"December 1972. We visit a refugee camp, located in a former US military base in Da Nang. 'Forget ME Not' is written clumsily on the door of a ramshackle hut… Forty five years later, I tell myself that it is also time for me to write 'Forget ME Not' somewhere. I dive into my contact sheets, thrilled to revive memories evoked by the strips of negatives, amazed to discover some gems that didn’t capture my attention during the first edit in 1972."

When Abbas arrived in Vietnam in 1972, the country was at war. His elders – Robert Capa, Larry Burrows and Gilles Caron – had already covered and immortalized...