The Day the US Army Tried to Kill a Hill in Vietnam
In 1970, James Hensinger found himself serving in Vietnam. He was deployed at a base that was commonly attacked by a sniper at night. The sniper would hide on the high ground and pepper the base’s accommodations with rounds. It was considered a nuisance up until one day when one of the sniper’s potshots killed an American serviceman.
The Plan to Counter the Sniper
It was decided to try and kill him or scare him to death the following night should he return. The plan was simple: Open fire with everything, all at once, and target the whole hill!
James, an avid photographer, got his camera ready!
The Viet Cong sniper returned that night and he opened fire once… The pictures below show what he came up against when the Americans returned fire!
The Aftermath of the Counterattack
Shooting blindly in total darkness is not very effective: An American patrol sent up the next day failed to find a body. The sniper had escaped… He never came back, though!
Those pictures look fantastic. James took them with long exposure but also with a very low ISO usually reserved for daylight conditions which explains the weird hue on the pics.
-RBM
