To many in the Western world, the war in Vietnam was purely an 'American tragedy'.

Its popular history has been rewitten by Hollywood. It is a story of self-pity in which the United States made mistakes, but the fault lay at the door of the Vietnamese for defending their own country.

It was a 'flawed but noble' cause as Hollywood actor and later US President Ronald Reagan put it.

Films like 'Rambo', 'Platoon', 'Hamburger Hill', 'Missing In Action', 'Born on the Fourth of July', 'Uncommon Valour' and 'The Deer Hunter' present an image which allows no sense of the Vietnamese people through.

At the end of the war, 2273 American servicemen were unaccounted for - 'Missing In Action'.

The US Department of Defence knew the fate of 1657 of these, categorized 'body not recoverable'. Many were pilots who had gone down with their planes.

To this day, many Americans still believe that they are alive in Vietnam, tortured and imprisoned in bamboo cages - as portrayed in 'Rambo'.

An MIA office was opened in Hanoi, staffed by a team of American investigators. Although a few remains were found, no live servicemen have ever been discovered. Many of the missing are known to have died in the air, or at sea or in explosions.

Film producer David Puttnam says: "America is a complex country which, in a childlike way, is only able to deal with certain truths. We like them simple and, if necessary, we'll have them distorted."

President Reagan declared Rambo to be one of his favourite films. Despite the evidence of his own intelligence agency, he still promoted the film's accusation.

The Vietnamese were puzzled and exasperated. More than 200,000 Vietnamese remained unaccounted for, mostly obliterated by high explosives. However, in an attempt put an end to the issue, they offered the Americans every assistance in their hunt.