The display features approximately 400 pictures and objects that the Military History Museum collected between 2010 to 2015 and is divided into four sections.
The first section, ‘Vietnam - The Violent War’, introduces a collection of photos presented by the Associated Press, among which are Malcolm Browne’s photo of the Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc setting himself ablaze to protest against the Saigon government.
Other famous pictures include Nick Ut’s photo of the napalm girl Phan Thi Kim Phuc and Eddie Adams’s photo of a South Vietnamese general executing a suspected North Vietnamese officer with a pistol shot to the head.
The second section features keepsakes of Vietnamese liberation army soldiers returned by US veterans who fought in the Vietnam War, including a flag returned by Thomas Smith and a pictorial diary by painter Le Duc Tuan.
The third section includes objects associated with major events and typical figures, reflecting significant contributions and huge sacrifices of the Vietnamese people and soldiers during the 21-year resistance war against the US.
Notable objects include the manuscript of fallen soldier Nguyen Van Thac’s diary, a letter of Dang Thuy Tram, whose wartime diary was published in the US under the title ‘Last Night I Dreamed of Peace’, among others.
The final section, ‘Closing the Past, Opening the Future’, features pictures documenting the post-war Vietnam-US normalisation process presented by the Vietnam-US Society to the Military History Museum.
The exhibition is jointly held by the Military History Museum, the Commando Museum and the Currency Museum in celebration of the 41st anniversary of the liberation of southern Vietnam and national reunification.
