More about those helicopters on the Saigon roof
I’ve got an essay up at PJ today entitled “Finessing the Surge,” about politicians staking out a position on the current situation in Iraq. In my essay, I mention that they keep referencing that tragic image of helicopters attempting to airlift South Vietnamese supporters fleeing the inevitable Northern takeover.
A view of that famous day in 1975, from eyewitness Col. Harry G. Summers, appears here, (see pages four through six). Col. Summers paints a vivid and detailed picture of the Herculean but ultimately unsuccessful efforts of the military to make sure everyone at the embassy was evacuated, as they had been promised.
One seldom-remembered fact is that the evacuation had been ongoing for several weeks, beginning with fixed-wing flights that had to be creatively managed because (in another seldom-remembered fact), the South Vietnamese government had barred its officials and its military personnel from leaving.
Even so, there was no way all those who wanted to go could be evacuated in time. But on that fateful day on the Embassy roof, Summers relates that all of those who had gathered there to be airlifted could have successfully escaped, and the majority there did. Of thousands who had already been helicoptered out from the Embassy alone on that single day and night, “only” 420 were left behind. Summers describes some of them:
America had not only fecklessly abandoned its erstwhile ally in its time of most desperate need but also had shamefully abandoned the last several hundred of those evacuees who had trusted America to the very end. Included were the local firemen who had refused earlier evacuated so as to be on hand if one of the evacuation helicopters crashed into the landing zone in the embassy courtyard; a German priest with a number of Vietnamese orphans; and members of the Republic of Korea (ROK) embassy, including several ROK Central Intelligence Agency officers who chose to remain to the end to allow civilians to be evacuated ahead of them and who would later be executed in cold blood by the North Vietnamese invaders.
After calming the panicky crowds by speaking in Vietnamese to them, clearing a landing area so that the choppers could do their work (it was impossible to evacuate the people by any other vehicle, since the streets of Saigon had become virtually impassible with the enormous crowds), why were the Marines forced to abandon some of their allies who had gathered at the Embassy?
The worst of it was that it was all unintentional, the result of a breakdown in communication between those on the ground running the embassy evacuation, those offshore with the fleet controlling the helicopters, and those in Honolulu and Washington who were making the final decisions. In short, it was the Vietnam War all over again.
As Summers tells it, there were only six planeloads left, and the Marines were determined to airlift them. But then the order came:
At 4:15 a.m. Colonel Madison informed Wolfgang Lehmann that only six lifts remained to complete the evacuation. Lehmann told him no more helicopters would be coming. But Colonel Madison would have none of it. We had given our word.
Madison and his men would be on the final lift after all the evacuees under our care had been flown to safety. Lehmann relented and said the helicopters would be provided. That message was later reaffirmed by Brunson McKinley, the ambassador’s personal assistant. But McKinley was lying. Even as he reassured us, he knew the lift had been canceled, and he soon fled, along with the ambassador and Lehmann, his DCM.
Apparently, the helicopter squadron commander back at the fleet had given the command to cease. But it was a misunderstanding; in Summers’s words, the commander had “believed they were dealing with a bottomless pit, and no one realized they were but six lifts from success.”
But it was too late now; the evacuation was over, and the images remain. And although it’s true that more of these people were successfully rescued that day than is commonly believed, it’s also true that they only represented a tiny fraction of those who wanted to leave but could not. The vast numbers of boat people who tried to follow later proved that, only too well.
The lesson of April 75′ was the speedy collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Despite over half million American troops pounding the vietcong in the South and our airpower pounding the North, the Saigon regime rapidly collapsed in 4 months.
ARVN troops did’nt run out of gas or ammo, they threw off their uniforms and ran.
Our embassy was caught off guard. They thought the South could hold on.
I know Neo, “If the big bad librul/Left congress had given them some money, they would have survived.” You and your “students” play that mantra over and over like a kazoo band.
Uh, no they would’nt have survived. That’s a fact.
The lesson here is that you should help your allies, but never try and fight their fight.
Excellent post! Thanks for this.
I wonder, Donkey, if you’ve ever actually read any of the links I give, or anything I’ve written—or, actually, anything about Vietnam other than Chomsky and Pilger?
