DAVID TERRY
PHOTO GALLERY


Terry snapped this shot of Kirk on old Tu Do Street between Continental Hotel and Givral's, in a corner of the old Eden Building, on May 1, 2005, morning after 30th anniversary of "the fall" of Saigon. Tu Do, Liberty, was renamed Dong Khoi, Uprising, in the flush of victory. The French called it Rue Catinat.By the 35th anniversary, in 2010, Givral's was closed, and the Eden Building was about to go too.

The same scene in early 1900s, in a postcard picked up by Terry. Givral's, correspondents' hangout, replaced the store on left. Continental, on right, survives, the old Continental terrace now a dining area encased behind glass windows.

Colonel in ARVN - Army of the Republic of Vietnam, i.e., South Vietnamese army - briefing Don and Duong The Tu, aka. Le Viet, Don's legendary all-purpose assistant, July 1971

Terry at Khesanh, joining an armored column for the incursion into Laos, February 1971. French photographer Jacques Tonier, who snapped the shutter on Terry's camera, was badly wounded the next day by shrapnel from a 1,000-pound bomb dropped by a U.S. F4C Phantom providing air support to the column as it roared towards the Ho Chi Minh Trail at Tschephone.

U.S. tank clanks past Lang Vei en route to Laotian frontier. The bright red cover is to identify tank as "friendly" so U.S. aircraft would not mistake it for North Vietnamese Soviet-made armor. Terry and Tonier rode one of the tanks three or four miles into Laos. Terry then got off, walking back to Vietnam side to deliver his film. Tonier stayed with the tanks, quickly drawn into the battle in which he was wounded.

South Vietnamese airborne troops leap from U.S. Army helicopter in assault on Hill 31 during Lamson 719, the ill-fated invasion of southern Laos, February 1971

Terry captured this detailed view of the Ho Chi Minh Trail from a U.S. chopper ferrying South Vietnamese airborne onto Hill 31. It was the first shot ever taken by a news photographer of the route along which North Vietnam shipped men and materiel to the South.

101st Airborne troops, saddled up for take-off from Quang Tri, near coast, for Khesanh

U.S. rifleman poised to return fire on North Vietnamese soldiers during an ambush along a remote stretch of road at Lang Vei, between Khesanh and Laotian border. Terry shot this picture from a ditch as bullets flew by.

Terry and freelancer Norman Choinier traveled for two days along jungle trails to glimpse these Lao army soldiers and Meo mercenaries awaiting transport at this secret CIA base, northern Laos, February 1972. They were bundled out courtesy Air America, "the CIA airline."

This 155mm howitzer is blasting off a round in late 1971 from near the Rockpile, named for the rock formation that loomed above it, just below the DMZ. The cannon is helping to clear the way for U.S. troops withdrawing from bases along the DMZ, turning them over to South Vietnamese forces.

Firebase Maryann, hit in one of the war's deadliest attacks on a U.S. base, March 27-28, 1971, killing 30 GI's and wounding 82

Armed Khmer Rouge guerrillas, getting water from a stream north of Aranyaprathet, Thailand, in 1979. The Khmer Rouge were on the run from Vietnamese soldiers who had invaded Cambodia to oust Pol Pot. This photo ran in The New York Times with one of the articles for which correspondent Henry Kamm won a Pulitzer Prize. Never before had it been possible to capture the Khmer Rouge on film.

A propeller-driven Vietnamese Air Force A1 Skyraider napalms Khmer Rouge positions, southeastern Cambodia, August 1971. Nearly 60 Khmer Rouge died in this battle with South Vietnamese Rangers.

Terry snapped this shot of AP Photographer Nick Ut, crossing the Mekong on their way to cover South Vietnamese Rangers in the battle with Khmer Rouge. Below, Terry, on the river crossing, as photographed by Ut.


ALL PHOTOGRAPHS ©DAVID TERRY

Old Saigon


Terry found this postcard dating from the 1920s of Frenchman in white colonial-era garb strolling across the square in central Saigon, at the corner of Rue Catinat. Hotel Caravelle replaced the building on the left. Below, another postcard depicts Rue Catinat in early 1900s. The street, renamed Tu Do after the departure of the French, was a favorite haunt of the Americans who followed. The scene looks familiar a century later.


These banknotes date from the final days of the French colonial era.

War Story

Vietnam and Cambodia war photogs David Terry, left, and Al Rockoff with Vietnam journos in coffee shop, formerly Brodard's, now an Aussie Gloria Jean's franchise, on Dong Khoi Street, formerly Tu Do, Saigon. Don Kirk snapped the shot after war hacks' reunion, May 2010

Donald Kirk and photographer David Terry spent the summer of 1971 visiting bases in Vietnam, interviewing and photographing GIs for this piece on attitudes of U.S. troops, the cover article of The New York Times Magazine, September 19, 1971.

This article appears in Library of America's Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1969-1975: Volume One (hardcover) and in the single-volume paperback.
A different, and expanded, version appears in Don's Tell it to the Dead: Stories of a War
Terry shot this cover along with all the other photos here. He snapped two pictures of the large peace sign, the lead photograph in the article below, carved in the earth outside the 101st Airborne Division headquarters at Camp Eagle near the ancient imperial capital of Hue, selling one negative to the AP for $15, standard AP payment, and retaining the other. The "peace sign picture," shot from a chopper returning from the Ashau Valley, also ran in Stars & Stripes, major dailies, then Life, Mad and in the 1990 film "Jacob's Ladder." Terry takes full credit for this classic image, so far credited only to AP.








Troops await medevac from Khesanh, early 1971. That's the 101st Airborne Division's Screaming Eagle patch on shoulder of the trooper at right.

©DAVID TERRY PHOTO

Jim Okuley, younger brother of the late Bert Okuley, one-time UPI Saigon bureau chief, outside the Majestic Hotel. Don Kirk snapped the shot, and Jim snapped shot of Don, below.

Don outside Majestic, where he lived and worked, writing stories and book, for much of the Vietnam War

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