Opening salvo: The assault on the sniper's
position begins with rounds fired from the 40mm auto-cannons on an M42
anti-aircraft tank
The soldiers then launched flares into the
hills, as a pair of M-60 machine guns in guard towers began pelting the
woods with hot lead. The machine gun's tracer bullets can be seen in red
The U.S. soldiers were trying to kill a Viet
Cong sniper who routinely fired on the camp from the safety of the rock
outcroppings
James Speed Hensinger was a 22-year-old soldier
when he set his Nikon camera to take long exposures. He didn't know what
to expect when he sent the film off to be developed. What he got back
is nothing short of incredible
The M42 tank's .50-caliber machine guns up fire -
lighting up the hills. The soldiers didn't know there the sniper was -
they were hoping to hit him with the massive barrage
The smaller M60 machine guns chime in again as
they soldiers pour thousands of rounds into the hillside. The sniper was
never found, though soldiers did discover traces of blood when they
searched the area the next day
Unleash hell: The hillside becomes a sea of fire
when the big guns on the tank begin firing, in addition to the bursts
from the three machines
A man is seen walking through a rice paddy in the South Vietnamese town of Phu Tai, where Hendinger was stationed
Hensinger also captured the simple, agrarian beauty of the Vietnamese countryside
Hensinger has never released his photos publicly until now. The frames from April 1970 capture a time near the end of the war
Self-portrait: Hensinger was 22 and had been
deployed with the 173 Airborne Brigade. By April 1970, the unit had seen
substantial combat
Then and now: Hensinger is now 66 and lives in a
suburb of Denver, Colorado. Hensinger never considered himself a
professional photographer, but has always loved shooting pictures
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