An ABC news story alerted me that today, 9 September, would mark the 30th
anniversary of when Australian war cameraman Neil Davis and his sound
man Bill Latch were killed from shrapnel from tank fire during a
military coup attempt in Bangkok.
As fate would have it, I was directly across the street moments after
Neil was killed.
My travelling companion had taken unwell the night before. We had come from
China and travelled in the Phillipines and were staying at a friend of a
friend's place, a university lecturer, in the Bangkok suburb of Dusit,
not far from the university and zoo.
As my companion was running a fever, we decided it wise to get her
to the hospital in downtown Bangkok where a doctor could examine her.
To avoid the worst of the Bangkok peak-hour traffic, we got up early on the
morning of the 9th September 1985. The bus stop was around the corner in a
quieter narrow road and as the two of us waited for the bus, probably some time
before 6am, I noted how relatively few people were out and about yet.
Across the street the top of a radio station antenna peaked out
over the large wall.
As we waited, I noted that an army solider in full battledress was
making his way with stealth down the narrow road, running from one
telegraph pole to the next. As he reached each pole, he hid behind it
for a few moments, holding his automatic rifle upright so as to keep
a narrow profile. Then I noted another armed solider was making his
way toward our direction by crawling along the gutter. As I glanced
around, I spotted a few more armed camouflaged soldiers taking
advantage of the shadows.
Before I could react, somewhat surreally the bus arrived and we climbed
aboard.
A moment later, as the bus crossed a major intersection near the Palace.
I looked out the window at the sight of army tanks parked in the middle
of the road.
The bus then made its way down the manicured boulevard past the Palace. As I
looked out the window we passed a classic large restored American car from the
50's or 60's, like an old Cadillac. This stretch of road in front of the palace
grounds was a twenty-four hour no-stopping zone but the classic car was stopped
there and its hood was up giving the appearance of it having broken down.
A Caucasian guy with dark suit, tie, sunglasses and neat trim hair cut stood
behind the car literally backslapping a Thai military officer, almost certainly
a general judging by the amount of bling on his uniform. Both of them were
laughing in an exultant way. A second Caucasian guy, with identical appearance
to the first, stood watchfully at the front of the vehicle. Though the hood
was raised, he paid no attention to looking for a mechanical problem but instead
looked sternly around. He was keeping guard over this street
meeting.
At that very moment I thought to myself, "These guys are American. They are
CIA". What struck me was that they weren't discrete. They looked exactly how
Hollywood depicts CIA agents and the choice of classic car seemed to
a flamboyant eccentricity of someone living the good life abroad.
When we reached the hospital in the city we heard the news for the first time
that a coup was under way.
After several hours at the hospital, my companion was diagnosed with dengue
fever. She was prescribed some medication and now it was time to return back
to where we wre staying.
As news of the coup spread, the city had become more frenzied. Large crowds
waited at the bus stops as the busses were no longer running on time.
After a long wait, finally our bus arrived and we squashed our way inside.
The bus made good speed and as I had travelled the route several times before
I was familiar with the landmarks. Then suddenly the bus stopped and everyone
was ordered off. It was going no further. Once we disembarked the hot and
crowded bus, I looked around and recognized that we were now on the other side
of the radio station from where we normally catch the bus, about a kilometre
away from where we were staying.
However the not so good news is that we had been dropped off where a battle
was taking place. The radio station was in fact the Army 1st Division Radio
Station and the soldiers and tanks I had seen early in the morning had taken
it over.
Another group of soldiers and tanks were now trying to take it back from the
rebels. The building was damaged by tank fire, gun cartridges riddled the
streets and there was blood on the pavement.
Across the street was a body.
It was a place of chaos but whilst keeping on the move I pulled out my 35mm
Minolta and managed some shots that I still have stored away.
As we rounded the corner, about a thousand people came running and screaming the
other way. The safest thing to do was to get back to the shelter of the house at
which we were staying which was in the direction the people were running away
from. We were like two salmon going upstream.
I vividly recollect passing an abandoned bus in the middle of the road.
It had been strafed with bullets and as we passed the open door, blood
was running down its steps.
We made it back to our place and just as quickly as the coup started, it had
been quelled.
The following day we boarded a train headed to Penang in Malaysia. In the
newspaper I read that an Australian cameraman named Neil Davis had been killed.
That was the body. His sound man had been wounded and died later in hospital.
News story here -
https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,4067022&hl=en
Ironically, Neil had filmed his own death.
In 1987 Tim Bowden published a biography on the life and death of Neil
Davis entitled "One Crowded Hour". It is a wonderful book and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Ebook details by Harper Collins, available from Amazon, Google Play and Apple
iBooks -
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781...e-crowded-hour
Hardcopy ABC Shop -
https://shop.abc.net.au/products/one-crowded-hour-pbk
Later I considered that I was probably among the first people outside of
the people involved in the coup itself to witness it unfolding as the soldiers
were about to storm the radio station.
Though the CIA have been implicated as being connected with other Thai coup attempts
I have never seen an account that they were involved in the coup of September 1985.
Though I have no way of knowing for certain that I had witnessed a meeting between
American intelligence officers and a high ranking Thai officer only a short distance
from where the siege was unfolding at the radio station, whatever these guys were up
to was suspicious.
Neil had been a front line cameraman in Vietnam.
He famously filmed the North Vietnamese tank crashing down the
gate of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, the quintessential image
that depicts the end of the Vietnam war. When the tank commander
jumped out, he pointed his hand gun at Neil. Neil knew what to say.
"Welcome to Saigon, comrade, I've been waiting to film the liberation."
The tank commander shook his hand and ran up the palace steps with a
North Vietnamese flag.
In 2007 I stood in the old Saigon palace and looked at stills on display
from Neil's camera.
Today's ABC story here -
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-0...mbered/6759644
