That was one of the scariest moments of my life. But you know, man, we've got to come back here. I bet that if we used motorcycles, dressed casually —really low-profile—we could get off this main road and sort of glide into the villages. We might be able to rap with some of the Cambodians, and then have them take us to where we can get pictures of the action.
—TIME Photographer Sean Flynn
Flynn did go back, and he found the Viet Cong. Or rather the V.C. found him. Along with his friend, CBS Cameraman Dana Stone, the 28-year-old son of Errol Flynn was captured in the Cambodia-South Vietnam border area. Last week, in addition to the two Americans, at least six other journalists* were presumed to have fallen victim to the Viet Cong in the same vicinity. The captures dramatized how greatly Cambodia has changed since the ouster of Prince Norodom Sihanouk four weeks ago.
For three years, Cambodia's chimerical Prince veiled his relations with the Viet Cong by keeping foreign journalists out of his "neutralist" country. Many sneaked in, mainly for respite from the Viet Nam War. Unable to carry out any real reporting in Cambodia, they dined on frogs' legs, eggs en cocotte and cheese soufflés beside a bikini-lined pool in Phnom-Penh, the capital city.
Beads and Bombs. When the Prince was ousted, the new government welcomed reporters —but covering Cambodia suddenly became a highly dangerous venture. As scores of U.S., British, Australian, French, German and Japanese correspondents poured in, they found a countryside torn by civil strife and infested with Viet Cong patrols. The government could not provide escorts; local drivers refused to leave the capital.
Sean Flynn arrived in Cambodia on April 2, on assignment for TIME. The next day he joined TIME Correspondent Burton Pines in a rented car headed for Parrot's Beak, a jut of Cambodia that cuts into South Viet Nam about 40 miles west of Saigon. Pines reports: "In one village, where the V.C. had burned a district office that Sean wanted to photograph, we two Americans created quite a commotion. Sean, especially, fascinated them. Six feet tall, strikingly handsome, with long blond hair almost to his shoulders, he wore only sandals, khaki shorts, a white pullover and love beads. While he was photographing the house, we saw South Vietnamese air force planes bombing just across the border. We had learned earlier in the day that both Vietnamese and American artillery and airplanes had begun regular missions on Cambodian soil. Sean wanted to come back to photograph those missions that Washington and Saigon so vehemently deny."
Moments later, Flynn and Pines also saw—and narrowly escaped—two 15-man Communist patrols armed with AK-47 rifles. After hurrying back to the capital, Flynn and Dana Stone (on assignment for CBS News) agreed that a return trip was worth the risk despite ominous reports of 10,000 Communist troops in the area. The two rented red Honda motorcycles and headed off. The next day villagers near Bavet reported seeing the Viet Cong quietly capture two Westerners on motor scooters. It was the same area where the Frenchmen and two Japanese journalists had been captured the day before.