Photo-Ops

This article is designed to act as a pre-cursor to a Vietnam War scenario that Al is working on that allows a player to do more than just kill things! For now he sets the scene as to the dangerous world of the war photographer.

Introduction

I have a fascination for the world of war correspondents, which probably stems from watching films like Salvador, Welcome to Sarajevo and The Year of Living Dangerously. In the cinematic format you get stuck straight in with the high adrenaline, high-pressure world of the photographer or reporter. The subject matter is often intellectually and emotionally challenging, while the often true to life drama takes the action a little too close to the bone to remain comfortable.

When I can I watch BBC2 and CH4 documentaries, the type that cover military actions in far off places such as Mazar e Sharif and Mogadishu. During my occasional phases of using the public library, I tend to pick out books by war correspondents, because they are the most accessible of contemporary accounts of modern warfare. There are plenty of books by retired colonels and generals, waffling on about NATO strategy, but books by lower ranked officers or privates in at the deep end are much rarer.

Where am I going with this you wonder, well, the stimulus that I have outlined above is what generally gets wargamers into a new period or theatre of war. While I accept that war correspondents are not soldiers, and are not relevant to a wargame, they do add flavour, and are an important consideration for officers in the field. At platoon level their presence near military operations must be allowed for, while at squad level a carefully crafted scenario can make for an entertaining evening of skirmish gaming.

War Photographer

During the 1980’s television journalism challenged the photojournalism business, video coverage could be sent and televised immediately, whereas negatives had to be processed and would only appear in the daily papers a couple of days later. In the 1990’s GPS satellite systems, the popularity of satellite television, and the demand for colour finished what television began.

Photojournalism no longer had the power to affect people’s lives, if only because more powerful mediums had taken over. This is a bit of a generalisation, but these days the photographs in the national papers do not have much of an impact on society, except in rare cases like the terrorist attacks over the last fifteen months.

War reporters get their best information behind friendly lines, which is not to say that their lives are never at risk, as a combat zone is always dangerous. War photographers though get their best pictures at the front line, and the best photographers are the ones who take the most risks to get that picture. The mystique surrounding the war photographer most probably began with Robert Capa, who made his name in the Spanish Civil War, and founded the first photographers’ agency after World War II.

The profusion of civil wars, colonial wars, and national wars that erupted during the following decades made the reputations of many war correspondents. The prestige of the World Press Photo Awards, and of getting a photograph onto the cover of Time-Life magazine, was part of an exciting, if somewhat insular lifestyle. The difference is that the names Kate Adie and John Simpson are instantly recognisable, whereas only those who have read about them know Eddie Adams, Tim Page and Don McCullin.

I picked up a book called Unreasonable Behaviour by Don McCullin recently, which charted his career in his own words and photographs. He had a humanistic and emotional attitude to his work, and somehow had an irresistible drive to return to the field again and again. He covered the front lines of Cyprus, the Congo, Jerusalem, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Lebanon and Afghanistan, among several others. The scenario that follows this article is based loosely on his experiences after the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the focus of the scenario however is on an element of war photography that is less caring and more mercenary.

A Short Tour

The North Vietnamese Army made a concerted invasion across Vietnam in a hundred towns and cities, including Saigon, during the Vietnamese New Year holiday in 1968. The US Embassy, South Vietnamese HQ, Presidential Palace and Tan Son Nhut airport were all under siege. The Viet Cong had smuggled 4,000 guerrillas into Saigon, who carried out the assault, and murdered hundreds of Vietnamese on a list of those who were against the great people’s revolution. By the time McCullin returned to Vietnam however Tet was over, and two crack divisions of the North Vietnamese Army had joined up with 60,000 other troops to attack an American Marine base at Khe Sanh on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

McCullin discovered that another experienced photographer, David Douglas Duncan, had just returned from Khe Sanh, and decided it was not worth competing with him. Instead he got involved in a US counter offensive to retake the Imperial City of Hue, which was still in North Vietnamese hands. Hue was the cultural capital of Vietnam, and had a large civilian population, as a result the Americans decided to take it by infantry assault with the Marines. The northern half of Hue was controlled by 5,000 NVA and VC, McCullin followed Fifth Marine Commando, whose task was to take a walled city called the Citadel.

McCullin crossed the Perfume River with some South Vietnamese, and quickly went beyond the phase lines of the planned assault. As in other conflicts he was right in the front line, but it was not a fixed border, and civilians were mixed up in the fighting. He witnessed the callous attitude of the Marines, which typified the US military’s attitude to the Oriental, be it the Phillipines, Korea, or Vietnam. The attack on the Citadel took two weeks, McCullin was in the thick of it full time, and by the end he was burnt out.

McCullin had been subject to grenade and mortar attack and nearly killed, he witnessed Americans and Vietnamese with horrific injuries, had come across the macabre sights of dismembered corpses, and seen the slow and gradual destruction of Hue. The Citadel was taken not by infantry assault, but by air attack and artillery barrage, while the city centre was turned to rubble and 6,000 civilians were killed. McCullin gained a new appreciation of how terrible war could be, and realised that it was the time to leave Vietnam.

In The Field

It was McCullin’s belief that soldiers in the field welcomed the presence of reporters, because they wanted the people back home to appreciate what they were going through, especially later in the war when soldiers were spat on or insulted by war protesters. The presence of a reporter could therefore increase the morale of a unit that sees him, though I am not sure if this would apply to an army photographer. A reporter is often a hindrance to commanding officers, who may not want a mission compromised by his presence, or rather have the failure of a mission exaggerated by the publications of pictures of it.

Scenario ideas include giving a photographer an armed escort while he wanders around a possibly hostile town or village, or simply sticking a photographer into any normal scenario except for night actions, Special Forces operations or extended patrols. An intriguing game would be to have a company or battalion level operation over a large area, where the CO player makes his battle plans, and the photographer player uses bluff, charm and bribery to find out what those plans are.

Once the operation is ongoing, the photographer can use the information he gets to go to where the action is hottest, while the CO tries to stall or obstruct him. This could all be resolved using a set of role playing rules, rolling on charts, or argument. Whatever you do the emphasis is on entertainment and drama, rather than tactics and body count.

So I’ve sketched out the change in influence of photojournalism on modern news coverage, marking the decline of the war photographer and the rise of television war reporter. I’ve concentrated on the influence of the war photographers in the 60’s and 70’s, and if you can, check out an episode of Unsung Heroes on cable, which covered the various photographers who died in Vietnam.

Soon I'll be fleshing out this article with a scenario that is set in the aftermath of the North Vietnamese Army Tet Offensive of 1968, and although it has a conventional set up, one of the players controls a photographer working with the 5th Marine Commando.