R E Q U I E M
SEAN FLYNN
Sean Flynn arrived at the UPI bureau in Saigon shortly after his friend Dana Stone.
He had "popped over" to Vietnam from Singapore where he was acting in a movie.
An adventurer, like his famous father, Errol Flynn, he wanted to see some action.
I got him accredited as a UPI photographer.
Once official, he wasted no time disappearing into the "boonies."
Sean was unlike most photographers.
Instead of doing quick operations in the field, Sean wanted to hang out with the Special Forces and the "LURPS " (Long Range Patrols)
in the thickest jungles and the highest, most remote mountain ranges.
He would disappear for weeks at a time, and when he returned, it was with only a few rolls of film.
But his photos were unlike anyone else's.
(Dirck Halstead)
R E Q U I E M
DANA STONE
Dana Stone showed up at the doorstep of the UPI bureau in Saigon in 1965 after buying a ticket to Vietnam on a freighter.
He quickly became one of the finest young photographers covering the war.
He and Sean Flynn, the son of movie star Errol Flynn, soon formed a close friendship and the war became a great adventure for both of them.
They often rode to scenes of action on their motorcycles.
In 1970, they were riding those bikes down a road in Cambodia when they were stopped and executed in a field by the Khmer Rouge.
(Dirck Halstead)
Sean Flynn & Dana Stone
The Mysterious End of Sean Flynn & Dana Stone
Wikipedia reports that information obtained from indigenous sources indicated that Stone and Flynn were executed in mid-1971 in Kampong Cham Province, Cambodia.
Various sources, including an intercepted radio message from COSUN, the Viet Cong high command, indicated that Flynn and Stone survived.
One source reported that he had seen a group of very long haired, bearded, tall prisoners near Memot,
Cambodia who were identified as 'imperialist journalists'.
Over the following years, occasional reports emerged from isolated Cambodian villages of a "movie star" who was being held prisoner by the Khmer Rouge.
In reality, his mother Lili Damita spent large amounts of money searching for him, but he was never found.
Wikipedia also reports that in the 1980s, a vagrant claimed to have been recently in Mexico having been drinking buddies with a man who claimed to be the son of Errol Flynn.
This was never verified or substantiated. In 1984, Sean Flynn was declared legally dead, and one of 22 international journalists missing in Southeast Asia, most known to have been captured.
Evidence concerning Sean Flynn's fate was uncovered in 1991 by his former photojournalist colleague Tim Page.
According to a report published in the UK Sunday Times on March 24th 1991, Page returned to Cambodia in November 1990, determined to resolve the mystery.
"He began his search at Sangke Kaong, the first village where Flynn and Stone were known to have been held captive for several months according to documents released by the CIA.
Page tracked down one former villager who identified Flynn from a contemporary photograph, and recalled that the American had told her that both his parents were movie actors."
According to the report, "Flynn and Stone were moved north in early 1971 by their captors to Rokar Knor and then Peus, following the advance of US forces into Cambodia.
Following a hunger strike, they were moved again, and eventually handed over to the Khmer Rouge."
Investigations by Page and a TV documentary producer led them to a village known as Bei Met, and to an empty grave that had allegedly been the final resting place of two foreigners.
Forensic examination of the few remains left in the grave suggested they belonged to a tall man and a short man, and that both had met a violent end.
Even more recent information has been provided by author Jeffrey Meyers in his 2002 dual biography, "Inherited Risk: Errol and Sean Flynn in Hollywood and Viet Nam".
His research now provides a different ending to the mystery of "Whatever Happened to Sean Flynn?" Meyer says his research shows that in June of 1971,
being a captive for over a year, Flynn had contracted a "severe case of malaria".
He says that because of the poor medical facilities in Cambodia, the medical treatment given to him by his captors "went horribly wrong".
When nothing else could be done for him; he was given a lethal injection.
It is alleged that he may also have been buried alive, before the effects of the injection took its final toll.
His remains were then buried in an unknown spot never to be found again.
Video Remembering Sean Flynn & Dana Stone
