Posted on 07/09/2006 8:21:01 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Catherine Leroy, the French-born photojournalist whose stark images of battle helped tell the story of the Vietnam War in the pages of Life magazine and other publications, has died. She was 60.
Leroy died of cancer early Saturday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, said the attending physician, Dr. Jerome Helman.
Leroy was 21 years old in 1966 when she took a one-way ticket to Saigon to document American troops in Vietnam. A year later she became the only accredited journalist to participate in a combat parachute jump, joining the 173rd Airborne in Operation Junction City.
In 1968, during the Tet Offensive, Leroy was captured by the North Vietnamese Army. She managed to talk her way out and emerged with images of the North Vietnamese Army in action that were used for a Life magazine cover.
"She was tiny and totally fearless," said Jonathan Randal, a longtime Washington Post correspondent who met Leroy in late 1965 and worked with her for many years. "Like many young war photographers she was probably braver than she was talented in the beginning. But she went on to become a very fine photographer."
A famous 1967 photo, "Corpsman In Anguish," portrays a young Marine, his face wrenched in torment, hunched over the dead body of his friend, while smoke from the battle rises into the air behind them.
Leroy worked for the Gamma and Sipa photo agencies and later sold her work to The Associated Press and United Press International. Her photos appeared in publications worldwide.
In 1972, Leroy shot and directed "Operation Last Patrol," a film about Ron Kovic and the anti-war Vietnam veterans.
After Vietnam, she covered conflicts in several countries including Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Libya.
Leroy co-authored the book "God Cried" with Tony Clifton, about the siege of West Beirut by the Israeli army in 1982.
Among Leroy's many honors are the George Polk award for Best Reporting Requiring Exceptional Courage and Enterprise Abroad. She was the first woman to receive the Robert Capa Award for her coverage of the civil war in Lebanon in 1976.
Randal also remembers being struck by Leroy's foul mouth.
"She spoke the most disgusting English. I asked her where she learned it from and she said, 'the Marines.'"
She is survived by her 91-year-old mother, who lives in France, Helman said. The French Embassy is making arrangements to return Leroy's body to France.
The press "done us in" in Vietnam.
Yeah, w/o the press McNamara prolly woulda played to win, huh?
The US Gov imbeds the media for a reason.
You ARE old enough to rememeber, right?
You ARE old enough to rememeber, right?
I was born in 1949.
I remember how brutal the press and photographic coverage was in the Vietnam War. It severely affected the way people thought and helped to make the war unpopular.
This admin did not allow that to happen. All you nedded to do was check out DU to find out how upset they were that the press was imbedded. I don't think the US will ever let the press run amuck again in wartime.
I remember how brutal the press and photographic coverage was in the Vietnam War. It severely affected the way people thought and helped to make the war unpopular.
The coverage was absolutely heart wrenching ... showing close up young kids dying and the terrible suffering of our men and the Vietnamese. The media was our enemy then ... they remain so now.
If she went out the door like that she ate a couple of cameras.
Thank you.
i was sniggering to myself the same thing...she would have a reverse nikon image on her face...
...still RIP...
It's wrong to blame the press for Johnson's folly and McNamara's duplicity.
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