Nick Ut and his pictures: then and now
By Nick Ut Posted Fri, Dec 1 2000
After a quarter of a century, the picture of war will always be a reminder of peace. The girl in the picture, Kim Phuc, is a true survivor. I remember 28 years ago when this little girl came running out of the black smoke toward me, naked and screaming. She was crying out, “Non´g Qu´a! Non´g Qu´a! (Too hot! Too hot!).” Instinctively, I stepped back and clicked my camera.
People were everywhere, fleeing from the fire and smoke that engulfed the area. I saw a woman carrying a baby, screaming, “Help! Help!” Another was running with a dead child in her arms.
It was then that Kim and four other children came running toward me. With the help of some South Vietnamese soldiers, I poured water on the girl’s badly burned body and carried her to The Associated Press van. She was crying in pain all the way to the Cu Chi hospital.
That was June 8, 1972, and the place was Trang Bang village, which was 25 miles west of the capital city Saigon. The village was being held by North Vietnamese forces.
The Viet Cong had run a blockade across the highway that links Trang Bang to Saigon. South Vietnamese soldiers were desperately trying to open the route.
The fighting had attracted members of the press, who were recording the whole scene.
It was about noon when the rain stopped, and I noticed the thick black smoke. The village had just been a target of a napalm attack.
I paid many visits to Kim’s family after the incident. One day when the North Vietnamese forces attacked the village again, I ran to look for Kim. But a mortar fell right in front of me and hit me on the left thigh. My colleagues immediately rushed me to the hospital.
Three years later in April, a few days before the fall of Saigon, I wanted to meet Kim to see to it that she had help. But I couldn’t because the roads were difficult to get through.
I then, like most Vietnamese refugees, said goodbye to Saigon in pain. I arrived at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and stayed there for a short time. Then I was assigned to work at AP’s Tokyo bureau. Two years later, I was reassigned to work in Los Angeles.
In early 1989, I went to Vietnam for the first time since the war. I returned to Kim’s village to look for her. The neighbors told me she was in Cuba. I then went to Havana to look her up. We were finally reunited after 17 long years.
I went back again to Vietnam and the village during the 25th anniversary of the war. I saw her family and traveled from Hanoi to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City now).
I took many pictures of peaceful Vietnam. I was very happy the war was over. I didn’t have to see people die in front of my camera anymore.
I am content in Los Angeles shooting photos for the AP. I do everything, from small stories to big ones, from everyday-life pictures to Monica Lewinsky and Hollywood. But I plan to go back to Vietnam someday and retire.
As for Kim, she has her freedom, a family and is expecting her second child. She is at peace.
Nick Ut
Nick Ut’s image of Kim Phuc won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. Ut, now AP senior photographer in Los Angeles, revisited Saigon to cover the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam War.