Educative → Remembering the Fall of Saigon
“The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the
capital of South Vietnam, by the People’s Army of Vietnam and the
National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (also known as the Việt Cộng)
on April 30, 1975. The event marked the end of the Vietnam War and the
start of a transition period to the formal reunification of Vietnam into
a socialist republic, governed by the Communist Party of Vietnam. North
Vietnamese forces, under the command of the General Văn Tiến Dũng,
began their final attack on Saigon, with South Vietnamese forces
commanded by General Nguyễn Văn Toàn, on April 29, suffering heavy
artillery bombardment. This bombardment at the Tân Sơn Nhứt Airport
killed the last two American servicemen to die in Vietnam, Charles
McMahon and Darwin Judge. By the afternoon of the next day, North
Vietnamese troops had occupied the important points of the city and
raised their flag over the South Vietnamese presidential palace. The
South Vietnamese government capitulated shortly afterward. The city was
renamed Hồ Chí Minh City, after the Democratic Republic's President Hồ
Chí Minh. The capture of the city was preceded by the evacuation of
almost all the American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along
with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians associated with
the southern regime. The evacuation culminated in Operation Frequent
Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation in history. In addition to the
flight of refugees, the end of the war and institution of new rules by
the communists contributed to a decline in the city’s population”. –
Wikipedia
“Forty years later, the images remain searing:
Throngs of desperate South Vietnamese civilians trying to scale the
walls of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, hoping somehow to squeeze aboard
one of the helicopters evacuating U.S. personnel and their associates in
the face of an onslaught by North Vietnamese forces. U.S. Ambassador
Graham Martin, in fear of spreading panic, had delayed launching the
evacuation until the last opportunity. As a result, potentially better
plans for transport planes or cargo ships were scrapped – and the
helicopters, with space for fewer refugees, were called in on April
29,1975. By late afternoon, perhaps 10,000 desperate Vietnamese had
converged on the embassy, many of them fearful of retaliation by the
North Vietnamese for their cooperation with the U.S. during the long
war. There were other designated pickup points in Saigon besides the
embassy, but helicopters did not reach them all, leaving behind some of
the most vulnerable Vietnamese, many of them CIA workers. Some planes
that did try to leave Saigon's airport were shot down”... – Associated
Press
In this Tuesday, April 29, 1975 file photo,
American citizens arrive aboard the command and control ship USS Blue
Ridge after being evacuated out of Saigon, South Vietnam, by U.S. Marine
and Air Force helicopters operating from Navy ships. (Photo by AP
Photo/U.S. Navy)
In this April 5, 1965 file photo, Capt. Donald R.
Brown crouches on the ground in Saigon, waiting for the order for attack
across an open field against Vietcong positions in a treeline from
where enemy combatants with automatic weapons had briefly pinned down
the HQ company of the 2nd Battalion, 46 Regiment. (Photo by AP Photo)
Vietnamese try to scale the high U.S. Embassy wall
in desperate attempts to get aboard the evacuation flights in Saigon,
May 1, 1975. (Photo by AP Photo)
In this April 1975 file photo, orphans aboard the
first “Operation Babylift” flight at the end of the Vietnam War look
through the windows of World Airways DC-8 jet as it flies them to the
United States. (Photo by AP Photo)
In this April 1, 1975 file photo, a cargo net lifts
refugees from a barge onto the SS Pioneer Contender for evacuation from
the fallen city of Da Nang, Vietnam. It took eight hours to load some
6,000 refugees aboard the ship. (Photo by Peter O'Loughlin/AP Photo)
Saigon youngsters mill around overturned three
wheeled minibuses during a demonstration by the vehicles drivers
protesting various economic issues. The protest was one of two which
tock place, March 25, 1975 in the South Vietnamese capital Saigon.
