. Then I saw through the viewfinder of my Leica, the naked girl running. I thought, “Oh my God. What happened? The girl has no clothes.” I kept shooting with my Leica M2 with my 35-mm. f2 lens. That camera is now in the Newseum in Washington.

I took almost a roll of Tri-x film of her then I saw her skin coming off and I stopped taking pictures. I didn’t want her to die. I wanted to help her. I put my cameras down on the road. We poured water over this young girl. Her name was Kim Phuc. She kept yelling “nóng quá” (Too hot). We were all in shock.

Her uncle [asked if I would take all the children to the hospital]. I knew she would die soon if I didn’t help. I immediately said, “Yes.” Kim kept screaming, “I’m dying! I’m dying!” Her body was burned so badly. All her tears were coming out. I was sure she was going to die any minute in my car. When we arrived at the hospital in Cu Chi, nobody wanted to help her because there were so many wounded soldiers and civilians already there. The local hospital was too small. They asked me, “Can you take all the children to the hospital in Saigon?” I said, “No. She’s going to die any minute right here.” I showed them my AP media pass and said, “If one of them dies you’ll be in trouble.” Then they brought Kim Phuc inside first because she was so badly wounded. Then I went back to develop my film at the AP office in Saigon.