Tim Page with Martin Stuart Fox photographed underfire by Steve Northup, La Drang, Vietnam 30th March 1966 The scene was a terribly battle between members of A Company, 1/12, 1st Cav. They were very badly out maned, and we came close to losing everybody. Martin and I were a reporter/photographer team for United Press international. Tim was working for Time-Life. The battle took place near the Chu Pong massif, a well known bad neighborhood. Northrup found them behind the log and offered them a sip of his flask, Cordon Bleu.
That is bizarre, I was just thinking about Tim Page the other day. I was thinking about him because my family knew Michael Herr many years ago in New York, and Tim and Mike were very good friends. That friendship is movingly and amusingly described in Herr's classic book Dispatches. Sean Flynn, Errol Flynn's son, was part of the same bunch of young rock-and-roll war correspondents, but Page was the most flamboyant and brilliantly talented of them all. All of them had something of a death wish and it sadly came true for Flynn and several of their other friends, but Page came close to being killed over and over again. After his last near-death, Page finally wised up and got out. Mike Herr got out too but he was severely messed up in the head; back in New York he walked around carrying a gun and his marriage collapsed. He finally became a heavy Buddhist, which at least saved his life. I grew up watching the Vietnam War on TV. It seems strange and far away now. Yet sometimes it seems like just yesterday.
Sean Flynn, Saigon 1968 (Tim Page) I went to a lecture Tim Page gave in the 1980's around the time of the publication of 'Nam' photographic book, He still appeared to be living the adventure nearly twenty years on, even though he had been seriously wounded there. An interesting obit in the N.Y. Times, Gonzo Photographer. His father was killed in action serving in the Royal Navy
