A record of Dr Jim Talbot, who as a medical student at Otago choose to spend his "overseas elective" working at Bong Son Hospital, in Vietnam during 1969. He then joined the RNZAF as a medical officer and returned to South Vietnam in 1971 to work at the Bong Son Hospital. The 8mm movies were taken during 1971.
Talbot’s diary of events during this time is held in the documentation collection. Please enquire with staff for access.
Exterior of Bong Son Hospital. [RAAF] Iroquois helicopter taking off. Flying over Qui Nhon city. ARVN personal playing with a soccer ball. Scenes around Qui Nhon. Shot of man taking photos of coastline from a ridge. Junks on the coast. Traffic in the city. C-130 Hercules landing at airport. European doctor treating Vietnamese locals. Woman searching through rubbish. Smoking rubble beside road. Horse drawn carts in country town. ARVN personal at side of road. Iroquois hovering. View from the cockpit of an Iroquois as it takes of from runway, flying low over land, past bridges.
Sign for “I New Zealand Services Medical Team” at Bong Son. Elevated view of the team’s buildings. Ambulances.
Two woman carry the body of a burn victim into the hospital.
In surgery, doctors operate on a patient. Drilling a hole into a man’s head. Another has his intestine removed during operation to access internal organs.
Woman lie in hospital beds, fanned by [relatives]. Young girl in a wheel chair. Badminton outside on sand. Cockfighting, children watch excitedly.
Iroquois landing beside a red flare. [Team] at the firing range. Shooting machine guns and grenade launchers.
A sign for the old [bombed-out] Bong Son railway station. Locomotives sit in the grass. Street scenes. School children in play ground. Buffalo in rice field. Bills advertising the ruling Dan-Chu Party. Vietnamese construction sights. Farmers manually extracting wheat from chaff on the side of the road.
A sign thanking the New Zealand medical teams. A dog sitting atop a military police armoured vehicle.
Hercules and DC-3 Dakota at Phu Cat Air Base. F-4 Phantom flies overhead - taxing on tarmac. RNZAF Bristol Freighter.