Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]From: D Khong <dkhong@pacific.net.sg> > ... > The aftermath was equally chilling. Cambodia ..the killing fields ... the > boat people fleeing Vietnam... more loss of innocent lives. Much of what > happended is recorded in REQUIEM, a book very precious to me. Speaking of which, REQUIEM retells the story of Huynh Cong La, a combat photographer for AP, who was killed in the war, and how his younger brother Huynh Cong Ut subsequently got a job with AP in Saigon, and went on to win the Pulitzer with the picture of the little girl burnt by napalm. Ut, is of course Nick Ut, mentioned on this list in the past day or two (Interesting that he should use his given name as his Westernized family/last name). REQUIEM, as well as the Vietnam war, was full of Leica lore, (e.g. Robert Capa) Another piece of Vietnam War/Leica trivia for you: (apologies to longer-time Luggers - I mentioned this a few years back). In John Eastland's Leica M Compendium, there is a photo by Tim Page of Larry Burrows taking photographs of a funeral by the side of the coffin, during the Vietnam War. According to the captions, Burrows was using a Leica M3 and 50mm Summicron, which you can clearly in the picture. The interesting thing is that Larry Burrows left index finger was on the shutter release of the M3. Larry Burrows is a REQUIEM roster member - he died when his plane was shot down in Laos during the ill-fated Lam Son 719 campaign; I remember because another classmate of my father also died in the same plane. Tim Page is editor of REQUIEM, together with Horst Faas. I remember from a previous LUG discussion of REQUIEM, some LUG members have met/knew Tim Page. By the way, to my Vietnamese ears, 'Nam has a condescending sound to it. I much prefer to hear Vietnam. And of course, I was one of those boat people. - - Phong