Newseum receives Laos remains

According to Richard Pyle at the Associated Press a time capsule consisting of the remains of war photographers shot down over Laos during the Vietnam war will be preserved in a time capsule at the Newseum in Washington D.C. “museum devoted to the history and practice of journalism,”

Ten years ago this week, a U.S. military search team digging into a steep mountainside in southern Laos found camera parts, film, broken watches and bits of wreckage — proof that a South Vietnamese helicopter had been shot down there in 1971, a UH-1 Huey that was carrying four top-rated war photographers and seven Vietnamese soldiers. Only scant traces of human remains were found, but a sealed capsule containing those remains is finally about to be interred in a place of honor. link

Pyle goes on to remember the day he was working in the bureau in Saigon when he heard of the loss of journalists over Laos,

At the Associated Press bureau in Saigon on Feb. 10, 1971, I received the first report over a shaky military phone line that four photojournalists had been shot down in a helicopter in Laos, with no apparent chance of survival. The news was shattering. They were AP’s own Henri Huet, 43; Larry Burrows, 44, of Life magazine; Kent Potter, 23, of United Press International, and Keisaburo Shimamoto, 34, a freelancer working for Newsweek. link