Thirty-Three Years Ago Today, Saigon Fell To Communist Troops

Thirty-three years ago today, communist North Vietnamese troops entered Saigon and seized control of the government that was once the democratic South Vietnam.

The Fall of Saigon (in Vietnamese: Sự kiện 30 tháng 4 - or the “April 30 Incident” is also called by many Vietnamese Ngày mất nước - literally, “The Day of losing the nation”) started a decades long tragedy that impacted millions of Vietnamese and reached into other Southeast Asian nations.  The “Killing Fields” of Cambodia were made possible by the communist domination of the region.

The scene in Saigon on April 30, 1975, was one of total chaos.

Several survivor told me those loyal to the U.S. and to the government of South Vietnam headed for the U.S. embassy in hopes that they could be flown out of the city.  Others fled toward Saigon harbor or southward toward the Mekong in hopes of finding a ship or boat out.  Thus the hemorrhage of people, the “Boat People,” began.  The flow of people from Vietnam’s shores and into the sea would last for more than 15 years and many were lost at sea or abused by pirates along the way.

Side streets of Saigon were barricaded to slow the advance of communist forces.  But this also made it very difficult for the people of Saigon to navigate toward the U.S. embassy or any other location.

Many of the people caught in that cauldren of Saigon on April 30, 1975, would earn new names within the next thirty days.  Many became “refugees” and all those who served in the armed forces of Soth Vietnam or were loyal to South Vietnam or the Americans would find themselves torn away from their families and sent to “re-education” by early June 1975.  Re-education lasted only 5 years for some — but we have spoken to several who had terms as long as 17 years.
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My own wife was swept into the masses moving away from the communists and toward, they hoped, safety.  She was caught along with her brother Phong.  Phong went into the communist prison system and disappeared.  No member of the family has seen or heard from him since 1975.

My wife says she is "a lucky one."  She made it to the United States after an 18 year journey that included prison, 22 days at sea without food and water, and several years in detention.

April 30, 1975 is a sad day in the history of Vietnam and all Southeast Asia.  What followed from that day for many was flight, torture or death.  The lucky ones survive today and can tell the tale.  But as one Vietnamese American man told me, “Not happy.  Not lucky.”

This well-known photo taken by Hubert van Es shows South Vietnamese civilians scrambling to board a CIA Air America helicopter during the U.S. evacuation of Saigon.
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The Choeung Ek killing fields memorial in Phnom Penh.
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The Fall of Saigon: 1975 (Part I)
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The Fall of Saigon: 1975 (Part II)
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Vietnam After the Fall of Saigon: 1975 Until Present
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Thailand’s Criminal Abuse of Refugees: a Shameful 30+ Year Saga
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Disaster of Hasty WithdrawalSaintood for an Asian Hero?
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Meet Hanoi Hilton Veteran and Medal Of Honor Man “Bud” Day
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First Hand Account….Saigon, April 1975. At dawn I was awake, lying under my mattress on the floor tiles, peering at my bed propped against the French windows. The bed was meant to shield me from flying glass; but if the hotel was attacked with rockets, the bed would surely fall on me. Killed by a falling bed: that somehow made sense in this, the last act of the longest-running black farce: a war that was always unnecessary and often atrocious and had ended the lives of three million people, leaving their once bountiful land petrified.  

The long-awaited drive, by the legatees of Ho Chi Minh, to reunify Vietnam had begun at last, more than 20 years since the “temporary” division imposed at Geneva. On New Year’s Day, 1975, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) surrounded the provincial capital of Phuoc Binh, 75 miles from Saigon; one week later the town was theirs. Quang Tri, south of the Demilitarised Zone, and Phan Rang followed, then Bat Me Thout, Hue, Danang and Qui Nhnon in quick succession and with little bloodshed. Danang, once the world’s greatest military base, was taken by a dozen cadres of the Front for the Liberation of Vietnam (the NLF, known as the Vietcong by the Americans) waving white handkerchiefs from the back of a truck. A United Press wirepicture of an American punching a South Vietnamese “ally” squarely in the face as the Vietnamese tried to climb on board the last American flight from Nha Trang to Saigon held a certain symbolism of what had gone before.

By mid-April, the end was in sight as the battle for Xuan Loc unfolded 30 miles to the north-west of Saigon, which itself was already encircled by as many as 15 PAVN divisions armed with artillery and heatseeking missiles. On 20 April, Xuan Loc was captured by the PAVN. Only Saigon was now left.

Read the rest of this personal account by John Pilger:
 http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=5579

 More photographs from Saigon, 1975:
http://www.fallofsaigon.org/frmain.htm