In the 1950's the United States began to send troops to Vietnam. During the following 25-years the ensuing war would create some of the strongest tensions in US history. Almost 3 million US men and women were sent thousands of miles to fight for what was a questionable cause. In total, it is estimated that over 2,5 million people on both sides were killed.
This site does not try to document the entire history of the Vietnam War, but is intended as a picture essay illustrating some of the incredible conditions under which soldiers from both sides lived, fought, played and ultimately died. The legendary combat photographer, Tim Page, took almost all of the images shown on this site and they are nothing short of stunning.
Please be advised that strict copyright laws protect this site and under no circumstances may any images be copied or used. Copyright use of the images are handled by Corbis. Please see the acknowledgment section for more details about the pictures and this site. And finally, NO!, I cannot give anyone permission to use the images, they are the property of the photographers or their publishers.
Finally, if you have come here to ONLY look at blood and gore you have come to the wrong place, a soldiers facial expression can be just as terrifying. For much of Vietnam's history it has been under foreign rule, primarily by the Chinese. In 1860, France began its domination of the area and had, by the late 19th century, implemented its colonization in a number of regions around the Gulf of Tonkin. During WWII, the Japanese government took control of much of the area and set up a puppet regime that was eventually forced out by the Vietnamese at the end of that war in 1945.
After WWII and until 1955, France fought hard to regain their former territories in the region, but with a poorly organized army and little determination among the troops, their efforts soon collapsed. The French were finally defeated at Dien Bien Phu on the 8th of May 1954 by the communist general Vo Nguyen Giap. The French troops withdrew, leaving a buffer zone separating the North and South and set up elections in order to form a government in the South. The communist regime set up its headquarters in Hanoi under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. Many North Vietnamese left the country and fled south where the self-proclaimed president, Ngo Dinh Diem had formed the Republic of Vietnam.
Between 1955 and 1960, the North Vietnamese with the assistance of the southern communist Vietcong, tried to take over the government in South Vietnam, and in November 1963 President Diem was overthrown and executed. The following year, the North Vietnamese began a massive drive to conquer the whole country aided by China and Russia.
Fearing a communist takeover of the entire region, the United States grew more and more wary of the progress of Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong. Communism had become the evil menace in the United States and with expansion of Soviet rule into Eastern Europe, Korea and Cuba, the Americans were bent on stopping communism from spreading any further.
With the cold war at its height, the US leaders were worried that an attack on North Vietnam by the US would create tensions with the Chinese and Russians that would, in turn, lead to a larger conflict and possibly WW III. This created a difficult situation for the US and would eventually lead to many internal conflicts, which ultimately prevented the US from forming a firm policy for the region. The US was also faced with a number of cultural differences between the two countries, and what was considered corrupt by the US government was considered legitimate by South Vietnamese standards. It was difficult for the US to portray South Vietnam as a hard working, hard fighting democracy; corruption was widespread among officials and the armed forces. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was disorganized due to the low morale of it's leaders and their singular interest in personal gain. Therefore the US had a great deal of difficulty in holding the army together in South Vietnam and saw only one solution, that was to start taking care of things for themselves. By 1950 the US began sending their first troops, firstly in an advisory role, which slowly escalated into a full blown commitment.
The large-scale involvement of the US came under the tenure of President Lyndon B. Johnson and his Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Johnson had replaced John F. Kennedy after he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas 1963. As president, he was torn between the differing strategies the US had for Vietnam. The increasing involvement and the escalation of troop involvement meant there were more casualties and more problems at home. But Johnson, who was always concerned about his image, and as president, held the power to halt the war in Vietnam, could not face the thought of being regarded as the first president in US history to loose a war.
The pressure around him grew so intense, that he was only left with one option and that was not to run for a second term. Basically, he handed the hot potato to Richard M. Nixon.