(Photo by AP Photo)
Father and mother, from front and back, help lift
their youngster from ship to dock as the family and hundreds of other
refugees arrive at Saigon dock, Friday, March 29, 1975. The arrival of
the merchant vessel was one of the first at the capital since the mass
exodus of South Vietnamese from the central highlands and Northern
provinces. (Photo by AP Photo/Phuoc)
Anticommunist demonstrator kicks burning effigy of
Viet Cong soldier during unruly protest outside Saigon headquarters of
International Commission of Control and Supervision in Saigon, Jan. 6,
1975. About a hundred demonstrators protested fierce fighting in Phuoc
Long province in violation of the Paris peace agreement, which the ICCS
is charged with enforcing. (Photo by AP Photo)
Two stick-wielding plainclothes policemen fight
South Vietnamese Buddhist nuns in Saigon, Sunday, Jan. 26, 1975 during
anti government demonstration. Officer (left) warns comrade that nun
(background) is about to hit him with sandal. Melee occurred following
political convention at pagoda. (Photo by Nguyen Tu A/AP Photo)
Members of the Hoa Hao Buddhist sect block a road
near Phong Phu, South Vietnam, about 90 miles southwest of Saigon, with
tree branches, Saturday, Feb. 1, 1975. They were protesting a government
order to disband the sect's private army and the arrest of two of their
leaders. (Photo by AP Photo)
Hundreds of vehicles of all sports fill an empty
area as the refugees fleeing in the vehicles pause near Tuy Hoa in the
central coastal region of South Vietnam, Saturday, March 23, 1975
following the evacuation of Banmethuout and other population centers in
the highlands to the west. (Photo by AP Photo)
A Saigon student demonstrator hastily flees after a
policeman grabbed his antigovernment banner, Thursday, April 9, 1975.
About 30 students protested the draft and demanded the ouster of South
Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. (Photo by Dang Van Phuoc/AP
Photo)
In this Monday, April 28, 1975 file photo, South
Vietnamese troops and western TV newsmen run for cover as a North
Vietnamese mortar round explodes on Newport Bridge on the outskirts of
Saigon. (Photo by AP Photo/Hoanh)
South Vietnamese Buddhist nun injured in melee
between police and about 20 nuns staging demonstration rests on floor at
pagoda surrounded by other activist religious in Saigon, Sunday, Jan.
26, 1975. Antigovernment protest and fighting followed political
convention. Four nuns were injured, none of them seriously. (Photo by
Nguyen Tu A/AP Photo)
Their household goods in a haphazard pile, a South
Vietnamese refugee family takes time out for lunch at Da Nang in
Vietnam, March 28, 1975, where they are waiting to be relocated after
fleeing from the Northern provinces. (Photo by AP Photo/Phuoc)
Nowhere to go and nothing to do, South Vietnamese
refugees from Hue and the northern provinces pause on the dock waiting
for the government to relocate them to the central coastal area at Da
Nang in Vietnam, March 28, 1975. (Photo by AP Photo/Phuoc)
Teeming frightened humanity crowds the decks of the
merchant vassal Pioneer Contender as it docks at Cam Ranh Bay on the
central coast of South Vietnam, Friday, March 29, 1975. Ship carried
5,600 South Vietnamese refugees and about 40 Americans out of Danang, a
refugee crammed city under the gun. (Photo by Huynh Cong/AP Photo/Ut)
South Vietnamese Buddhist nuns opposed to the
regime of President Nguyen Van Thieu and continued fighting in their
country stage a demonstration in the shadow of a monument honoring
combatants in Saigon, Jan. 27, 1975. The nuns called on Thieu to resign.
(Photo by AP Photo/Ut)
Injured victims of a road accident in the panicky
flight from Hue stand over a dead woman in Hai Van Pass, March 21, 1975.
Fatal accidents and injuries were common among the thousands of
refugees who fled advancing North Vietnamese, and attempted to find
refuge in the coastal city of Da Nang. (Photo by AP Photo)
A Roman Catholic priest aids an elderly villager to
brave the windy rotor blast from a government helicopter as they run to
board it from west of Tuy Hoa in Vietnam, Wednesday, March 27, 1975.
They were among thousands of refugees from the Central Highlands who
were picked up along the central coast. (Photo by AP Photo/Ut)
A Saigon student demonstrator hastily flees after a
policeman grabbed his antigovernment banner, Thursday, April 9, 1975.
