Hugh Van Es, the Dutch photographer whose photo of
the 1975 fall of Saigon became one of the most enduring images of the
Vietnam war, has died. He was 67.
Van Es suffered a brain
haemorrhage last week in Hong Kong, where he had lived for many years,
and never regained consciousness, colleagues said.
The Dutchman
was part of what became a famous generation of journalists who covered
the Vietnam war, many of whom paid tribute Friday to his courage,
talent and personality.
“His sunny demeanour endeared him to his
colleagues and to the American and Vietnamese soldiers he
photographed,” veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett told AFP.
Arnett called him “one of the few Western photographers willing to take the risks of witnessing the war’s end.”
Van
Es became known worldwide for his photograph of a helicopter rescuing
people from what is often believed to be the roof of the US embassy in
Saigon. In fact the photo shows an apartment building that housed CIA
staff.
He wrote in the New York Times in 2005: “One of the
best-known images of the Vietnam war shows something other than what
almost everyone thinks it does.”
The photograph became a symbol of the US withdrawal and its ultimate failure in Vietnam, and it made him famous.
Arnett,
who stood beside Van Es as he took the photograph on April 29, 1975
called it “the picture that secured his place in popular culture and
the photographic history of the Vietnam war.”
Van Es was born in
the Netherlands on July 6, 1941. He decided on his career after seeing
an exhibition by legendary combat photographer Robert Capa and made his
way to Hong Kong in 1967 and then on to Vietnam.
After the
Vietnam war he returned to Hong Kong — a perch he used to cover events
across Asia, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the fall
of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.
Van Es was
modest about his storied career, and younger journalists who passed
through the halls of Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club knew him
not from his tale-telling but only by his trademark photographer’s vest.
The club announced it would hold a minute of silence in his honour on Friday night.
Former
CNN producer Robert Wiener, who also worked in Vietnam, told AFP that
Van Es’s professional skill was just one side to him.
“Hugh was in a class by himself in many respects. His generosity of spirit and compassion were limitless,” Wiener said.
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