Rare Vietnam Photos You Never Knew Existed

The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial and bloody wars in U.S history. It carried on for twenty years (1955-1975) and the total amount of deaths ranged from 2.5 to 3.5 million people. Almost 60,000 American lives were claimed during that time. The Vietnam War was essentially a proxy war waged by the U.S against the Soviet Union as part of the Cold War effort to block the spread of communism and Soviet political influence. The following incredibly rare photos give a chilling, never before seen portrayal of the Vietnam War.

1. Heavy Cover from Above

The date is March 1965, northwest of Saigon, the fierce Viet Cong lie ahead and the South Vietnamese Army troops are advancing through the field towards the tree line. If not for the U.S Army helicopters flying overhead, they might as well be sitting ducks.

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The tactic employed here is to overwhelm the Viet Cong forces positioned between the trees with heavy and ceaseless machine gun fire. This way, the troops have time to progress, while the enemy has no other choice but to take cover.

2. Masked Activists in the Mekong Delta Mangroves

In this incredibly unique photo from the Vietnam War, you can see female activists making their way through the Nam Can forest, bearfoot and balancing on a narrow trunk. The gathering was highly secret, thus they masked their identities.

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The idea behind the mask was that if they got captured or interrogated they wouldn’t have been able to supply any information or give any one up. The photographer later explained that from these Mekong Delta mangroves it was extremely difficult to deliver photos to the north.

15. Wartime Gallantry

In this photo, taken on February 1970, a Lance Corporal U.S soldier from Portsmouth, Ohio is seen carrying an elderly Vietnamese woman in his arms. The woman is barefoot and dressed in traditional, rural Vietnamese clothing.

16. The Vietnamese Marines

The South Vietnamese Marines suffered a lot of casualties fighting the Northern Army and the highly skilled guerilla fighters. In this photo, you can see an injured Marine being supported by a comrade amid the sugar cane plantations.

Rice fields were a common setting in which bloody battles and lethal ambushes took place. The Viet Cong used the rough terrain of the Mekong Delta to gain an advantage over the U.S Military, which wasn’t highly trained to fight in these harsh conditions.

19. Viet Cong Prisoner

Taken in 1965 on Tanh Dinh Island, this photo shows a battalion commander, Captain Thach Quyen of the South Vietnamese Army, grabbing a Viet Cong prisoner by his upper arm as part of an interrogation.

In 1965 the Viet Cong enjoyed a surge in influence among the local villages, and the North Vietnamese Army rapidly replenished its supplies and recruited more men. In response and in an effort to better aid the South Vietnamese Army, the U.S increased its forces and aid.

20. Mourning for Comrades

In the distorted reality of the Vietnam War, losing dear friends and comrades becomes a routine occurrence. However, getting used to the pain is impossible. These friends and comrades are mourning the casualties of the war.

21. Bereaved Father

During a pursuit of guerrilla forces into a small village near Cambodia, this father lost his child. In this tragic photo he is holding the body while an armored vehicle loaded with South Vietnamese Army Rangers passes by.

It was not uncommon for innocent villagers to get caught in the line of fire between American and South Vietnamese forces on one side and the Vietcong on the other. The civilian death toll during the Vietnam War is estimated to be somewhere between 30% and 50% of the total deaths.

22. Displaced Families

In this rare, heartbreaking photo, a mother fleeing from a hot zone crosses a deep river with her children. Since the healthy men took part in the war effort, families were left to fend for themselves and evade bombings and cross fires.

After the war, displaced families who had to flee from their villages found themselves with no home to return to. Some tried to escape South East Asia by sea, which created a huge humanitarian crisis. They were known as boat people.

23. Face-to-Face Encounter

This is an incredibly unique image of a face-to-face encounter between Viet Cong soldiers as they close in on heavily camouflaged South Vietnamese Army soldiers from the direction of the rice fields. By the look of it, this battle occurred in the Mekong Delta region.

The camouflage fatigues used by the soldiers in this picture were absolutely essential in the Mekong Delta fighting conditions, since this area is characterized by dense vegetation. However, in this encounter they are exposed in broad daylight.

24. Heartwarming Comradery

In this legendary and powerful image, a Marine Sergeant is concerned about an injured comrade. This photo was taken south of the demilitarized zone on October 1966 by photographer Larry Burrows. The desolation and utter anguish of the soldiers is strikingly vivid in this photo.

The Sergeant’s name is Jeremiah Purdie. He is injured in his head and has a blood-stained bandage around it, but his priority is still to attend his comrade, who is lying wounded in the mud.

25. Soldiers in the City Thanh Tri

For lack of better war gear, the Vietnamese opposition had to use outmoded weaponry. In this photo you can see soldiers during target practice in the city Thanh Tri. Despite the outdated weaponry, other tactics compensated and posed major difficulties to the U.S Military.

The Viet Cong guerillas had attacked the city of Thanh Tri and killed 25 guardsmen in the process. During this onslaught many people were killed, and the communists took every weapon they found as well as set fire to a few buildings.

26. The A-1 Skyraider

The A-1 Skyraider seen in this photo was a single-seat aircraft used for air-bombings during the war. The U.S Military transferred some of its Skyraiders to the South Vietnamese Airforce. Here you can see it in action, dropping two 500-pound bombs on a Viet Cong target.

