Hugh Van Es, Who Covered Fall of Saigon, Dies at Age 67

Photographer Hugh Van Es, who covered the war in Vietnam and made an indelible image of the fall of Saigon in 1975, died Friday morning in Hong Kong. He was 67.
   Van Es covered the war for both the Associated Press and United Press International. Among his best known images was a shot of a wounded soldier  taken during the battle of Hamburger Hill.
   But he will be remembered primarily for him photo of Vietnamese civilians clamoring up a ladder to board an American helicopter as North Vietnamese troops closed in on Saigon on April 29, 1975. While many civilians stormed the U.S. embassy to escape, others chose to climb a ladder on an apartment building that housed CIA and other officials. Standing on the roof of the UPI building in Saigon, a few blocks away, Van Es recorded the desperate moment. The image became a metaphor for the ignoble end of the American experience in Vietnam.--David Schonauer