Photo of North Vietnam female guerrilla widely shared

A photo, which was taken in 1967 during the Vietnam War by a German war correspondent and depicts a slender Vietnamese female guerrilla holding a big US soldier at gunpoint, has caused quite a stir among local netizens as it was recently posted on Flickr.

The photo, taken by Thomas Billhardt, features a female guerrilla holding an American soldier captive and escorting him on a country road.

The photo was among Billhardt’s collection which he took of North Vietnam in 1967. The author has posted them on his Flickr page and the photo has recently attracted a large number of views and shares on social networks, particularly from Vietnamese net users.

Born in 1937 in the former East Germany, Billhardt took lots of photos in the north of Vietnam during the war time apart from other countries including Cuba, Chile, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico and Cambodia.

Billhardt has come to Vietnam more than 10 times in war years 1967, 1972 and 1979 and afterwards. He used several of his photos of Vietnam as the covers of his books or the avatars of his exhibits. He held his photo exhibit titled “The Vietnam War” in Hanoi twice, in 1999 and 2003.

Billhardt shared that 31 years after taking that photo, he met the American soldier, named Dewey Waddell, again in 1998. Waddell told him that the photo has positively impacted his life by helping his family and the US know that he remained alive.

Prior to this photo, another one taken by local artist Phan Thoan on Sept 21, 1965, which also captures a female guerrilla escorting a tall American pilot, has been hugely popular.