About 30 students protested the draft and demanded the ouster of South
Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. (Photo by Dang Van Phuoc/AP
Photo)
Refugees pass South Vietnamese armored vehicle as
they flee from the embattled town of Tri Tam which fell to North
Vietnamese troops in Vietnam, Wednesday, March 14, 1975. The town is 40
miles northwest of Saigon. (Photo by AP Photo/Phuoc)
In this April 4, 1975 file photo, smoke rises from
the wreckage of a U.S. Air Force C-5A transport plane after it crashed
in a paddy field shortly after takeoff from the Saigon Airport, killing a
large number of orphan children who were on board in a rescue flight
from South Vietnam. (Photo by Dang Van Phuoc/AP Photo)
A crippled South Vietnamese war veteran limps away
on crutch with food looted from abandoned U.S. installations after
evacuation of Saigon, April 29, 1975. (Photo by AP Photo)
In this April 29, 1975 file photo, people try to
scale the 14-foot wall of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, trying to reach
evacuation helicopters, as the last of the Americans depart from
Vietnam. (Photo by Neal Ulevich/AP Photo)
A U.S. Marine helicopter takes off from helipad on
top of the American Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, April 30, 1975. (Photo
by AP Photo/Phuoc)
Trucks and motorbikes, loaded with refugees, roar
along the main highway from the old imperial capital of Hue to the port
city of Danang about 50 miles south of Hue, March 25, 1975. Hue's
200,000 inhabitants have been streaming southward since the Saigon
government's decision to abandon the city in the face of a heavy North
Vietnamese buildup. (Photo by AP Photo)
A little girl in a pedicab, and her driver stare as
they pass a demonstration of nine anti-war activists before the United
States embassy in Saigon, Friday, Jan. 25, 1975. The activists, led by
David Harris, left, of Menlo Park, Calif. former husband of folk singer
Joan Baez, passed out leaflets demanding the end of U.S. intervention in
South Vietnam. (Photo by AP Photo)
Rock throwing Saigon middle school students charge
police during an anti-draft demonstration in Saigon, Thursday, March 27,
1975. The students were angered by changes in the conscription law,
lowering the draft age to 17. The change came about due to the
increasingly serious military situation. (Photo by Lo Vinh/AP Photo)
In this April 30, 1975 file photo, South Vietnamese
civilians try to scale the walls of the U.S. embassy in Saigon in an
attempt to get aboard evacuation flights. (Photo by Neal Ulevich/AP
Photo)
This is part of crowd of several hundred Vietnamese
gathered outside Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airport, Saturday, April 26,
1975 seeking to get seats aboard planes leaving the country. Most were
relatives or friends of Americans. Police barred their way to the
airport. (Photo by AP Photo)
South Vietnamese refugee deplane at Nha Trang
airfield in Vietnam, Thursday, March 27, 1975 following a jet hop from
Danang as a U.S. financed airlift, using civilian chartered jets,
relocates thousands of former residents of Hue. (Photo by Nick Ut/AP
Photo)
In this April 29, 1975 file photo, a helicopter
lifts off from the U.S. embassy in Saigon, Vietnam during last minute
evacuation of authorized personnel and civilians. (Photo by AP Photo)
Americans and their South Vietnamese dependents
wait in line outside the U.S. consulate to apply for visas in Saigon,
Vietnam, Saturday, April 5, 1975. (Photo by AP Photo)
Peasant boys herd their slow moving water buffalo
along the side of a busy highway, as a track jammed with other refugees
and their belongings heads South through the Hai Van Pass, South Vietnam
on March 21, 1975. The refugee flood came from the Northern city of
Hue, abandoned by the Saigon regime. (Photo by AP Photo)
An aircraft operated by Air America, the central
intelligence agency's charter airline, carries more than 100 refugees
from Nhatrang to Saigon on Sunday, March 30, 1975. The plane was
carrying twice its normal passenger load. (Photo by AP Photo)
South Vietnamese crowd a teller's cage at the
French Bank of Indochina in Saigon on April 2, 1975 to withdraw funds
from savings. Near panic followed rumors the government would freeze
deposits. (Photo by AP Photo)
Thousands of South Vietnamese refugees and vehicles
of all kinds are at a stand still on Route 1 as they move out of the
area with fighting continuing in the Xuan Loc area east of Saigon on
Thursday, April 10, 1975. Government forces are battling Communist
troops for control of the district town and the strategic main road.
