Dickey Chapelle

Dickey Chapelle (born March 14, 1919 as Georgette Louise Meyer in Milwaukee , † November 4, 1965 ) was a photographer and war journalist who was best known for her reports and pictures about the Second World War and the Vietnam War . Chapelle was the first female war reporter to die in the Vietnam War and the first American war reporter to die in a war.

life and work

After studying with her grandparents in Florida for a while, Georgette Meyer moved to New York, where she met and married Tony Chapelle. She started working as a photographer for Trans World Airlines . After 15 years of marriage, she divorced and changed her first name to Dickey.

Chapelle worked as a photographer and correspondent for the National Geographic Society magazine . She reported u. a. about the Battle of Iwojima and the Battle of Okinawa . After the Second World War she reported on different regions and conflicts, such as B. about the Hungarian uprising of 1956 . Since then, she has positioned herself in public as an anti-communist , although she initially sympathized with Fidel Castro's views. During the Vietnam War, she had contact with Nguyen Lac Hoa , an anti-communist leader. She reported extensively on the victims of the US Army . Chapelle died on November 4, 1965, while visiting the front, in a booby trap . The well-known war reporter Henri Huet photographed her body. This photo became famous in the United States. Chapelle's body was returned to the United States. Chapelle received an honorary funeral from the United States Marine Corps .

Awards

• George Polk Journalist Award for Best Foreign Reporter
• National Press Photographers Association named Photographer of the Year 1963
• Distinguished Service Award , an award from the United States Marine Corps for excellence in journalism

Publications

• Horst Faas (1997): Requiem. By the photographers who died in Vietnam and Indochina , ISBN 0-679-45657-0
• Chapelle, Dickey (1942). Needed - women in government service. RM McBride.
• Chapelle, Dickey (1943). Girls at work in aviation. Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.
• Chapelle, Dickey (1944). How planes get there. Harper & Brothers.
• Chapelle, Dickey (1962). What's a woman doing here ?: A reporter's report on herself. New York: Morrow.
• Chapelle, Dickey; Franklin Mark Osanka (ed.) (1962). "How Castro Won". Modern Guerrilla WarFare Fighting Communist Guerrilla Movements (Macmillan, New York: Free Press of Glencoe): 325-335.
• The Dickey Chapelle Papers, Madison, WI: Wisconsin State Historical Society, Archives Division, 1933-1967