Fall of Saigon Photographer Dies

By Kat Ahn on May 15th, 2009

• Share
• Link to StumbleUpon
• 1 Comment

Like that old cliche says, a picture truly is worth a thousand words and images have that capability to tell a story that no writer could conjure.  And if you have the ability to capture such a photo, than you’re probably a gifted photographer.

Hugh Van Es, a Dutch photojournalist, is credited with taking the infamous “Fall of Saigon,” photo on April 29, 1975 which shows a group of people climbing a ladder to a CIA helicopter on a rooftop.  The picture was a “metaphor for the desperate U.S. withdrawal and its overall policy failure in Vietnam.”  He had been covering the Vietnam War and had worked for NBC News, the Associated Press, and United Press International.

He spent the last 35 years of his life with his wife in Hong Kong, and died Friday morning after suffering a brain hemorrhage a week earlier.  Hugh Van Es was 67 years old.

Ernst Herb, president of Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondent Club said, “Obviously he will be always remembered as one of the great witnesses of one of the great dramas in the second half of the 20th century.  He really captured the spirit of foreign reporting. He was quite an inspiration.”