Photo journalism in Vietnam (1963 – 1975)

Studies in sadness

Compiled by David Crippen, MD

I returned to Vietnam in 2012, visiting one of the museums and I noted a display of the photographer Robert J. Ellison (1944-1967), killed in action at Da Nang after less than a year in Vietnam. One of the few known personal photos of Eliison in Da Nang was displayed alone on a wall. Look at that face for a long time and you’ll see the pain and passion showing the reality he saw through those eyes. It brought me to tears.

Rob Ellison landed in Vietnam in early 1967 with no credentials, one duffel and three cameras. He finessed his way out to Khe Sanh on a supply helicopter with a case of beer and box of cigars.

On arriving at the violence-infested area, Rob insinuated himself into the full fury of the action, cheek by jowl with the Marine grunts, photographing the action as it happened in the unimaginable fiery Hell that was Khe Sanh in the early months of 1967.  Rob was killed when, as a passenger, the C-130 took rocket fire and crashed killing everyone on board. The bodies were not identifiable and are all buried in a mass grave in Missouri. Rob Ellison was 23 years old.

Posthumously, Ellison has been rated as one of the top young photographers in the world. The Newsweek edition of March 18, 1968 carried eight pages of photos by him of the battle for Khe Sahn. His photographs were graphic illustrations what the Vietnam conflict was like in real life, not watered down media depictions.

Journalists covering action in Vietnam (or elsewhere) try to paint a word picture in the minds of readers describing what they see. Some more successfully than others as those words are amenable to social or political bias. The genius of Van Gogh translated to a photographic vision. I stood heartbroken, feeling the vibrations of his urgent passion and what I knew he had to do to seek it out. I had to know him. I went on to collect many of his photos and they spoke to me, as they will for you.

135 photographers from either sides of the Vietnam conflict killed or missing presumed dead.

This collection is a memorial to them and their photographs, a VERY important piece of history that I need to dwell on for many reasons. Those of us that were involved in Vietnam are now in our 70s and we’re dying out. Soon, no one will remember Vietnam, a fate that awaited a similar political mistake, Korea in the 50s. The mistakes that led to Vietnam still being made today, events that are important and need to be accurately recorded vividly.

Today’s young people now largely forget the extraordinary decade that set the stage for much that’s happening in our culture. I frequently toss out some 60s icons to my young doctors on rounds just to see the reaction. They’re usually greeted by blank looks. None of them have a clue of the location of Alice’s Restaurant, visualize that deaf, dumb & blind kid Tommy or recall how Timothy Leary shaped the culture of the era.  They will possibly read word accounts of what happened in that era that profoundly shaped our world but It’s important to understand the passion behind the words. A tragedy, as they are so important to history.

A video presentation of Vietnam photographers from the ’60s & ’70s is compiled from my Powerpoint collections. You will find it in the “Personal Notes” section of this blog and also a video version in the “General Interest” section. Each slide is 10 seconds long and can be stopped and started to read text or contemplate a photo by clicking the cursor on the “Pause” at bottom left of each slide. You can make the presentation full frame, bottom right each slide to show more detail. Several of my Viet photos are near the end of the presentation.

DC