Iconic Pictures Of Vietnam

For 10 years the war in Vietnam dominated the news headlines in America and around the world.

Proclaimed by successive presidents as a stand against the spread of communism, the US flooded the Republic of South Vietnam with money, arms and men.

Their aim was to defeat the communist north, led by Ho Chi Minh, and free the people of Vietnam from a perceived tyranny.

From a journalist?s perspective, especially a photo-journalist, the war in Vietnam was unique.

With virtually unrestricted access to the battle fields many photographers came to depict war in a way never seen before or since.

Despite the technology, this was a guerrilla war with much of the fighting at close quarters, allowing intense moments to be recorded on film.

The plan failed. Despite a peak of over 500,000 US troops in the country, by 1973 the US halted offensive operations and later in the year withdrew all combat troops, ending the longest war in its history.

Military advisers remained for a further two years as the Republic of South Vietnam fought on. Finally on 30 April 1975 North Vietnamese tanks entered the presidential palace in Saigon, bringing the war to an end.

From a journalists perspective, especially a photo-journalist, the war in Vietnam was unique.

With virtually unrestricted access to the battle fields many photographers came to depict war in a way never seen before or since.

Despite the technology, this was a guerrilla war with much of the fighting at close quarters, allowing intense moments to be recorded on film.

This meant risk; over 135 photographers from all sides are recorded as dead or missing.

Here AP photographer Huynh Thanh My covers a Vietnamese battalion pinned down in a Mekong Delta rice paddy about a month before he was killed in combat on 10 October 1965.

But it was also a war where images changed public opinion - images such as this by Nic Ut of nine-year-old Kim Phuc.

On 8 June 1972 a South Vietnamese aircraft accidentally dropped its napalm payload on the village of Trang Bang.

With her clothes on fire, Kim Phuc ran out of the village with her family to be airlifted to hospital.

She survived and now lives in Canada.

Perhaps the most recognised picture from the war is this by Eddie Adams.

It shows the South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong officer with a single shot to the head.

Photographs do not tell the whole truth, however. The prisoner had just killed at least eight people, which is what led Gen Loan to carry out the execution.

The image was to change the public perception of the war and haunted Gen Loan until his death.

This was the first helicopter war.

Troops could be rapidly moved to anywhere in the country, ensuring the amount of combat seen by soldiers during a year?s tour was far higher than during World War II.

This picture of US Army helicopters pouring machine gun fire into the tree line during an attack on a Viet Cong camp near the Cambodian border is like a scene from a Hollywood film...

..but close up the "glamour" of war is stripped away.

A wounded paratrooper of the 101st Airborne guides a medical evacuation helicopter through the jungle foliage to pick up casualties during a five-day patrol of Hue, South Vietnam, in 1968.

In this picture by Huynh Thanh My, a Viet Cong suspect undergoes interrogation by South Vietnamese soldiers in the Mekong Delta.

The bodies of US Marines lie half buried on Hill 689, west of Khe Sanh, in 1968. The siege at Khe Sanh was one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the war.

Nearly 60,000 US soldiers died in Vietnam with over 300,000 injured.

For the Vietnamese, though, the figure was far higher with estimates of over half a million killed and many millions wounded.

Protest against the war was widespread in the US and indeed elsewhere.

In America, there were large demonstrations across the country - and even cadets on parade could not expect to be ignored.

With the US pullout in 1973 many prisoners of war were released.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert L Stirm is met by his family at a military base in California on his return from Vietnam. The smiles say it all.

The war continued for another two years.

As the end draws near, this woman carries her wounded daughter away from the fighting.

On 30 April 1975 soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army entered Saigon, in the south of Vietnam, capturing the presidential palace and assuming control of the country.

The last remaining American millitary scrambled to safety from their embassy roof.

Many of those who worked closely with the US feared for their lives, but many more flooded the streets to see the tanks take up their positions.

Article from BBC