Vietnam is one of the rising dragon economies of the decade and its opening up has offered many opportunities for Singaporeans to travel there, either for business or tourism. One of the most important national events in the country’s history was the American War (or Vietnam War, for those of us raised on a staple of American TV shows, and here we’ll just refer to it as the Vietnamese-American War) between 1955 and 1975. Delving into his newspaper archives, Uncle Dicko uncovers a story of three Singaporeans who were casualties of the war.
How did three Singaporeans get involved in the Vietnamese-American War? These three were shooters for sure, but of a different kind: They were photographers documenting the war from the front lines. Their names were Sam Kai Faye, Terence Khoo and Charles Chellappah. Sam and Khoo were formerly with the Straits Times, and were killed in the battlefield in 1972. Chellappah, a photographer for the Associated Press, died earlier in 1966 in a similar circumstance.
Their contributions as dedicated journalists were honoured in 1997 in a book called Requiem: By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina. You can read their stories in Uncle Dicko’s post here.
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