30 years ago today

[Napoleon]

Saigon (Ho Chi Minn city for you newbies) falls to North Vietmanese troops.

This isn't to start a political thread, but for those old enough its one of those days, like I would guess JFK's killing for those older then me or 9/11 for those younger, that you will remember forever.

Today there is an interesting story in the NY Times by the person, a Dutch citizen, who took the most famous picture of that day, which he says has always been mis-identified as an evacuation of the US Embassy. Instead it was an Air America, an airline secretly owned by the CIA, Huey that had landed on an apartment building near the photographer's office that housed many senior CIA employees. A steel plate had been installed a few weeks earlier on the top of the buildings elevator shaft. Apparently that was the only copter to land on the pad, they grabbed who they presumably wanted and left. Everyone else left stood and waited, but no other copters ever arrived (it sends chills down your spine thinking of what may have happened to the others). But the press ran with the picture as an evacuation of the Embassy and it got burned into everyones mind as such.


04-29-1975 @ about 2:30pm local time
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/04/28/opinion/20050429_vanes_lg.gif

http://www.air-america.org/

http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/airamerica/best/

The story in the NY Times is also interesting for how it took 12 minutes to send each 5 x 7 black and white the guy took via radio to Tokyo. They keep transmitting all the pictures they or their stringers had taken untill Northern troops showed up at the building that housed their offices and pulled the plug on the transmissions.

[RichK]

Wow, I didn't know that about the famous picture.

I keep starting to type something, and I keep deleting it, so I'll stop here! :)

[devilmaster]

One of my favorite books is Air America by Chris Robbins. I probably pick that book up and read it at least once a year.

It was the basis for the historically and grossly in-accurate movie with Downey Jr and Gibson. But don't allow the movie to dissuade you from buying the book. Robbins' takes you from the flying Tigers before America entered WW2, to that most famous shot that you see above. Most of the story is told from pilot accounts in Indo-China.

I think my copy is lent out right now, but I recall some of the talk of that day. Saigon did not really fall to the communists.... It just disentigrated all on its own.

IIRC, the US ambassador did not order the rooftop extraction plan, on the slim hope that a ceasefire would still be possible. On that morning, pilots just started to pick people up. It snowballed into picking up as many people as they could to get to Tan San Nut(?) airport to waiting DC-9s. After the DC9s were gone, the remainder would fly by chopper to the US fleet.

There were stories that one would only hear at Armageddon. South Viet army regulars just running through the street, shooting anyone they saw. Vietnamese stealing helocopters, flying out to the fleet, and not trying to land but just jumping out of the craft next to ships.

One story that is still told, that no one cleared out or destroyed the CIA files on south Viet civilians. It is believed that the VC got their hands on the info that would identify every CIA spy and friendly.

If you can get the book, I highly recommend it.