M1A1 carbine in Vietnam

[Mk VII]

British photographer Tim Page, who has died recently, in Vietnam. Although correspondents were not supposed to carry arms, Page evidently acquired an M1A1 carbine.

[browningautorifle]

Looks like he's embedded with the ARVN. Nice M1A1 though, too much cameras. They'll get in the way of fightin'...

[Mk VII]

His cameras frequently got totalled by the war ...

[browningautorifle]

Thus the heavy load to back up the broken ones.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Brave guys those photographers. Can you imagine our deficit of knowledge of every conflict since the civil war?

[DaveHH]

I never saw an M1A1 in the whole year. Saw a few "Enforcers" and many, many regular carbines. Funny thing in those days mid-66-67, There seemed to be fewer carbines up in I Corps. Maybe less ARVN? Mike Force guys and CIDG and the like favored Garands. In II Corps where I was at mostly, all of the PF and VC Tax collectors in hammocks on the small bridges all had Carbines. Down South in IVCorps lots of carbines. Your chances of getting shot with a VC carbine were good along with 98K and SKS. Very few AKs unless it was from A PAVN unit.

[jond41403]

These are the kind of comments I like best because it is a firsthand account of what was truly there at a specific time. Thank you for your service Dave! I love hearing stories from people that were there and tell what they saw being carried

[Flying10uk]

His cameras frequently got totalled by the war ...

But also in the days when cameras actually had film in them professional photographers use to like the option of taking photos with cameras loaded with several different types of film. When I only had a film camera, and just as an amateur, I use to carry 3 identical camera bodies loaded with different films and just swapped over the lenses as required. Here it looks like the photographer has fitted different lenses to each camera body.

[DaveHH]

If I recall, Ecktachrome favored green and was faster than Kodachrome which favored red. We had a combat photography outfit in our camp and I could get anything I needed, film, processing the works. They were always asking for anything we had in expended film.
I didn't have a camera and couldn't afford one until late in my tour. I didn't want to take a $75 camera and have it rattle around like a BB in a boxcar in the 2 1/2 ton. Those little instamatic cameras changed everything but they arrived after I left. The last thing I was worrying about was taking photos. I just wanted those two years to go by.