The top US commander in Vietnam was General William Westmoreland; he had to face an army full of young men placed in an environment that was totally alien to them. There was no clear front to the conflict and basically, the enemy could be hiding anywhere and everywhere. Life in the jungle was tortuous and there were no home comforts. Drugs and other stimulants filtered their way into the daily routine of many servicemen and morale quickly started to fall. For the first time, people in the US resisting the draft were given acceptance although still not by the majority of citizens. Riots and demonstrations against the war became the norm in the US, with numerous veterans taking part in the efforts to stop the war, strengthening the issue. Finally, the US government saw that it was in a no-win situation and began making plans to withdraw.
After great efforts by the US to withdraw, and the establishment of a cease-fire on January 27th, 1973, American soldiers began leaving Vietnam for good. The North Vietnamese finally conquered South Vietnam in early 1975, totally ignoring the cease-fire and on July 2nd, 1976, North and South Vietnam were officially united as a single communist state. It had cost an estimated 2 million lives and the injury or disablement of many millions of others.
Passers-by stop to watch as flames envelope a young Buddhist monk, Saigon, October 5th, 1963.
The man sits impassively in the central market square, he has set himself on fire performing a ritual suicide in protest against governmental anti-Buddhist policies. Crowds gathered to protest in Hue after the South Vietnamese government prohibited Buddhists from carrying flags on Buddha's birthday. Government troops opened fire to disperse the dissidents, killing nine people, Diems government blamed the incident on the Vietcong and never admitted responsibility. The Buddhist leadership quickly organized demonstrations that eventually led to seven monks burning themselves to death.
i guess you must eventually become immune - the man behind the monk is still trying to find a light for his cigarette.
Vietnamese children flee from their homes in Trang Bang June 8th, 1972. A South Vietnamese air force plane has accidentally dropped a napalm bomb on the village 26 miles outside of Saigon. This is without a doubt one of the most remembered images of the war. Twenty-five years later, the young girl running naked from her village, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, was named a UNESCO goodwill ambassador.
Gotta get out of this place...
Carrying a guitar and a M16 rifle, a Marine waits at a landing strip for a flight out of Khe Sanh, February 25th, 1968
It was the era of Rock & Roll and more people turned up for James Brown at the yearly USO extravaganza, than for Bob Hope. The AFRVN radio networking was grooving from the Delta to the DMZ. Accompanying the music of the era was a new mood towards the war and a lack of faith in the objectives became more common among the servicemen than ever before.
he Vietnam Veterans Memorial statue in Washington DC. The statue is situated beside "The Wall" , a powerful tribute to the American people who died in the war with all of their names engraved on it. It was dedicated on Veterans Day, November 13th, 1982. On Veterans Day in 1993, sculptor Glenna Goodacre's bronze statue of three women nurses helping a wounded US soldier was unveiled, thus honoring the 11500 US women who also served in Vietnam. Although the US has found some reconciliation, many veteran organizations still continue to campaign for veteran help programs. View our link page for some of these organizations.
n Vietnam the veterans organizations are very meager. There have not been much assistance for war veterans and those from the south would sometimes find it impossible to find assistance from the North. Veterans would receive small subsidies such as 20 pounds of rice, some fish, meat and cigarettes each month. Economically they cannot afford to invest in help programmes the way the US could if it desired to do so. Research shows that over 30 percent of Vietnamese war veterans are homeless. Many veterans in the south were sent to "reeducation camps" that the communist regime set up. Many have also made their way (and many perished) as boat people to the US and between 1970 and 1980 over 100.000 Vietnamese veterans came to America in search for a better life.
On Dao Island , Vietnam, an elderly woman dressed in black, kneels amid young children praying for peace and an end to the Vietnam War. The island is actually named Phoung and was an island of peace where prayer and meditation was the routine, 24 hours a day. There were no weapons or bases and the island enjoyed a kind of immunity from all sides in the war.
Tim Page who took the picture says the following about Phuong in his book "Nam":
"It looked like an oriental Disneyland: a large concrete prayer platform on stilts above the mud and mangrove with tons of concrete sculpts rising from it representing the various mythologies of Vietnam...This was the place where a lot of us would go between field trips for weekends of solace, quite of being, alive and in touch with the self, a step back from the insanity."
