The medic cut off her shirt and bra – she protested, but he scolded her that this was not the time for modesty [FRAGMENT]

When they reached the top, the Vietnamese opened fire. Leroy saw several soldiers drop dead. More marine units joined the fight. In addition to the rattling of automatic weapons, she heard cries for help. Then she saw a vivid picture of what had become a symbol of conflict.

The combatants moved forward and left a medic in full battle gear behind them. The man crawled to the edge of the hill to reach the wounded marine. Leroy grabbed the camera.

Vernon Wike, a twenty-year-old Marine medical officer from Phoenix, Arizona, gently grabbed the soldier, pulled off his helmet, and bent down to check his heartbeat. Silence answered him. The man was dead. The doctor’s face contorted in pain. All this time, Wike hadn’t heard Leroy taking pictures.

Suffering turned to anger. The doctor grabbed the dead marine’s M16 and started yelling at the top of his lungs, “F***s sons… S***s sons… I’ll f*** them!” He launched an attack on the Vietnamese fortified shelter – he shot anyone who was hiding inside – he emptied the magazine and threw the rifle away. He returned to the mountainside to attend to the rest of the wounded soldiers. A few minutes later the scenario repeated itself.

Leroy took pictures with care. She used only three rolls of film in poor light – she deliberately didn’t want to waste a single frame changing film. She gave her full attention to the doctor who, on the top of the mountain, amidst gunfire and mortar explosions, made an act of heroism and humanity.

Soon night fell and the fighting ceased. Leroy returned to Da Nang to send her photographs by military plane to Horst Faas in Saigon. Because she was shooting at dusk, in terrible conditions, she included detailed instructions on how to properly develop the film. Faas, who had been photographing Vietnam since 1962, was amazed at what he saw: “I realized there was something new in these photos, a whole new expression.”

Intimate portraits from the battlefield became Leroy’s trademark. Few photographers managed to get as close to the soldiers as Catherine, who crawled with them in the mud if need be. She focused on the eyes and the subtle changes in the face. She operated silently, the soldiers rarely aware of her presence.

Faas sent pictures of Leroy around the world. They showed the present face of the war. The suffering of the doctor and the soldiers, the heroism of the conquerors of the hill, were for many a proof of the courage of the American army. On May 12, 1967, Time published an article about the role Catherine’s photos played in covering the conflict. The article was published in newspapers across the country. He argued that the spirit of the battle for Iwo Jima lurks in Leroy’s shots. The article entitled “Photographers: Gnat of Hill 881” described a petite woman, as tiny as a bow tie.

The dainty Frenchwoman is a tough photographer, and to Americans who saw Leroy’s photos for the AP in last week’s headlines of Marines climbing Hill 881 to the north, they brought to mind the spirit of the battles of Iwo Jima and Pork Chop Hill.

Comparing the photos from Vietnam to the heroic images of World War II, during which the Marines fought hard to raise the American flag on the island of Iwo Jima in a gesture of victory, was quite an unprecedented phenomenon. It only proved that the American public found the sight of Marines caring for the wounded or taking up positions on hills devoid of bombs and artillery an ennoblement. Citizens still believed in the rightness of the cause and victory in Vietnam. Leroy understood this attitude when she received countless letters from the mothers of soldiers thanking her and asking about their sons.

The New York Times published one of Catherine’s photos on its front page, which it labeled with her name. Paris Match printed several photographs that the girl’s parents proudly displayed. The biggest media hype was brought by her publication in Life magazine – six pages of photographs in a spread entitled “Up Hill 881 with the Marines”.

The Leroy camera made the battle on the hill famous, and made the fighting soldiers heroes of everyday life. “These are not portraits of a warrior caste, but of ordinary, terrified and often bewildered young men desperately fighting for their lives and hoping that together they will achieve this seemingly unattainable goal,” concluded Peter Howe, author of “Shooting Under Fire: The World of the War Photographer” (“Photography under fire. The world of war photographers”).

During two and a half weeks of fighting in the hills, the Marines managed to push back the North Vietnamese troops and hold the mountain ridges above Khe Sanh. However, they paid a high price for it. American losses amounted to 155 killed and 425 wounded – so far the worst battle in terms of the number of casualties fought in the Vietnam War. The losses on the enemy side were estimated at 764 dead. The victory was not at all what it seemed. The Americans found that North Vietnamese troops in the Khe Sanh area were closing ranks to launch an even larger offensive early in the coming year.

