Burrows, Huet, Potter and Shimamoto found

Harry Lime

Harry Lime

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WASHINGTON, DC (March 31, 2008) - Remains from the crash site where four photojournalists were killed when their helicopter went down in Laos during the Vietnam war will be buried on Thursday April 3, 2008, during a ceremony at the Newseum in Washington.

On February 10, 1971, photographers Henri Huet, 43, of the Associated Press, Larry Burrows, 44, of Life magazine, Kent Potter, 23, of United Press International, and Keisaburo Shimamoto, 34, of Newsweek were killed their South Vietnamese helicopter lost its way over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and was shot down by a North Vietnamese 37-mm anti-aircraft gun. Three of Saigon's soldiers and the four-man flight crew also perished in the midair explosion.

read more here:

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2008/03/lost.html
 
Foam Magazine reproduced Larry Burrow's classic Life essay "A Ride with Yankee Papa 13" in their issue #10 on Stories:

http://www.foammagazine.nl/index.php?pageId=9&foto=10

10.jpg


(No connection with Foam)
 
Lost Over Laos is a wonderful read for those interested in the story.

FYI, the above link to the LIFE story only shows about half the article, which on the surface looks like good coverage until you see the photo that closes the piece of the crew chief broken down in tears after the flight lands which really trancends the essay into something very special.
 
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Bill Pierce said:
Harry -

Many, many thanks for posting this.

Bill
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Hey Bill -

I read about the search about a year or two ago, but from what I remember they had only found the crash site and a few artifacts, like the crushed M top plate and ordinance.

It's good to hear that they have been able to recover the actual remains and put them to rest.

Did you ever meet Burrows or any of the other men?

thanks
 
I recently finished reading Lost Over Laos, a very interesting if someone hawkish account of the loss of these four talented photographers and the search to find the crash site. I would recommend it. I actually read it while photographing the work of MAG (Mines Advisory Group, a UK humanitarian organization) clearing unexploded bombs from the Vietnam War on the Vietnam-Laos border last November.
 
Harry Lime said:
Hey Bill -

Did you ever meet Burrows or any of the other men?

thanks
Click to expand...

No, although we had lots of mutual friends - Ted Thai, Dirck Halstead (who headed up the UPI photo operation in Saigon and was close to Huet) Eddie Adams.

Ed was one of my closest friends. I'll probably see Ted next time I'm on the East Coast. Dirck has a website, The Digital Journalist, that I contribute a column to. Dirck, Ed and I were the first photographers hired when John Durniak started putting together a new photo staff for Time. Ted came to Time later after acting as a guide to photographers in Vietnam starting when he was 12.

A slight acquaintance from the early days of the Eddie Adams Workshops is Burrows' son, one of the truly good people on the face of this planet.

Bill
 
Although very young at the time I remember seeing these images...
Something deep down in me has wanted to shoot in the same genre of the "War Photographers"...not for any glory or because some think it romantic but because it's real...very real...
 
While reading the article in the NPPA website there was another story on the passing of Photojournalist Dith Pran...
 
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