“Henri Huet: Vietnam 1965-1971” opened last week and will remain on view until May 8 at the Bidouane Tower in St. Malo, the historic walled city on the coast of Brittany, a region where the Vietnamese-born photographer passed much of his childhood.
In six years with The Associated Press, Huet covered more combat than any other photojournalist in Vietnam, sharing danger and hardship with U.S, and South Vietnamese troops.
His work reflected an artist’s appreciation of the landscape of his native country and the plight of its people caught in war.
The risks caught up with Huet in 1967 when he was severely wounded by artillery at Con Thien, a U.S. Marine outpost in northern South Vietnam, and spent months recuperating from leg injuries in a New York hospital. He returned to Vietnam in mid-1968, but a year later AP, worried about his safety, transferred him to Tokyo, an assignment he regarded as unwelcome exile.
Huet was recalled to Vietnam in 1970 to cover the war in Cambodia and Saigon forces’ invasion of Laos in early 1971. During the latter operation, on Feb. 10, 1971, he was killed, at age 43, in the shoot-down of a South Vietnamese Air Force helicopter.
Many of Huet’s photos appear in “Vietnam: The Real War,” AP’s photo history of the conflict that was published in 2013. His work is also represented in a London exhibition of AP’s Vietnam images, on view to May 31 at the headquarters of The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way.