Because although it is possible to have substantive and valid disagreements on how likely it was that the South could have staved off the North even with US intervention and help continuing past 1975, and it’s certainly possible to have substantive and valid disagreements on whether we should have gone to war in Vietnam to begin with, or the nature of the South Vietnamese leadership, or the domino theory, or a host of other topics, what you’ve posted in your comment makes no sense in terms of the history of the 70s in Vietnam.
Take a look at this timeline, for example. You wrote:
Despite over half million American troops pounding the vietcong in the South and our airpower pounding the North, the Saigon regime rapidly collapsed in 4 months.
Your comment is located somewhere in either a timewarp or a fantasyland. The situation you describe, of troops and air strikes pounding the North, ended long before those “4 months.”
If you look at the date of March 29, 1973 on the timeline, you will see that it represents the day “the last remaining American troops withdraw from Vietnam.” So if those half a million troops were “pounding the vietcong” when South Vietnam fell to the North in 1975, they must have been doing so in invisible cloaks.
Then go to June 19, 1973, and you will find:
The U.S. Congress passes the Case-Church Amendment which forbids any further U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, effective August 15, 1973. The veto-proof vote is 278-124 in the House and 64-26 in the Senate.
The Amendment paves the way for North Vietnam to wage yet another invasion of the South, this time without fear of U.S. bombing.
So, no airpower pounding the North anywhere near the time of the fall of Saigon, either.
In fact, if you actually read Col. Summers’s piece, you’ll see that:
…[After Watergate] in October 1974, Le Duan, Ho Chi Minh’s successor, took note of [Nixon’s resignation] and “drew an important conclusion that became a resolution.” Having already withdrawn from the South, he said, the United States could hardly jump back in, and no matter how it might intervene, it would be unable to save the Saigon administration from collapse.
Phuoc Long province northwest of Saigon was to be the test of that resolution. Relatively isolated, its defense consisted primarily of four 340-man Regional Force (i.e., local militia) battalions and a number of Popular Force (i.e., homeguard) platoons….
In late December and early January of 1974-5, the North Vietnamese campaign, fueled by its knowledge of American impotence, was successful. Read Summers’s article for some details of what happened to the ARVN and the South Vietnamese as a result of the peacemakers of Congress.
Summers adds:
The little-known battle for Phuoc Long was one of the most decisive battles of the war, for it marked the U.S. abandonment of its erstwhile ally to its fate. Le Duan’s “resolution” had been all too correct. In the face of this flagrant violation of the Paris Accords–and it was deliberately designed to be flagrant so as to clearly test U.S. resolve–President Gerald Ford pusillanimously limited his response to diplomatic notes. North Vietnam had received the green light for the conquest of South Vietnam.
As NVA General Van Tien Dung, who was to lead the final cross-border assault to overrun South Vietnam, noted at a Politburo conference on January 8, 1975, “It was obvious that the United States…could hardly return….
So, to reiterate: North Vietnam was well aware that Congress had tied the hands of the US in 1973, and so after that they feared nothing in the way of resumed US bombings or returning US troops. In addition, the cutoff of funds to the ARVN telegraphed the final abandonment, a monetary one.
If the ARVN threw off their uniforms at that point, I, for one, can hardly blame them. You, of course, are welcome to do so if you wish, and to sneer at them as well.
“Your comment is located somewhere in either a timewarp or a fantasyland. The situation you describe, of troops and air strikes pounding the North, ended long before those “4 months.”
“If you look at the date of March 29, 1973 on the timeline, you will see that it represents the day “the last remaining American troops withdraw from Vietnam.” So if those half a million troops were “pounding the vietcong” when South Vietnam fell to the North in 1975, they must have been doing so in invisible cloaks.”
Come on Neo, not a third into your labored riposte and your playing games.
You’re a fetishist. You mistake a part for the whole.
The air campaign in Vietnam took place over 7 years. The ground campaign, the same. (1965-1972.)
This had some effect on the final years of the South’s goverment, No.
Very little took place between 73 and late 74′ after we withdrew.
The point here is, the North did’nt have the might of the Soviet or Chinese Army fighting battles for them, from 65 to 73′.
Our involvement delayed but did’nt change the outcome.
And don’t try the “We can argue wheither or ot we should have gone in shtick.” That’s a dodge.
With the election of Nixon we expanded our involvement into Laos and Cambodia agaist the wishes of the America people. In short we took out a second mortgage on the war.
During that time, over 2 million were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced. The ranks of the Pathet Lao an Khmer Rouge swelled with recruits.
