Neil Davis was born in rural Tasmania in 1934. At the age of 14 Davis left school to work in the Tasmanian Government Film Unit. In 1961 he joined the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) as a cine-cameraman but left in December 1963 to take a job as Visnews's cameraman and correspondent for south-east Asia, based in Singapore.
TRANSCRIPT
Cameraman Neil Davis is interviewed.
Neil The world at large generally believed that the Americans were doing most of the fighting. This wasn't so. The South Vietnamese army always did more of the fighting. In fact, for all of those years during the Vietnam War that the Americans were committed, I can only remember three weeks in which more American soldiers were killed than South Vietnamese soldiers._
The clip cuts to footage of South Vietnamese soldiers in combat as Davis's voiceover praises their fighting capabilities.
Neil I preferred to go with the South Vietnamese forces because it was their war. It meant a great deal to them, and they were fighting it on their own terms. I know it was fashionable for the Americans and the other allies to blame the South Vietnamese army for the losses in Vietnam over the years, but in fact they fought very well and the Vietcong acknowledged that. Americans, they used to call 'the elephants'. They said they bumble around, you can hear them coming a mile off. They could smell them too, smell their shave cream and toothpaste and cigarettes and things like that.
Archival film: a tractor moving through the Vietnamese jungle, clearing the way for armed footsolidiers.
Neil It was like a travelling circus and Barnum and Bailey were on the way. You could see that. If you were a Vietcong, you could avoid them very easily. Americans were burdened down with about 70 pounds of equipment, plus very, very heavy flak jackets. That's armoured-protected vests. And on one occasion, I suddenly heard an American yelling out in great fear, as he was, because his hand grenades he'd attached to his pack, his military pack on the back, some of them had loosed. The South Vietnamese and the Vietcong used to wear them here, where they could take them quickly and they could get to them if anything happened. He had them there and a twig went through the pin of the grenade, and he went on and pulled the pin out he had no hope to get to it. He was clawing about, trying to get to it, and of course it blew up and killed him.
Archival film: Soldiers shoot guns from behind a trench wall. Two soldiers are interviewed in the midst of the action.
Soldier Not knowing where they are, that's the worst thing. Running around the sewers, the gutters, anywhere. Could be anywhere. Just hoping to stay alive day-to-day. I just want to go back home and go to school. That's about it.
Neil Have you lost any friends?
Soldier Quite a few. We lost one the other day. Whole thing stinks, really.
Soldier 2 Awful sick of it. I'll be so glad to go home. I don't know. It's just the worst area we've been in since I've been in Vietnam.
Neil Do you think it's worth it?
Soldier 2 Yeah. I don't know. They say we're fighting for something. I don't know.
A mortar explodes in the distance.
Source: ASO
http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/frontline/clip2/
Title:
Frontline (1979) clip 2 on ASO - Australia's audio and visual heritage online.mp4
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Davis_%28cameraman%29
... After nearly 20 dangerous assignments on the battle fronts, "charmed" Neil Davis was killed in Bangkok on 9 September 1985, while filming a minor Thai coup attempt that ended after only a few hours. Davis and his American soundman Bill Latch were covering a radio tower that had been seized. A tank protected the gate to the tower. Davis set up his camera facing the tank and got ready to deliver his report. Without warning, the tank fired in their direction. Davis and Latch were killed by shrapnel. Davis died instantly, and the camera fell to the ground, still running. The last scene recorded by his camera was of the fatally wounded Latch crawling for cover...
Loading...
2:15
Neil Davis Warjournalby sethzky7712,930 views
Thank you for telling the truth. I think everyone who is interested in the Vietnam war should watch your video.
Dongha1 8 months ago