A tiny badass — war photographer Catherine Leroy.
If you’re looking for examples of utter badassery from the distaff side, look no farther than war photographer Catherine Leroy. All of five feet tall and 85 pounds, she put herself in the thick of some of the nastiest fighting in the Vietnam War and elsewhere on our strife-torn globe to capture the face of battle. She kept up on jungle patrols, and if she had to jump into combat, she did it.
Photographer Catherine Leroy about to jump with the 173rd Airborne during operation “Junction City”, Vietnam, 1967
Photograph taken by a GI and sent to Catherine Leroy
A heavy smoker, she died relatively young at 60, but she packed a whole lot of vivid — and harrowing — living into those years.
From her 2006 Washington Post obituary:
Catherine Leroy, the French-born photojournalist whose stark images of battle helped tell the story of the Vietnam War in the pages of Life magazine and other publications, has died. She was 60.
Leroy died of cancer early Saturday at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, said the attending physician, Dr. Jerome Helman.
Leroy was 21 years old in 1966 when she took a one-way ticket to Saigon to document American troops in Vietnam. A year later she became the only accredited journalist to participate in a combat parachute jump, joining the 173rd Airborne in Operation Junction City.
In 1968, during the Tet Offensive, Leroy was captured by the North Vietnamese Army. She managed to talk her way out and emerged with images of the North Vietnamese Army in action that were used for a Life magazine cover.
“She was tiny and totally fearless,” said Jonathan Randal, a longtime Washington Post correspondent who met Leroy in late 1965 and worked with her for many years. “Like many young war photographers she was probably braver than she was talented in the beginning. But she went on to become a very fine photographer.”
A famous 1967 photo, “Corpsman In Anguish,” portrays a young Marine, his face wrenched in torment, hunched over the dead body of his friend, while smoke from the battle rises into the air behind them.
Corpsman Vernon Wike looks in anguish when he realizes that his buddy is dead. Battle for Hill 881. 1967.
I confess to having a weakness for women who can deploy some… ummm… vocabulary. (For instance, I will always remember taking my wife into the emergency room with a badly torn meniscus that hurt like hell. She’d gritted her teeth through a Tom Russell concert before letting on. The emergency room docs were rather startled when she was asked what she was feeling and she snarled, “Just cut my fucking leg off!” That’s my pirate wench. Marry me!) Anyway, I have several friends who are Marines and will appreciate this last little bit about Catherine Leroy: She had an expert mouth on her.
Randal also remembers being struck by Leroy’s foul mouth.
“She spoke the most disgusting English. I asked her where she learned it from and she said ‘the Marines’.”
john roberts says
That guy behind her in the top picture is wearing a 173rd Airborne patch. Just a few days ago I took my wife to a local clinic and sat in the waiting room talking with a guy who had been with the 173rd during those years. He said he was messed up from exposure to Agent Orange. I wonder if her cancer owed something to AO as well as her smoking.
JimC says
Didn’t think of that but it’s certainly possible.
Paul McNamee says
My father’s childhood friend was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. There was a photo of him and comrades, sunbathing, with Agent Orange refilling tanks behind them.
He died of cancer a few years ago. He said he always knew it wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when.
JimC says
Awful toll. Sickening.
deuce says
Colonel Bill Hollenbeck was the father of one of my exes. He served in the Green Berets in ‘Nam. Very fit and straight as a ramrod. A true soldier-scholar and a very kind man. He went from looking ten years younger than his age to dead of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in a 2yr span.
Author Keith Taylor was an Aussie medic in ‘Nam. He came down with non-Hodgkins when he was 55. He beat it, though.
Paul McNamee says
Wow. Just .. wow. 🙂
Matthew says
You mention that she kept up on patrols. I wonder what she carried with her on patrols. If she had a light enough load a small woman like her would probably have MORE endurance than most men.
JimC says
I wondered that too.
thedarkman says
I do not like war. It’s usually instigated by the privileged who will never have to actively participate in it. But I have nothing but respect for those who heed the call and step up to do the job. And the guts required by the wartime photojournalist to capture the images of men at war never fails to astound me. Badass indeed…
john roberts says
Plus, correspondents who accompanied the combat units knew that if they were wounded, Uncle Sam wouldn’t be paying for their treatment. There would be no pensions for them. Sean Flynn, Erroll Flynn’s son, was a photojournalist in Vietnam, and by all accounts an amazingly brave one. He disappeared in 1970. His fate remains unknown.
JimC says
Wow — that’s the first I’ve heard that. Any theories or was it just “went out, didn’t come back”?
Craig Rullman says
Excellent passages on Flynn in Michael Herr’s classic: Dispatches–a must read.
Matthew says
Apparently, he was captured by the Viet Cong…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Flynn_(photojournalist)
It’s not certain what happened, but the logical thing would be he was killed.
JimC says
A bad end.
john roberts says
“Show me a good ‘un.”
The Kid
Blood Meridian
JimC says
Black Tyrone wrote this — had a problem posting the comment:
For Catherine
Now I am about to take my last voyage,a great leap in the dark.
Thomas Hobbes
Hillbilly Nick says
Semper Fi!
HMCM/MDS says
I was a Corpsman for 24 years 1978-2002. The picture of Vernon Wike has stayed with me all my life. most corpsman look at that picture and feel that pain to their core. sooner of later we all lose patients.
JimC says
Thank you for sharing that with us.
Mary says
Hello Jim,
I’m hoping to discover who holds the rights to the photo of Catherine captioned: Photographer Catherine Leroy about to jump with the 173rd Airborne during operation “Junction City”, Vietnam, 1967, Photograph taken by a GI and sent to Catherine Leroy
Can you please tell me where you obtained the photo?
Do you know who owns the rights?
Thank you so much!
Mary
JimC says
I believe I pulled it off of a Flickr.com set plugging the doco “Cathy at War.”