10 Iconic Photos from the Vietnam War

For nearly 20 years, the Vietnam War waged on, taking the lives of an estimated 58,200 American soldiers with it. Back home in the United States, more than 8000 miles away, much of the battle surrounding the war—and its righteousness—played out on newspaper pages and television news reports. 

The daily images that came out of Southeast Asia were a painful sight to behold and added a new level of intimacy to the battle. They also spurred the anti-Vietnam movement—which sparked its own library of important imagery. 

Even today, 50 years after the official end of the Vietnam War, the most iconic images from the era are still etched into the memories of the millions who have seen them, whether or not they were alive to witness them in real time. Here are 10 of them. (Warning: Some images contain graphic content.)

1. Ultimate Protest
2. Shell Shocked Marine
3. The Terror of War
4. War Is Hell
5.  Saigon Execution
6. Flee to Safety
7. LBJ Watches the DNC Protests
8. Burst of Joy
9. The Fall of Saigon
10. Fleeing Da Nang

Ultimate Protest

On June 11, 1963, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk named Thích Quảng Đức sat down in the middle of a busy intersection in what was then known as Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), not far from the presidential palace, and with the help of a fellow monk, covered himself in gasoline and self-immolated to protest the war. Images of the incident, captured by AP photographer Malcolm Browne, quickly made their way to front pages around the world, shocking all with the jarring juxtaposition of the brutally violent death and Đức’s seeming calmness in the face of it all. Then-president John F. Kennedy was reported to have said that “No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one.”

Shell Shocked Marine

In early 1968, acclaimed British photojournalist Don McCullin was sent to South Vietnam to photograph the Battle of Hue, the bloodiest battle of the Tet Offensive, which lasted for just over one month. McCullin’s unique ability to capture the inner emotions of his subjects is painfully evident in this black-and-white portrait of a visibly distressed Marine clutching his rifle. 

The Terror of War

Officially, the Vietnam War came to an end due to a number of factors, including the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. But many people credit Vietnamese American photographer Nick Ut’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo with playing a role in highlighting the true horrors of the war. Often referred to as “Napalm Girl,” Ut’s horrifying image captured 9-year-old Kim Phuc, naked and badly burned, in the moments following a napalm attack on her village. When Ut saw the extent of her injuries, he put his camera aside to come to her and others’ aid; he even took Phuc and other children to a hospital in Saigon. Meanwhile, the photo itself caused concern for Ut’s editors, who were concerned about publishing a photo of a naked child in such distress. In the wake of its publication, some people—including then-President Richard Nixon—even questioned its authenticity. The photo forever bonded Ut and Phuc; he regularly visited her in the hospital, and the the two have remained friends ever since. They reunited in 2022 for an event at the Vietnam Press Museum in Hanoi.

“That picture will always serve as a reminder of the unspeakable evil of which humanity is capable,” Phuc wrote in a guest essay for The New York Times. “Still, I believe that peace, love, hope and forgiveness will always be more powerful than any kind of weapon.”

War Is Hell

Helmet art was a common sight during the Vietnam War: Soldiers regularly adorned their headgear with doodles, artwork, and personal mantras. Whether it was simply a way of blowing off steam or a genuine bit of self-expression, few decorated helmets are as famous as the one belonging to Larry Wayne Chaffin, which was immortalized by photographer Horst Faas. Part of what made the photo so striking was the juxtaposition of the soldier—a bright-eyed young man with a slight smile on his face—and the three words he chose to emblazon on his helmet: “War is hell.”

 Saigon Execution

On February 1, 1968, Associated Press photojournalist Eddie Adams captured a series of horrific images that seemed to show the cold-blooded murder of a civilian in the streets of Saigon. The truth behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning image, however, was much more complicated. The man on the right, Nguyễn Văn Lém, was a Viet Cong officer who led a death squad that had just murdered a lieutenant colonel along with his wife, 80-year-old mother, and six children. When the full story behind the photo was revealed, it made clear the importance of context. “Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan,” Adams wrote for TIME. “The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world.”

Flee to Safety

Japanese photographer Kyōichi Sawada is yet another artist who earned a Pulitzer Prize for the work he did documenting the Vietnam War. Of all the photos he took over the years, Flee to Safety, which features two Vietnamese women crossing a river with their children to escape an attack on their village, might just be his most famous. Nguyen Van Anh and his sister Nguyen Thi Kim Lien, two of the children in the image, spoke to The Japan News in 2023 about their memory of that moment. “It was a common sight everywhere in Vietnam at the time,” Lien said. “We were not special.”

LBJ Watches the DNC Protests

While anti-Vietnam war protests were pretty much a daily occurrence during the Vietnam era, 1968 marked a turning point: It was the deadliest year of the conflict and led anti-war protestors to ramp up their demonstrations. This mandate was taken to new levels at that year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which attracted an estimated 10,000 protestors. Their clashes with police resulted in one civilian death and more than 750 injuries to protestors, police officers, and civilians. Yoichi Okamoto, the White House’s very first official photographer, had been at the job for about five years before the DNC rolled around—and had clearly earned the trust of then-President LBJ, who allowed the photographer full access to him, as evidenced by this photo taken inside the president’s bedroom at their home in Stonewall, Texas. Johnson is watching the 1968 DNC riots play out.

Burst of Joy

While aggrieved soldiers and traumatized citizens seem to make up the bulk of the Vietnam War era’s most memorable photos, there are rare moments of joy that have stayed with people, too. In this case, AP photographer Slava “Sal” Veder captured the very moment when, on March 17, 1973, Air Force Lt. Colonel Robert L. Stirm saw his family for the first time at California’s Travis Air Force Base after being held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five years. Veder won a Pulitzer Prize for his work, yet he considered it a bit of a lucky break. “I was photographing a different family and, out of the corner of my eye, saw the action and turned,” Veder told TIME. “It was a great moment for Americans! The joyousness of the reunion and the coming together of the family as a visual is outstanding because it was the end of the war.”

The Fall of Saigon

In April 1975—just weeks before the official end of the war—two journalists were invited by commander Le Minh Dao to fly to Xuan Loc, South Vietnam, to photograph a predicted battle between Vietnamese soldiers and Communist forces. By the time the photographers arrived, it was clear that something was not quite right. “We rarely see images of Armies in full retreat,” photographer Dirck Halstead wrote for TIME about the images he shot, which managed to capture the motion and chaos of the moment. “At first, we thought it was deserted,” Halstead wrote. “Then slowly, and one by one, South Vietnamese troopers began to stick their heads out of foxholes they had dug in the streets. Dao yelled that they were prepared to fight the enemy, come what may. However, we noted with more than a little trepidation that none of them were budging from their holes as Dao led us down the dusty street. Suddenly, a mortar shell landed in the dust no more than 10 feet from us. It was followed by a barrage of incoming automatic weapons and artillery rounds.”

Fleeing Da Nang

In March of 1975, the North Vietnamese Army advanced on Da Nang, South Vietnam’s second largest city, which triggered a mass exodus of citizens who fled in fear of being ruled by Communist forces. This photo, taken by David Hume Kennerly—who by this time had already won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for the work he did in Vietnam—was said to be one that then-President Gerald Ford kept on display in the White House.

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