Leroy returned to the marines company to give the soldiers copies of the now known photographs and to meet with the medic. When she gave Wike pictures of him, the man asked, “Where were you? I didn’t notice you.”

The woman’s position soared. The New York editors-in-chief of competing magazines could not help but admire her sensational materials. CBS headquarters sent a cable to the Saigon office asking, “If a 100-pound French woman can do it, what’s stopping us?”

Photos from Hill 881 revealed Leroy’s extremely personal approach to photography and showed that the woman attaches herself to the heroes of her works and identifies with them. “I treated American soldiers like brothers. We were the same age, I loved them. I couldn’t photograph someone I don’t feel anything for. I’d rather stay home, smoke a cigarette and drink a good glass of wine.”

Thanks to the shots from Khe Sanh, Leroy’s account balance improved – Life itself paid her five thousand dollars. She was finally able to replace her heavily battered equipment. Catherine ordered two new cameras, a pair of shoes and baby clothes for friends in France. In a letter to her mother, she confessed how much the photographs from Hill 881 meant to her: “I am so happy. After so many long months, I finally made it.”

Leroy became a hero just three months after some co-workers tried to disqualify her from her profession. General Deane, who had knocked down the official barriers to allow Catherine to parachute, sent the woman “a lovely telegram of congratulations, and from the very center of operational command.”

In her quiet moments, Leroy mused that something essential was missing from her photographs. “No picture can capture the scream of a wounded man or the smell of a corpse. When we look at the photographs, we see only a frozen moment of eternal silence.” The woman knew what was up with that hellish noise, buried with the stench of the corpse: it was hiding in her, the photographer. “These images rest within you, and with them violence, madness, fear and agony – all rest together and stay within you.” The first symptoms of Catherine Leroy’s growing trauma took on a poetic form.

In mid-May 1967, Leroy returned to the field to cover Operation Hickory near Con Thien, the first American attack on the DMZ. The United States considered the DMZ a forbidden area, the border was set under the provisions of the Geneva Conference of 1954. General Westmoreland lifted the ban, however, as North Vietnamese troops began to take up positions there, which was seen as further evidence that North Vietnam was unwilling to play by the rules.

According to the Geneva Accords, the division of the country along the 17th parallel – the demilitarized zone – was “a temporary solution and should in no way be understood as a basis for demarcating a political or territorial boundary.” After the elections in 1956, it was to cease to apply. However, South Vietnam and the United States did not allow elections, so in 1967 the DMZ still existed.

From the perspective of North Vietnam, it was the United States and South Vietnam that failed to comply with the Geneva Agreements. Building forces around the seventeenth parallel was a strategic move on their part in case of a counter-offensive in the south. During Operation Hickory, which began on May 18, Marines clashed with massive numbers of regular North Vietnamese troops in the DMZ. North Vietnam “directed heavy mortar, rocket and artillery fire at all Marine positions along the DMZ,” according to official US military records.

In this deadly barrage attack, a lieutenant colonel commanding the 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines was wounded. Leroy got to the scene of the fight with a helicopter carrying supplies and a replacement for the commander. She landed at the command center in Dong Ha. She hardly slept a wink that night. Rockets flying overhead lit up the sky. Marine artillery shells flew right past Leroy, while enemy shells exploded close to the front lines. The photographer jumped into the hole where she tried to sleep and survive the night.

The next day – May 19 – in the early morning Leroy was moving with the troops towards the front line when a series of mortar blasts pierced their position. One of the bullets seriously injured the woman. “The first mortar shell hit me. There was a huge sound in my head…like a gong. I knew I had been hit, but I was still on my feet. I didn’t feel anything, just noticed that my right ponytail was covered in blood. Three the cameras were also dripping with blood… a bullet hit the equipment and that probably saved my life.”

It seemed like five minutes before someone found me. I was half-conscious and in bad shape. I couldn’t breathe and I was bleeding all over. I thought I was dying.

Thirty-five bullet fragments pierced Leroy’s body. The medic cut her military shirt and bra – the journalist protested, but the man scolded her that this was not the time for modesty. For the next hour, an armored vehicle carried Catherine and the other wounded up a bumpy road to Con Thien, where she was laid on the ground next to the marine. They smoked half a cigarette and held hands to lift their spirits. With the last of her strength, Leroy opened her camera and handed the films to the nearest information officer, whom she asked to deliver to Horst Faas in Saigon. Then she lost consciousness.

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