Al Rockoff

Al Rockoff is an American photojournalist made famous by his coverage of the Vietnam War and of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. He was portrayed in the Academy Award winning film The Killing Fields by actor John Malkovich, although he has never been happy with this portrayal. Rockoff was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and is half Russian and half Irish. After enlisting in the Navy while under age, he subsequently became an Army photographer in South Vietnam.

After several years in Vietnam, Rockoff came to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh in the spring of 1973, when the US-backed government of Lon Nol was fighting the Khmer Rouge insurgents. Both houses of Congress had voted to end USAF bombing missions over Cambodia that summer, and many journalists expected the fall of Phnom Penh was imminent.

Rockoff was known to take tremendous risks to get his pictures at a time when any foreign journalist falling into Khmer Rouge hands could expect execution. In October 1974, he was badly wounded by shrapnel in an attack near the strategic city of Kampong Chhnang, and technically 'died' for several minutes before his heart was revived by a Swedish Red Cross team. In April 1975, Rockoff was one of five US newsmen to remain in Phnom Penh when the US embassy launched a helicopter evacuation of its staff. On the morning of the city's fall, he was visiting the Preah Keth Melea hospital with New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg and Jon Swain of The Sunday Times when they were arrested by a furious company of teenage Khmer Rouge soldiers. Only the intervention of Schanberg's assistant Dith Pran saved their lives.

...
Wikipedia