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And now The Meal I Tapes,

the final part of our series about the Vietnam War,

which reveals the true extent of the cover-up by the US military

of The Meal I Massacre 40 years ago.

40 years ago, on the 16th of March 1968,

504 innocent Vietnamese civilians were killed by American soldiers

in what has become known as The Meal I Massacre.

The subsequent cover-up of both the killings and rapes

is one of the darkest episodes in US military history.

My name is Robert Hodearn,

and in the final part of this BBC World Service series,

The Meal I Tapes,

I'm going to play you never before broadcast testimonies

of the soldiers involved in The Massacre.

Only gradually did the details

of what really happened at Meal I filter out.

By the end of 1969,

the US Army Chief of Staff, General William Westmoreland,

and Secretary of the Army Stanley Reaser,

...