(Photo by Nick Ut/AP Photo)
Fire rages in residential area of Xuan Loc, Vietnam
on Thursday, April 11, 1975, as fighting erupted between South
Vietnamese troops and Dommunist forces. The city in 40 miles form Saigon
(Photo by AP Photo/CAU)
South Vietnamese refugees help others who have
suffered the same plight to board a truck which will take them away from
their endangered homes to a safe area in Vietnam on April 17, 1975.
These Vietnamese left their native village south of Xuan Loc, an
em-battled provincial capital in Long Khanh province east of Saigon, as
government troops yielded ground to Communist forces. (Photo by AP
Photo)
A South Vietnamese medic comforts a trooper wounded
in the leg during a battle in Long An province southwest of Saigon on
April 18, 1975. Fighting in the area, just north of the Mekong Delta, is
on the increase. (Photo by AP Photo/Rocco)
In this Tuesday, April 29, 1975 file photo, U.S.
Navy personnel aboard the USS Blue Ridge push a helicopter into the sea
off the coast of Vietnam in order to make room for more evacuation
flights from Saigon. The helicopter had carried Vietnamese people
fleeing Saigon as North Vietnamese forces closed in on the capital.
(Photo by AP Photo)
South Vietnamese throng to U.S. embassy in Saigon
on Thursday, April 24, 1975 seeking entry documents and possible
evacuation from troubled city. Crowds grow daily as military, political
situation in capital slides downhill. (Photo by Ky Nhan/AP Photo)
While many South Vietnamese are scrambling to board
airliners out of their troubled country, these homeless peasants are
glad to arrive by boat at government controlled Vung Tau, a coastal town
near Saigon on April 24, 1975. These refugees fled Binh Tuy province,
the 20th to change hands during the current North Vietnamese Viet Con
offensive. (Photo by AP Photo/Kim)
Thousands of Bien Hoa refugees march toward Saigon
in Vietnam on Monday, April 28, 1975 to escape a devastating North
Vietnamese shelling of their town NW of Saigon. Shelling left town in
flamed. (Photo by AP Photo/Franjola)
Unidentified members of a television news crew run
for cover in Saigon on Monday, April 28, 1975 during fighting between
South Vietnamese Government troops and Communist forces on the northern
outskirts of Saigon. (Photo by Thauh Nuy/AP Photo)
Mobs of Vietnamese people scale the wall of the
U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, trying to get to the helicopter pickup
zone, just before the end of the Vietnam War on April 29, 1975.
President Bush, who has rejected Iraq-Vietnam comparisons in the past,
linked the U.S. pullout in Vietnam to the rise of the Khmer Rouge in
Cambodia in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in
Kansas City Wednesday August 22, 2007. Some foreign policy analysts took
issue with Bush. (Photo by Neal Ulevich/AP Photo)
Last Viet evacuees by boat from Saigon water front
in Saigon as PRG troops closing in on April 30, 1975. (Photo by Matt
Franjola/AP Photo)
Americans and Vietnamese run for a U.S. Marine
helicopter in Saigon during the evacuation of the city, April 29, 1975.
(Photo by AP Photo)
In this April 23, 1975 photo provided by the
Department of Defense, Vietnamese refugees crowd aboard the Military
Sealift Command ship Pioneer Contender to be evacuated to areas further
south. (Photo by Department of Defense via AP Photo)
The line of Americans and their Vietnamese
dependents grows larger at the U.S. consulate in Saigon, April 18, 1975
where many seek papers to emigrate. This picture, taken Friday morning
shows a portion of the hundreds who appear daily at the mission. (Photo
by Nick Ut/AP Photo)
A South Vietnamese air force Chinook helicopter
lifts refugees from embattled Xuan Loc area east of Saigon, April 13,
1975, as government and Communist forces continue their fight for
control of the provincial capital. (Photo by AP Photo)
In this April 29, 1975, file photo, South
Vietnamese civilians try to scale the 14-foot wall of the U.S. embassy
in Saigon, trying to reach evacuation helicopters as the last Americans
departed from Vietnam. More than two bitter decades of war in Vietnam
ended with the last days of April 1975. Today, 40 years later, former
Associated Press correspondent Peter Arnett has written a new memoir,
“Saigon Has Fallen”, detailing his experience covering the war for The
AP. (Photo by AP Photo)
A weeping South Vietnamese mother and her three
children are shown on the deck of this amphibious command ship being
plucked out of Saigon by U.S. Marine helicopters in Vietnam, April 29,
1975. (Photo by AP Photo)
In this May 4, 1975 file photo, a youth waves a
weapon and a Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) flag as he joins
PRG troops on a jeep on Tu Do street in Saigon. (Photo by Matt
Franjola/AP Photo)
In this Thursday, May 1, 1975 file photo, U.S.
