Pyle, Richard & Faas, Horst. Lost over Laos; a true story of tragedy, mystery, and friendship.

PYLE, Richard & FAAS, Horst. Lost over Laos; a true story of tragedy, mystery, and friendship. Da Capo Press. 276p. illus. bibliog, index, c2003. 0-306-81251-7. $17.95. SA

More than 30 years ago, a military UH-1 Huey helicopter carrying four photojournalists over the Annamite Mountains of Laos was struck by enemy fire and crashed to the jungle below. Killed in the burning wreckage were two Vietnamese pilots and the four photographers, all of them covering the Vietnam War for the major news media. Two of the dead were well known to much of the American public, and all four left many bereaved colleagues in Saigon and Hue. However, the incident drew little attention during the frenetic days of February 1971, when the vast US war machine was preparing to depart from the tormented land.

This book is partly a remembrance of the four unlucky correspondents, and partly a late of modern jungle adventure. A generation later, the two authors set out to locate and visit the crash site and honor the remains of their friends. But first they had to locale them, a task that proved much harder than expected. The two faced the usual political and bureaucratic obstacles just getting into the area, followed by the stunningly difficult task of locating a few scraps of burned metal somewhere in the overgrown hills.

The book reads well, as one might expect from a pair of journalists, and it does full justice to the lives and careers of their friends. Beyond that, however, the ultimate value of their book is a little more elusive. Was it written in order to honor the memory of their friends? To find closure and catharsis for their grief? Or perhaps to leave the record of a somewhat contrived quest in the wilderness? Still, the authors present a good account of wartime news reporting, the loss of their friends, and their own adventures years later. The book provides a vivid and sometimes wrenching viewpoint of that vicious and confusing war, and its effects upon all who were involved in it. For that alone, Lost Over Laos is worth reading. Raymond Puffer Historian, Edwards AFB, CA