1970-1979

Henri Huet
Dennis Lee Royle

Henri Huet (1927-1971)
Photographer Henri Huet was one of four combat photographers killed when their helicopter was shot down over Laos on Feb. 10, 1971. He was 43. Huet had waited for a week in the cold and rain near the Laos border for a chance to cross into the newest front of the war in Vietnam. On Feb. 10, he boarded one of two helicopters headed for some Vietnamese firebases deep in Laos. In the early afternoon, two helicopters were shot down - one carried the photographers. Huet was one of the most widely known and most popular figures in combat photography during the war. American GI's and officers often shouted to other AP staffers "Hey where's Henri? Tell him to come and see us." A French citizen who was born in Da Lat, Vietnam, and educated in France, Huet returned to Vietnam as a photographer with the French navy during the first Indochina conflict. He joined the AP in Saigon in 1965. Huet was wounded in the right leg by shrapnel in 1967 and was sent to the United States to recuperate before returning to Saigon. He transferred to Tokyo in 1969 and returned to Vietnam in 1970.
Dennis Lee Royle (1922-1971)
In his nearly 30-year career with AP, photographer Dennis Lee Royle traveled the globe, covering the 1952 sinking of the American freighter Flying Enterprise, the Dalai Lama's escape from Tibet in 1959 and the attempted assassination of South African Prime Minister Henrik Verwoerd in 1960. He also photographed the Congo war in 1960 and 1961, the East African mutinies of 1964 and the troubles of emerging independence in Kenya, Cyprus and other countries. His photos of starving children in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War were credited with prompting relief efforts. On May 20, 1971, he was covering naval exercises conducted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization when the helicopter he was in crashed over the English Channel. He was 49. “It is a tragic irony that Dennis, who had been in so many dangerous spots for The Associated Press, such as the Hungarian revolution, wars in the Middle East and in India, lost his life in such an accident – but still in the pursuit of the news, as were his colleagues who died with him,” said Wes Gallagher, AP's president and general manager.

 

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