The fall of Saigon, 1975: the last helicopters and the end of the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War did not end with a battle for Saigon. It ended with a radio playing White Christmas in the tropical heat, a stream of helicopters between a city and a fleet, and a North Vietnamese tank at the gate of the presidential palace. In about 24 hours the American presence in Vietnam came to an end, and so did the Republic of Vietnam.²

Two years after the Paris accords

The Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 took the last American combat troops out of Vietnam but left well over 100,000 North Vietnamese soldiers in the South. A token force of Marines guarded the embassy and consulates, and a small Defense Attaché Office (DAO) managed American aid. At home, Nixon resigned in August 1974 and Congress, under public pressure, cut military and economic aid to Saigon sharply.³

In January 1975 the People's Army of Vietnam overran Phuoc Long province. On 10 March three divisions struck Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands, and the collapse that followed surprised everyone, the NHHC notes, including the North Vietnamese themselves. The highlands were abandoned in panic, Da Nang fell on 29 March, and the coast followed: Qui Nhon, Nha Trang and the great base at Cam Ranh were all lost by 3 April. The South Vietnamese army made a stand at Xuan Loc, about 35 miles northeast of Saigon, but pulled out of the town on 20 and 21 April, and on 21 April President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned in a televised address, denouncing the United States. By 27 April North Vietnamese forces had encircled Saigon, and that day their rockets hit a city that had been largely spared throughout the war.⁴

Waiting to leave

The evacuation plan, first code-named Talon Vise and later renamed Frequent Wind, was under review as early as December 1974. Ambassador Graham Martin, who held out hope of a negotiated settlement, wanted to delay it as long as possible and to keep preparations quiet so as not to set off panic in Saigon. Meanwhile fixed-wing aircraft flew people out of Tan Son Nhut airport. By 19 April only some 5,000 to 6,000 had left; once the paperwork for Vietnamese dependents was simplified around 19 and 20 April, several thousand a day were leaving, on transports that flew around the clock.⁵

Before dawn on 29 April North Vietnamese rockets and artillery hit Tan Son Nhut. A C-130 was destroyed on the ground, and two Marines guarding the DAO compound, Corporal Charles McMahon Jr. and Lance Corporal Darwin Judge, were killed. They are counted as the last American servicemen to die in combat in Vietnam. With the runways unusable, Martin went to see the damage for himself and then accepted the last option in the plan: evacuation by helicopter to the fleet.⁶

Operation Frequent Wind

Late that morning, at about 11 a.m. Saigon time (accounts range from 10:45 to 11:08), President Gerald Ford ordered Frequent Wind to begin. Around the same time the American radio station in Saigon announced that the temperature was "105 degrees and rising" and played Bing Crosby's White Christmas, the signal for Americans and their Vietnamese staff to go to their assembly points. The first waves, mostly Marine CH-53 helicopters from Okinawa and Hancock, brought in 865 Marines to guard the DAO compound, and the shuttle to the ships began.⁷

At the DAO compound the evacuation went fairly smoothly, and by about 8:30 to 9 p.m. the last evacuees had gone. At the embassy it did not. It had been meant as only a secondary pickup point; instead some 2,500 crowded the compound, many of them Vietnamese staff and their families, and the rooftop pad could not take the big CH-53s. Martin at last allowed a large tamarind tree to be cut down so that the parking lot could serve as a landing zone, and he kept asking for more helicopters for the crowd still inside the walls.⁸

In the early hours of 30 April Washington ran out of patience. The President wanted to announce that the last Americans were out, only a limited number of further lifts were authorized, they were to carry Americans only, and the ambassador was ordered to leave. Martin's helicopter, call sign Lady Ace 09, lifted off from the roof shortly before 5 a.m.; the last Marine guards followed shortly before 8 a.m. Behind them, inside the embassy grounds, they left several hundred evacuees, most of them Vietnamese, who had been promised a place; estimates run from 250 to more than 400.⁹

Helicopters into the sea

The fleet faced a crisis of its own. Dozens of South Vietnamese air force helicopters, packed with crews' families, flew out to sea and landed wherever they could, often without radio contact. To keep decks clear, sailors pushed them over the side. On the carrier Midway several helicopters were shoved into the sea to make room for a small O-1 Bird Dog carrying a South Vietnamese pilot, his wife and five children, which landed safely. Much of the South Vietnamese navy also got away: some 30 ships, with dozens of fishing boats and cargo ships, gathered off Con Son Island and sailed under American escort for the Philippines, carrying an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people.¹⁰

By the end of the operation more than 7,000 people had been flown out of Saigon by helicopter in over 662 missions, and over 130,000 had been evacuated from South Vietnam in all, by Walter J. Boyne's count about 57,700 by fixed-wing aircraft and 73,000 by sea. Two Marine aviators, Captain William Nystul and First Lieutenant Michael Shea, died when their CH-46 crashed at sea.¹¹

Liberation and exodus

Within hours of the Marines' departure North Vietnamese troops were in the streets, a tank crashed through the gate of the presidential palace, and Acting President Duong Van Minh, the last of three presidents in little more than a week, announced the unconditional surrender of the Republic of Vietnam. Hanoi celebrated the liberation of the South, and Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City. For many in the South, 30 April began years of re-education camps, and a refugee exodus by sea that lasted for decades. Later in 1975 President Ford and Congress passed the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, with $405 million to help refugees from South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.¹² › Operation Lam Son 719, 1971