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Today in Focus

Who really took one of history’s most famous pictures?

Today in Focus

The Guardian

Daily News, News

4.65.9K Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The photo of a Vietnamese girl running away from a napalm strike is one of the most famous in history. But who actually took it? With conflict photographers Gary Knight and David Burnett, and film-maker Bao Nguyen. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is The Guardian.

0:41.8

Today, the mystery behind two really took one of history's most famous photographs. Thanks. It's a terrifying photograph of a group of children running down a road in Vietnam away from a temple that is consumed by black smoke from a napalm attack. Gary Knight has been a conflict photographer

0:50.0

for over three decades. He's worked all over the world, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, covering war

0:57.5

and the scars it leaves behind. He understands the power of an image to tell a story,

1:04.0

but we were here to talk to him about one photo, taken more than 50 years ago, that could be

1:10.6

the most powerful war photograph of all time.

1:13.6

And at the centre of the photograph is a nine-year-old girl, and on the left is her brother and on the right cousin.

1:20.6

The little girl in the middle of the photograph is running down the road towards the camera,

1:25.6

and she's screaming in pain and in terror.

1:30.0

She's also naked. Her clothes have been burnt off by the napalm that's just been dropped on the

1:35.6

village behind her, which is now engulfed in thick, black clouds of smoke.

1:41.4

It's a photograph that really represents the suffering of innocent civilians.

1:47.8

A nine-year-old child, you know, nothing is more innocent in war than that, right?

1:52.8

This photo became an iconic image of war almost as soon as it was published in June

1:58.0

1972. Within a day, it was on the front page of the New York Times

2:03.0

and in nearly every Western newspaper and magazine shortly afterwards. In many ways, it became

2:09.7

one of the lasting images of the war to the world, right? And it becomes ingrained in our community

2:16.8

of like what happened there.

2:19.3

This is filmmaker Baunwen. He grew up the son of Vietnamese refugees in the US.

2:24.3

My parents lived in Guangxi, which is near the 17th parallel, which saw some of the most intense fighting.

2:31.3

My father was a soldier. And my mom was around the same age

2:36.0

that Kim Fook was in the photograph.

...

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