Vietnam war: classic AP photographs - in pictures

Exhausted South Vietnamese soldiers sleep on a US Navy troop carrier taking them back to the provincial capital of Ca Mau in August 1962. The infantry unit had been on a four-day operation against the Viet Cong in swamplands at the southern tip of the country Photograph: Horst Faas/AP

In the first of a series of fiery suicides by monks, Thich Quang Duc burns himself to death on a Saigon street to protest persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government on 11 June 1963. The photograph aroused worldwide outrage and hastened the end of the Diem government. With the photo on his Oval Office desk, President Kennedy reportedly remarked to his ambassador, 'We're going to have to do something about that regime' Photograph: Malcom Browne/AP

Sunlight breaks through dense foliage around the town of Binh Gia as South Vietnamese troops, joined by US advisers, rest after a cold, damp, and tense night of waiting in an ambush position for a Viet Cong attack that did not come in January 1965. One hour later, the troops would move out for another long, hot day hunting the guerrillas in the jungles forty miles southeast of Saigon Photograph: Horst Faas/AP

A US paratrooper wounded in the battle for Hamburger Hill grimaces in pain as he awaits medical evacuation at base camp near the Laotian border on 19 May 19 1969 Photograph: Hugh Van Es/AP

An unidentified American soldier wears a hand-lettered slogan on his helmet in June 1965. The soldier was serving with the 173rd Airborne Brigade on defense duty at the Phuoc Vinh airfield Photograph: Horst Faas/AP

Women and children crouch in a muddy canal as they take cover from intense Viet Cong fire on 1 January 1966. Paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade (background) escorted the civilians through a series of firefights during the US assault on a Viet Cong stronghold at Bao Trai, about twenty miles west of Saigon Photograph: Horst Faas/AP

Caught in a sudden monsoon rain, part of a company of about 130 South Vietnamese soldiers moves downriver in sampans during a dawn attack on a Viet Cong camp on 10 January 1966. Several guerrillas were reported killed or wounded in the action thirteen miles northeast of Can Tho, in the flooded Mekong delta Photograph: Horst Faas/AP

Medic Thomas Cole looks up with his one unbandaged eye as he continues to treat wounded Staff Sergeant Harrison Pell during a firefight on 30 January 1966. The men belonged to the 1st Cavalry Division, which was engaged in a battle at An Thi, in the Central Highlands, against combined Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. This photo appeared on the cover of Life magazine on 11 February 1966, and photographer Henri Huet's coverage of An Thi received the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club Photograph: Henri Huet/AP

The body of a US paratrooper killed in action in the jungle near the Cambodian border is lifted up to an evacuation helicopter in War Zone C on 14 May 1966. The zone, encompassing the city of Tay Ninh and the surrounding area north of Saigon, was the site of the Viet Cong's headquarters in South Vietnam Photograph: Henri Huet/AP

General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnamese chief of the national police, fires his pistol into the head of suspected Viet Cong official Nguyen Van Lem on a Saigon street early in the Tet offensive on 1 February 1968. Photographer Eddie Adams reported that after the shooting, Loan approached him and said 'They killed many of my people, and yours too,' then walked away. This photo won the 1969 Pulitzer prize for spot news photography Photograph: Eddie Adams/AP

A woman mourns over the body of her husband after identifying him by his teeth, and covering his head with her conical hat. The man's body was found with 47 others in a mass grave near Hue on 11 April 1969. The victims were believed killed during the insurgent occupation of Hue as part of the Tet offensive Photograph: Horst Faas/AP

Severely burned in an aerial napalm attack, children run screaming for help down Route 1 near Trang Bang, followed by soldiers of the South Vietnamese army's 25th Division, on 8 June 8 1972. A South Vietnamese plane seeking Viet Cong hiding places accidentally dropped its flaming napalm on civilians and government troops instead. Nine-year-old Kim Phuc (centre) had ripped off her burning clothes while fleeing. The other children (from left) are her brothers Phan Thanh Tam, who lost an eye, and Phan Thanh Phouc, and her cousins Ho Van Bon and Ho Thi Ting. This photo won the 1973 Pulitzer prize for spot news photography Photograph: Nick Ut/AP

Marines move through a landing zone, December 1969 Photograph: AP