Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/11/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Donal Philby wrote: >Just finished rereading a novel called Highways to a War. Written by >Christopher Koch. Koch is Austrailian and also author of The Year of >Living Dangerously. Both involve photographers. Donal, could you please let us know a little more about this = particular book. Like who published it, and when? >The book cronicles the life of a "world famous" photographer from >growing up on a farm in Tasmania to covering the war in Vietnam and then >disappearing into Cambodia in l975. I wonder if the main character was based on my old friend and mentor = Neil Davies, who also was born and grew up in Tasmania. Just before = he came to Vietnam in 1964 he was a pro footballer. Neil was one of the most likable guys of the Nam press corp. And = nobody else deserved better to get the ultimate footage when the = North Vietnamese tanks rolled through the closed gates of the = presidential palace in Saigon late April 1975. Yes, Neil was a TV = news photographer and worked at that time for Visnews. We have all - = without exceptions - seen his historical film. Through the years Neil Davies got damaged several times. We used to = compare him to a cat with seven lives, but we were proven wrong. He = was shot more often than that. Finally fatally in Bangkok 1986 during = a failed miltary coup. His old friend and soundman, the american Bill = Latch, was killed with him. At that time Neil and Bill worked for NBC = News. Presumably they were killed by "friendly fire". A government = tank just 60 feet away opened canon fire straight at the camera crew. = I wasn=B4t there at the time, but I have unedited copies of the = tapes. Not only from Neil=B4s own tape (his camera kept rolling and = recorded Neil=B4s death), but also from the camera of Gary Burnes of = Visnews, and from the camera of Naoki Mabuchi of ABC News. They were = together with Neil and Bill at that unfortunate time. Even if Neil Davies was not the only inspiration for the main = character I still would like to get hold of "Highways to War". Harrison McClary wrote: >Another book that chronicles a war photographer in a decent way is >DelCorso's Gallery by Philip Caputo. Absolutely the best novel written about war photography and = photographers. Claes