The Vietnam war remembered in pictures – review

Guardian.co.uk: The Vietnam war remembered in pictures – review

A host of photographers with first-hand experience of the Vietnam war gathered at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris (MEP) last month. We saw Nick Ut, famous for his 1972 picture of a young girl running naked towards the camera to escape a napalm attack. Christine Spengler, one of the few women to have covered the conflict, was also there. The atmosphere was emotional, almost reverent. Forty years earlier, on 10 February 1971, their friend Henri Huet, a Frenchman working for Associated Press, was shot down in a helicopter over the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. The exhibition at the MEP pays tribute to this gifted photographer.

The pictures soon started people talking. The photographers all said much the same thing: no war made such an impression on their life and career as Vietnam. For one thing, this conflict was by far the most deadly for their trade. A book, Requiem (edited by Horst Faas and Tim Page), counted 135 photographers killed on both sides. In a powerful picture taken in 1965, Huet captured the last moments of fellow reporter Dickey Chapelle. She lies on the ground mortally wounded. An army chaplain crouches over her saying the last rites.

Three other photographers died in the same helicopter as Huet: Keisaburo Shimamoto, a Japanese reporter working for Newsweek, the American Kent Potter, from United Press International, and a British journalist, Larry Burrows, whose colour pictures in Life magazine gained international acclaim. Ut narrowly missed taking the same ill-fated helicopter: "Henri was my best friend and we were both working for AP," he says, barely containing his emotion. "I was supposed to take that flight, but we did a swap ... He took my place, and he's the one who died."

Ut was only 15 when his elder brother, another AP operative, was killed. The family were short of money, so Ut was dispatched to fill the gap. After working in the labs for three months, he went into action.

It is hardly surprising so many reporters were killed. "The losses among photographers reflected the situation on the ground," says Richard Pyle, who was chief of the AP bureau in Saigon from 1968 to 1973. "We had complete freedom of access. Vietnam was the first and only US war with no censorship." Photographers took the same risks as combatants, who were often their contemporaries. "The difference," Ut adds, "was that I was carrying a camera, not a gun. I always refused as it could be dangerous if you were captured."

Huet's shots are uncompromising, showing embattled soldiers, some seriously wounded and near death, corpses waiting to be sent home in body bags. In his most famous picture, published on the cover of Life in 1966, a seriously wounded medic struggles to treat an injured GI.

In those days papers would still publish shocking pictures. "Providing the face of a dead man could not be identified," Pyle explains. "There were horrible pictures but they were seen as important news. We couldn't have that now, war has become a crime scene. You can't get near it." Christian Simonpietri, who worked for Gamma during the conflict, agrees. "It all changed after Vietnam," he says. "The Americans woke up to the full effect of pictures. So in subsequent wars, such as the invasion of Grenada [in 1983], press access was under strict control."

It was a time of intense emotions and equally intense friendships. "It was a fantastic time to live through," says Simonpietri. "We didn't like war but it was a challenge, stretching our limits and revealing the horrors humans are capable of." For Pyle, Vietnam was a unique experience: "The best articles, the most powerful memories, relate to Vietnam. And I met my best friends over there."

Hélène Gédouin, the curator of the exhibition and a niece of Huet, set aside a small room "for his mates". "In the letters Huet sent home from Vietnam," she says, "he talked a lot about the powerful ties between them." This section features well-known pictures taken in Vietnam by fellow photographers such as Ut, Burrows, Eddie Adams and Dana Stone: images of the suffering, death and friendship particular to Vietnam.

Henri Huet, Vietnam is at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, until 10 April