sailors transfer a South Vietnamese boy from the USS Blue Ridge to a
merchant vessel off the South Vietnam coast during evacuations from
South Vietnam. (Photo by Nick Ut/AP Photo)
In this Thursday, April 4, 1975 file photo, young
demonstrators toss sticks and rocks at South Vietnamese riot police in
Saigon in a brief confrontation after a rally sponsored by the mainly
Catholic anti-corruption movement. (Photo by Lo Vinh/AP Photo)
This April 30, 1975 photo provided by former U.S.
Marines Master Gunnery Sgt. Juan Valdez shows Marines barricading
themselves on the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam. On the
40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, 13 Marines returned to dedicate a
plaque to their two fallen brothers at the site of the old embassy,
which is now the U.S. Consulate. (Photo by Juan Valdez/AP Photo)
In this April 28, 1975 photo provided the White
House via the Gerald R. Ford Library, President Gerald Ford, center,
meets with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, right, and Vice President
Nelson Rockefeller in the Oval Office of the White House to discuss the
American evacuation of Saigon. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/White
House, Gerald R. Ford Library via AP Photo)
In this April 30, 1975 file photo, a North
Vietnamese tank rolls through the gates of the Presidential Palace in
Saigon, signifying the fall of South Vietnam. The war ended on April 30,
1975, with the fall of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, to
communist troops from the north. (Photo by AP Photo)
In this Sunday, April 27, 1975 file photo, a cross
from a church in Saigon stands against the dawn sky after a rocket
attack and ensuing fire. (Photo by Matt Franjola/AP Photo)
In this April 29, 1975 file photo, South Vietnamese
civilians scale the 14-foot wall of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, trying
to reach evacuation helicopters as the last Americans depart from
Vietnam. (Photo by AP Photo)
Authorized U.S. military and civilian personnel
rush to board a Marine helicopter during the evacuation of the U.S.
Embassy in Saigon, April 29, 1975. (Photo by Neal Ulevich/AP Photo)
Refugees fleeing advancing communist forces flood
into Saigon April 28, 1975, arriving in jammed vehicles and on foot from
rural districts north of the South Vietnamese capital. The communists
entered the city two days later. (Photo by H. Hung/AP Photo)
North Vietnamese pose in front of a tank outside
the Presidential Palace in Saigon, South Vietnam on April 30, 1975, the
moment that marked the end of the Vietnam war. This photo taken by North
Vietnamese photograper Dinh Quang Thanh was among a series of images
from the final day of the war that have not been widely seen outside his
homeland. (Photo by Dinh Quang Thanh/AP Photo/Vietnam News Agency)
South Vietnamese officers sit dejectedly on a curb
outside the Presidential Palace shortly after North Vietnamese troops
captured the Palace in Saigon, ending the Vietnam war on April 30, 1975
in this photo taken by North Vietnamese photograper Dinh Quang Thanh.
Nam's images taken as he arrived with the North Vietnamese troops
captured a mood different from many of the most familiar photos by
western photographers, whose images showed the scenes of panic in the
final hours of the war. (Photo by Dinh Quang Thanh/AP Photo/Vietnam News
Agency)
An American volunteer carries a South Vietnamese
infant from a Saigon orphanage to the airport en route to the United
States for adoption, Saturday, April 5, 1975. (Photo by AP Photo)
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