The Vietnam War began in the 1940s when communists in North Vietnam attempted to overthrow the brutal French colonial regime. After the country was split into two the communist forces or “Vietcong” led a guerrilla war against the US backed South. Successive American governments ramped up their response in the belief that if Vietnam fell to the communists a “domino” effect would see insurgences across all of Southern Asia.

In 1965 the Americans launched an indiscriminate bombing campaign across Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia using napalm and “Agent Orange”, a chemical weapon. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed and maimed. In retaliation the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive in 1968, fiercely attacking US bases and resulting in bloody hand to hand combat. In March 1968 after the My Lai massacre, in which hundreds of civilians were raped and murdered by American troops, the American public turned angrily against the war and there were widespread demonstrations across the country. The global impact of the photograph of the “napalm girl” in 1972 sealed an ignominious defeat for America by 1975.

Studios were wary of making films about the Vietnam war given that thousands of US conscripts had been killed and injured in the conflict. This attitude strengthened with the release of John Wayne’s disastrously jingoistic The Green Berets in 1968. But a number of notable film directors sought to develop anti-war themes which avoided political statements in favour of depicting the dehumanizing impact that combat had on young American soldiers.