Us navy helicopter ships in vietnam war8/26/2023 ![]() ![]() After watching news coverage of the incident, President Gerald Ford confided to an aide, “It’s time to pull the plug. ![]() The fall of Da Nang, South Vietnam’s second-largest city, on March 29 unleashed a furious exodus that included desperate residents clinging to the rear staircase and landing gear of a World Airways plane and falling to their deaths as it took flight. “North Vietnam never intended to abide by the 1973 agreement-its ultimate mission was to unify the country-but the political crisis in America allowed them to move up their timetable.” North Vietnamese Capture Cities en Route to SaigonĪ North Vietnamese armored car crashing through Independence Palace’s main gate in Saigon.Īfter winning a decisive battle at Ban Me Thuot and capturing the central highlands, the North Vietnamese Army swept south and captured the cities of Quang Tri and Hue with little resistance and no American response. “From Hanoi’s point of view, the turmoil leading up to and including Nixon’s resignation was an opportunity to take advantage of a distracted United States,” says Tom Clavin, co-author of Last Men Out: The True Story of America's Heroic Final Hours in Vietnam. However, after the Watergate scandal forced Nixon to resign, the North Vietnamese Army felt emboldened to launch a major offensive in March 1975. President Richard Nixon had secretly promised South Vietnam that the United States would “respond with full force” if North Vietnam violated the peace treaty. ![]() Instead, the broadcast of the holiday standard after the announcement that “the temperature in Saigon is 105 degrees and rising” instilled fear and panic in all who recognized the coded signal to begin an immediate evacuation of all Americans from Vietnam.Īlthough the United States had withdrawn its combat forces from Vietnam after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, approximately 5,000 Americans-including diplomats, marine guards, contractors and Central Intelligence Agency employees-remained. The dulcet tones of “White Christmas” that crackled over Armed Forces Radio airwaves on April 29, 1975, failed to spread cheer across sunbaked Saigon.
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