The U.S started using this aircraft during the Korean War, a decade before the Vietnam War. Although it was to be replaced by a new jet aircraft, it was still part of U.S operations in North Vietnam.

27. The Impossible Vietnamese Terrain

U.S troops crossing the murky waters of the Mekong Delta. Imagine getting dropped in a hostile environment completely unknown to you. Besides the fearsome guerilla soldiers lurking behind every bush, humidity, heat, mud, and dense, untamed vegetation make it difficult to advance or even take a good deep breath.

In this region there are about 800 different types of reptiles and amphibians and a whopping variety of 430 different species of mammals. Lethal snakes and insects, Indochinese tigers, Asian Elephants—all these make the new environment even more estranged and threatening.

28. Vietnamese Soldier Guarding an Injured Woman

In this powerful photo, smoke is rising in the background while a Vietnamese soldier is grasping a rifle and crouching over an anguished injured woman. She has bandages wrapped around her foot and upper thigh, as well as bloodstains on her garments.

What is most captivating about this image is the look in the soldier’s eyes. It could be interpreted as either worry or resilience, but nevertheless the composition of his face his body posture are absolutely compelling.

29. Taking Cover in the Trenches

American soldiers taking cover in the trenches. These men are holding on to their helmets and getting flat on the ground as a means to protect themselves from the incoming fire and the bombings overhead.

Machineguns, submachine guns, rockets, RPGs, hand-grenades, and tank artillery supplied by the Soviet Union and China were used by the Vietnam People’s Army and the Viet Cong alike. Their impressive arsenal of weapons, among other things, hindered U.S Military advancement.

30. Tough Situations Make Tough Men

This U.S soldier is bandaging his comrade after an injury. The latter is balancing a cigarette in his mouth and seems not to be tickled by this undoubtedly painful procedure. These were some tough soldiers.

There’s nothing like Vietnam War to make men resilient in the face of any type of adversity: pain, discomfort, and gut-wrenching sights. However, it is years later that these unimaginably intense experiences come back to haunt and take their toll.

31. Missing Home

It’s not easy to be invariably in the company of men. During downtime, soldiers found comfort leafing through all sorts of magazines, if just so they could get a little lost in imagination and forget about the war.

Some soldiers had left girlfriends back home, and some haven’t seen any American women in many months. In wartime, you do what you can to keep your sanity.

32. Bone-Drenching Rain

In this incredible photo, American soldiers are standing under the Vietnamese bone-drenching rain. They are filling their canteens with the water streaming down the elongated leafs. Imagine continuing patrol in these conditions, pacing through thick mud in completely soaked uniforms.

The peak of the monsoons hit Vietnam more or less between the month of August and October. It can rain for days on end. One can go crazy in the open nature with no dry inch of land to be found.

33. The Landing in Red Beach

This photo was taken in 1965 as the U.S substantially increased its military support to the South Vietnamese Army. President Lyndon Johnson authorized two Marine battalions to land in Red Beach.

At first, these Marines were tasked only with safeguarding the Da Nang Air Base, but a few weeks later they were ordered to combat the Viet Cong guerilla fighters as well as the soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army.

34. Utter Desolation

A big part of U.S military tactics included heavy aerial bombardments, and the North Vietnamese Army also had an air force made up of Soviet Union and Chinese planes. Ruin and desolation could be found everywhere.

35. Agent Orange

Chemical weapons were used by both sides during the war, but mostly by the U.S army. There was heavy use of Napalm, which was developed during WWII. Furthermore, the U.S used an herbicide and defoliant called Agent Orange.

19 million gallons of this toxic herbicide were sprayed across millions of acres in Vietnam. Some chemical weapons used by the U.S damages victims’ DNA, and decades after the war new generations still suffered from the effects of the bombings.

36. Acute Fatigue

This image conveys the fatigue of the soldiers during the Vietnam War, with this young man on the verge of collapse. Apart from the fear, the bloody battles, and the trauma, the war demanded tremendous physical endeavor from the soldiers.

Even some of the most fit troops found it difficult to deal with the constant movement, the sleepless nights, the heat and dehydration, and the rough terrain. Many deaths were due to exhaustion and fatigue.

37. Probing for Weapons

In this photo, a U.S Marine, alongside a South Vietnamese Army comrade, is searching for weapons hidden by the enemy. This is taking place in Xuan Thiue village on March 11, 1970, while official peace talks between the U.S and North Vietnam are going nowhere

In 1970 Nixon decides to embark on an incursion into Cambodia and shocks the U.S with these news. The decision is part of a strategic effort to weaken the Northern forces, which is gaining ground in Cambodia.

38. Execution in the Streets of Saigon

This is a photo taken during the time of the Tet Offensive (February 1st, 1968). A captured Viet Cong officer, Nguyen Van Lem, is being lead through the streets of Saigon by South Vietnamese Armey troops.

In a few moments he will be executed on the street, shot in the temple by General Nguyen Loan, the chief of the national police. The photo of the actual execution will later become iconic of the Vietnam War.

This article originally appeared in “ICEPOP” on August 31, 2017 by Jeremy Styles. Here is the direct link:

https://goo.gl/piWcEt

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