Are you thinking, perhaps, of Bernard Fall, the French journalist and author of
Street Without Joy and
Hell in a Very Small Place , about the siege of Dien Bien Phu?
He was killed on the very Street he wrote about in the French Vietnam war while covering the second (American) war - by a land mine, I believe.
The book was "Four Jills in a Jeep" by the Hollywood starlet Carole Landis. It recounted her adventures on a tour to entertain troops in England and Africa, with three other actresses, Mitzi Mayfair, Martha Ray and Kay Francis. A cheerful, bouncy book -- made into a forgettable Hollywood film. She met Bourke-White in Africa where combat was close, and recounts some of the photographer's absolutely hair-raising feats.
Landis sounded so darned upbeat, it is strange indeed that she died by her own hand only a few years later (overdose of seconal), before she was yet 30.
Did you know that it was Bill Buckley's sister, Priscilla, a wire-service editor in France, who coined the term, "The Angel of Dien Bien Phu"?