It is amazing the memories that one picture can bring back. The picture I posted called “Corpsman in anguish, 1967” was taken by the French combat photographer Cathy Leroy on Hill 881 In I Corps.
Later Cathy would be wounded and was evacuated to my ship, the USS Sanctuary (AH-17). I was in triage when she came in and a young French woman in pink bra and panties was the last thing we were expecting that day. She had multiple shrapnel wounds and the story goes that our commanding officer, who was in radiology helping read x-rays declared she had bi-lateral chest tubes. He was seeing the under wire in her bra. We loved the story and loved Cathy.
The May 12, 1967 issue of Time Magazine had an article about “The Gnat of Hill 881."
“"My God, I don't believe it," said a gawking Marine. "What's a broad doing here?" The broad—if an 85-lb. twiglet of a female qualifies as a broad—was doing the same thing he was. She was getting ready to storm South Viet Nam's Hill 881. Cathy Leroy may have looked ludicrous with her size-4 feet swimming around in size-6 combat boots. But the little French girl is a tough freelance photographer; and for Americans looking at their front pages last week, her A.P. pictures of Marines headed up 881 North evoked ghosts of Iwo Jima and Pork Chop Hill.”
She passed away in 2006 at the age of 60. According to her obituary she was a licensed parachutist when she joined up with the 173rd Airborne Division and jumped along with them into a combat operation, becoming the only known accredited journalist – male or female – to jump into combat with American troops at war.
