Napoleon
04-29-05, 12:46 PM
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.
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.