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 about 100,000 North Vietnamese soldiers in the border areas of 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: Nha Trang and Qui Nhon on 1 April, Cam Ranh on 3 April. The South Vietnamese army made a stand at Xuan Loc, about 35 miles northeast of Saigon, but on 21 April President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned, denouncing the United States, and the next day the line broke. By 25 April Saigon was effectively surrounded, and on 27 April North Vietnamese artillery began to shell a city that had been largely spared throughout the war.⁴

Waiting to leave

Planning for an evacuation had begun in December 1974 under the name Talon Vise, later changed to Frequent Wind. 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. From 1 to 19 April some 5,000 left; after an expedited visa procedure was agreed on 20 April, 5,000 to 10,000 a day were leaving, on planes that ran 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

At 11.08 a.m. Saigon time President Gerald Ford ordered Frequent Wind to begin. At noon 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 wave of Marine CH-53 and CH-46 helicopters from Hancock and Okinawa 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 p.m. the last evacuees had gone. At the embassy it did not. The plan had expected about 100 people to leave by two Air America helicopters; 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 about 400 Vietnamese and South Korean evacuees who had been promised a place.⁹

Helicopters into the sea

The fleet faced a crisis of its own. As many as 100 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 six 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. Nearly the whole South Vietnamese navy also left: 26 ships carrying some 30,000 people, followed by hundreds of fishing boats, sailed for the Philippines.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. 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