Ho Chi Minh Trail Retrospective Expedition with Tim Page

by JG Learned

How secret was it really? This secret: the Americans totally denied secretly bombing it for years, and the Vietnamese denied ever secretly building and using it. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was for decades the single most important piece of real estate in Southeast Asia, but very little of this importance filtered into the Western news media. What happened there shaped the direction of the war more than any other single influence.

Secretly, this ingeniously built and maintained supply line running several thousand kilometers from Northern Vietnam, through Laos, Cambodia, and back into S. Vietnam, was a masterpiece of teamwork. The sacrifices and raw determination required to chop, blast and cut this vital supply line through rugged mountainous & jungle terrain are almost unbelievable. Conversely, the will to stop movement on the trail was also monumental: more bombs were dropped here than during all of WWII, from all sides combined, making this the most bombed point in the history of the planet! This is the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

During mid-November 2003, award winning combat photographer Tim Page and a documentary film maker recording the expedition will lead a dozen or so veterans, history buffs, academics and interested people on a rare insider's expedition into Vietnam & Laos. Tim's goal will be primarily to examine, actually experience, and record the aspects of the essential pivotal role played by the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the Vietnam conflict. Much was written about the war, but little at all - even today - is known about the Trail. Those who built and used the all-important Trail, the parts they played in the war effort, their motivations, and their fears and loves, are the subject of Tim's retrospective.

The eighteen-day expedition will begin in Hanoi, Vietnam, by air and land, will follow the old Ho Chi Minh Trail into Laos and along some of the most rugged road anywhere in the world. Although the group will travel by air and by modern, air-conditioned 4WD vehicles, the extreme and rugged Trail geography gives a new appreciation for the real accomplishment of those who built it. Then the team will wind its way back into Vietnam, and to Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon.

Along the way they will meet and interview historical figures and those who were connected with the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Among these are Ho Chi Minh's personal photographer and a number of his contemporary colleagues, officers and generals who built the Trail, and soldiers who travelled down the Trail. Then meet those who actually lived on the Trail: the Lao literally squeezed between the titans, the USA & Vietnam. Local people & village headmen describe moving whole villages into nearby limestone caves to escape bombing, and ancient Pathet Lao soldiers & commanders talk of when they shot at the US planes overhead with anything from flintlock rifles to Soviet anti-aircraft pom-poms.

These are the little-known stories of the Vietnamese and Lao that Tim Page specializes in recording and retelling.

Tim Page left England at 17 to travel across Europe, the Middle East and to India and Nepal. He found himself in Laos at the time of the civil war and ended up working as a stringer for United Press International. From there he moved on to Saigon where he covered the Vietnam War for the next five years working largely on assignment for TIME-LIFE, UPI, PARIS MATCH and ASSOCIATED PRESS. He also found time to cover the Six Day War in the Middle East in 1967.

The role of war-photographer suited Page's craving for danger and excitement. He became an iconic photographer of the Vietnam War and his pictures were the visual inspiration for many films of the period. The photo-journalist in 'Apocalypse Now', played by Dennis Hopper was based on Page.

The Vietnam War was the first and last war where there was no censorship, the military actively encouraged press involvement and Page went everywhere, covering everything. He was wounded four times, once by 'friendly fire'. The last time he jumped out of a helicopter to help load the wounded, the person in front of him stepped on a landmine. He was pronounced DOA at the hospital. He required extensive neuro-surgery and spent most of the seventies in recovery.

It was while he was recovering in hospital in spring 1970 that he learnt that his best friend, house-mate and fellow photographer Sean Flynn, son of Hollywood actor Errol, had gone missing in Cambodia, along with Dana Stone. Throughout the 70's and 80's Page's mission was to discover the fate and final resting place of his friends and to erect a memorial to all those in the media that were either killed or went missing in the war. This led him to found the IndoChina Media Memorial Foundation and was the genesis for the book 'REQUIEM'. With his friend Horst Faas, photo editor for Associated Press and double Pulitzer Prize winner, they co-edited the book and commemorated the work of all the dead and the missing, from all nations, who were lost in the thirty year struggle for liberation.

Tim Page is the subject of many documentaries, two films and the author of nine books. He is currently working on a book about Sri Lanka and the long awaited peace process there. He is the recipient of many awards and no longer covers wars.

His interest and passion now is covering the aftermath of war and bringing the world's attention to the plight of the innocent victims - the bystanders. He helped start MAG (Mine Action Group) and has returned to Vietnam and Cambodia over 40 times to run photo workshops, do assignments and to photograph the mines - and the maimed - that are still being injured 30 years on.