Dana Hazen Stone (April 18, 1939; disappeared April 6, 1970) was an American
photojournalist who worked for
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
,
United Press International
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20t ...
, and
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
during the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
.
Biography
Stone first traveled to
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
in 1965. Before arriving he bought a
Nikon
(, ; ), also known just as Nikon, is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging products. The companies held by Nikon form the Nikon Group.
Nikon's products include cameras, camera ...
, his first camera, in Hong Kong. After arriving in
Saigon he met
Henri Huet who showed him how to load film into the camera. He became friends with fellow photographers and journalists including
Sean Flynn,
Tim Page,
Henri Huet,
John Steinbeck IV
John Ernst Steinbeck IV (June 12, 1946 – February 7, 1991) was an American journalist and author. He was the second child of the Nobel Prize-winning author John Ernst Steinbeck. In 1965, he was drafted into the United States Army and served i ...
,
Perry Deane Young,
Nik Wheeler,
Chas Gerretsen
Chas Gerretsen (born 22 July 1943 in Groningen, Netherlands) is a Dutch-born war photographer, photojournalist and film advertising photographer.
His photographs of armed conflicts, Hollywood films and Celebrity Portraits have been published i ...
, and others. Dana started freelancing for
UPI
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...
and later became a staffer with the
AP. He soon became a combat photographer of note while going on missions with the
Green Berets
The United States Army Special Forces (SF), colloquially known as the "Green Berets" due to their distinctive service headgear, are a special operations force of the United States Army.
The Green Berets are geared towards nine doctrinal mis ...
from his base in Da Nang.
He and his wife Louise Smizer left Saigon for Europe in 1969, driving a
VW Camper
The Volkswagen Type 2, known officially (depending on body type) as the Transporter, Kombi or Microbus, or, informally, as the Bus (US), Camper (UK) or Bulli (Germany), is a forward control light commercial vehicle introduced in 1950 by the Ge ...
from
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
overland to
Lapland in Sweden where, for a short time, he became a
Lumberjack.
Stone was working as a
freelancer for
CBS News in
Laos when he was called back to Saigon in March 1970 to work as a combat cameraman with
John Laurence who was making a documentary that would become ''
The World of Charlie Company''.
He spent 5 days working on the documentary before being sent by CBS to
Phnom Penh on March 28 to cover the aftermath of the
Cambodian coup.
Disappearance
On April 6, 1970, Stone and his colleague
Sean Flynn were captured by the
People's Army of Vietnam in the
Kampong Cham province after leaving Phnom Penh on rented
Honda
is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.
Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a producti ...
motorbikes looking to find the front lines of fighting in Cambodia. Investigations by fellow photojournalist Tim Page, reported in the UK ''
Sunday Times'' on March 24, 1991, indicate that Stone and Flynn were taken first to the village of Sangke Kaong, and then to other villages before being handed to the
Khmer Rouge. Page tracked down an almost-empty grave in a village known as Bei Met in which two foreigners allegedly had been buried. Forensic examination of the few remains left in the grave suggested they belonged to a tall man and a short man – consistent with the appearance of Flynn and Stone respectively – and that both had died violently. However, in 2003, the Pentagon's Central Identification Lab in Hawaii confirmed by DNA testing that the remains found by Tim Page were actually of Clyde McKay, a boat hijacker, and Larry Humphrey, an army deserter; both were a part of the
''SS Columbia Eagle'' incident.
Stone and Flynn's disappearance is chronicled in
Perry Deane Young's 1975 memoir ''Two of the Missing''. A 1991 film, ''Danger on the Edge of Town'', recounted
Tim Page's "search to discover the fate of his friends Sean Flynn and Dana Stone".
Stone's younger brother, John Thomas Stone, joined the
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
in 1971, soon after graduating from high school, reportedly due in part to a desire to discover what had happened to his brother. He later served as a medic in the
Vermont National Guard
The Vermont National Guard is composed of the Vermont Army National Guard and the Vermont Air National Guard. Together, they are collectively known as the Green Mountain Boys. Both units use the original Revolutionary War-era Flag of the Green ...
and was killed by
friendly fire
In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy/hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while en ...
on March 29, 2006, when the 52-year-old sergeant was on his third tour in the
war in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to:
*Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC)
* Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709)
*Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see al ...
.
[Struck, Doug]
"U.S. Army Confirms 'Friendly Fire' Deaths"
''Washington Post'', July 4, 2007.
See also
*
Declared death ''in absentia''
*
John Dawson Dewhirst
John Dawson Dewhirst (1952 – c. August 1978) was a British teacher and amateur yachtsman who was one of nine westerners, and two Britons, known to have been killed by the Khmer Rouge during the rule of Pol Pot.
Early life
Dewhirst was bor ...
*
List of journalists killed and missing in the Vietnam War
*
Lists of people who disappeared
Lists of people who disappeared include those whose current whereabouts are unknown, or whose deaths are unsubstantiated. Many people who disappear are eventually declared dead ''in absentia''. Some of these people were possibly subjected to enfo ...
*
Mayaguez Incident
The ''Mayaguez'' incident took place between Kampuchea (now Cambodia) and the United States from 12 to 15 May 1975, less than a month after the Khmer Rouge took control of the capital Phnom Penh ousting the U.S.-backed Khmer Republic. After th ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Dana
1939 births
1971 deaths
1970 crimes
1970s missing person cases
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
American photojournalists
Missing person cases in Cambodia
People executed by the Khmer Rouge
People from Windsor County, Vermont
People murdered in Cambodia
Photography in Cambodia
War photographers killed while covering the Vietnam War