Drawing Under Fire: War Diary of a Young Vietnamese Artist

Artist and military reporter, Pham Thanh Tam was 22 years old when he wrote his diaries and created his sketches at the battle of Dien Bien Phu during the Franco-Vietnam War (1946–1954). Tam's visual account benefits from his unique position as an army reporter with access to key information sources, from his frontline perspective, and from his vivid reporting and incisive analysis. As a personal tale, these images express a young man's coming of age during times of war, and underscore his ability to retain a sense of humour and compassion under fire. Carrying only his paint brushes, Chinese ink, chalk, and pencils, Tam trusted his companions with his life as he drew sketches of and for the soldiers. In the tradition of war artists and reporters of the First World War, he moved around the battlefield, through the muddy, bloodied trenches, slept next to cannons, joined digging teams, and marched with the troops. Reproduced here, Tam's pensive, tender, and lyrical sketches are rare documents that have survived the battlefield--fragile images on notepaper that show one artist's ability to sketch beauty in the midst of a battle referred to by journalist Bernard B. Fall as “hell in a very small place.”