War photographer Faas dies

NEW YORK – Horst Faas, a prize-winning combat photographer who carved out new standards for covering war with a camera and became one of the world’s legendary photojournalists in nearly half a century with the Associated Press, died Thursday in Munich. He was 79.

A native of Germany who joined the U.S.-based news cooperative there in 1956, Faas photographed wars, revolutions, the Olympic Games and events in between. But he was best known for covering Vietnam, where he was severely wounded in 1967 and won four major photo awards including the first of his two Pulitzer Prizes.

“Horst was one of the great talents of our age, a brave photographer and a courageous editor who brought forth some of the most searing images of this century,” said AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll.

As chief of AP’s photo operations in Saigon for a decade beginning in 1962, Faas covered the fighting while recruiting and training new talent from among foreign and Vietnamese freelancers. The result was “Horst’s army” of young photographers, who fanned out with Faas-supplied cameras and film and stern orders to “come back with good pictures.”

Faas and his editors chose the best and put together a steady flow of telling photos – South Vietnam’s soldiers fighting and its civilians struggling to survive amid the maelstrom.