Burial honors Vietnam combat photographers

Nearly four decades after their deaths, four combat photographers received a museum burial Thursday as family, friends and former colleagues recalled how the men gave their lives to show the world “Vietnam as they saw it.”

A helicopter carrying the four photographers was shot down over a mountainside in southern Laos on Feb. 10, 1971. Human remains were recovered in 1998, along with wreckage including camera parts, film and broken watches.

The remains have been interred at the foot of the Newseum’s soaring glass memorial dedicated to fallen journalists. A small silver plaque was inscribed with the names of the four: Larry Burrows, 44, of Life magazine; Henri Huet, 43, of the Associated Press; Kent Potter, 23, of United Press International; and Keisaburo Shimamoto, 34, a freelancer working for Newsweek.

“All were imbued with a purpose larger than themselves,” said AP reporter and former Saigon bureau chief Richard Pyle. “In their case, to invite, even compel, the world to see Vietnam as they saw it, through a camera lens that told truths about the war.”

At the time of the crash, the photographers were covering Operation Lam Son 719, a major armored invasion of Laos by South Vietnamese forces. The aim was to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail used by North Vietnam to feed troops and weapons to southern battlefields.

Their mission, said Associated Press President Tom Curley, was “believed to be the first of the Vietnam era where journalists tried to circumvent restrictions designed to thwart coverage.”

American officials had barred civilians from crossing international borders on U.S. military aircraft. So, when a South Vietnamese field commander offered the four men a chance to accompany him on a flying inspection of the Laotian front, they went.

A formal dedication of the journalists’ memorial, with the names of more than 1,800 fallen journalists dating back to 1837, takes place today. The Newseum opens in a week.

Thursday’s ceremony brought together families of the men and long-ago colleagues and friends.

“The best thing about this is meeting people who knew him,” said Sherry Potter Walker, Kent Potter’s sister. “I knew he was doing what he wanted to do.”