“As NVA General Van Tien Dung, who was to lead the final cross-border assault to overrun South Vietnam, noted at a Politburo conference on January 8, 1975, “It was obvious that the United States…could hardly return….”
You really are blind arent you. This was ultimately the South’s war, not our’s. Men and equipment wise, it was a fair fight.
By 1972 with relations improving between the United States, the Soviet Union and China, the superpower’s all withdrew support from their proxy’s in Vietnam.
It was a fair fight.
The South, as a whole, did’nt fight. This may shock you, but they had an airforce. It’s true, you can look it up.
Regardless, the fighting at the end took place on the ground. The South lost on the ground.
As far as snearing, you can project all you want. ARVN troops did’nt fight, they ran.
They ran because their leadership ran. They ran because the South’s government and military were stocked with sychophants. South Vietnamese President Thieu made sure that he would not be challenged. Coup’s happened all the time during the Saigon government’s existence.
Oh and Chomsky, tedious. Pilger, don’t know who the hell that is.
Next time, don’t fight strawmem Neo, don’t play games. Just deal with the facts.
I’ll tell you what the facts are.
The facts are that DonkeyKong and allies destroyed the ability of both the South Vietnamese as well as the American forces to fight against Northern Communist forces, and then they planned to blame their victims for failing.
I have congratulated them and I continue to congratulate them on a marvelous corruption of the human spirit and an eminently successful operation in halting human progress.
It will not change their guilt nor will it change the list of those that should have been executed as traitors, but the victory achieved in Vietnam, both the re-writing of history as well as the killing of any that might have said otherwise, was enough to save our Nazi counterparts from the gallows.
Cassandra makes a good case for what it truly means for history to be re-written over the graves of so many.
I am unsure whether you have access to such or not, Neo, but you might be interested in reading the primary documents of the Fall of Saigon. The final after action reports of the Marines in charge of defending the embassy.
link
In 1940 the Paris regime collapsed in five weeks.
Nah. Too easy. Hardly sporting.
Maybe the South Vietnamese should’ve plumped for a Vichy government and collaborated too.
Shhh! You’re going to panic the Europeans with that kind of talk. But it’s a good idea. Next time, let’s cut all of Europe loose, and leave ’em to their fate. Seriously. Comes a point when one must let Darwin do his work, and that time would seem to be at hand.
Donkey: Whatever it is you think you meant in the comment of yours to which I was responding, this is what you actually wrote:
Despite over half million American troops pounding the vietcong in the South and our airpower pounding the North, the Saigon regime rapidly collapsed in 4 months.
To most speakers and writers of the English language, your sentence can only be interpreted to mean you are referring to events that were happening at the time of the fall, not ones that had ended several years earlier.
And, if your error was merely rhetorical, and you actually meant to refer to the events of 1965-1972, what could your point possibly be? It was our phased abandonment of the South Vietnamese during the next couple of years that is the issue under discussion here. The argument being made by me and others who disagree with you is that it was that abandonment that led to the fall of the South to the North in 1975.
And the evidence I gave in my comment to you supports that argument; the North Vietnamese knew full well about that post-1972, post-US-troops, post-bombing abandonment, and they relied on it in planning their strategy after that. The South Vietnamese knew it, and they knew the North Vietnamese knew it as well, and it was part of the reason many of the South Vietnamese lost heart.
And here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth (in this case the horse is Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese army, who received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975):
Well, when Nixon stepped down because of Watergate we knew we would win. Pham Van Dong [prime minister of North Vietnam] said of Gerald Ford, the new president, “he’s the weakest president in U.S. history; the people didn’t elect him; even if you gave him candy, he doesn’t dare to intervene in Vietnam again.” We tested Ford’s resolve by attacking Phuoc Long in January 1975. When Ford kept American B-52’s in their hangers, our leadership decided on a big offensive against South Vietnam.
Read Bui Tin’s entire interview; it’s well worth it. There’s a lot of information there about the ways in which political considerations caused earlier failures of the US in the war, as well. In summary:
We had the impression that American commanders had their hands tied by political factors. Your generals could never deploy a maximum force for greatest military effect.
By the way, Neo, Ymarsakar, I know the ARVN and the non-communist Vietnamese government has been demonized up the ol’yin-yang by the Left—and, of course, the boat people and the Vietnamese actually lucky enough to survive to make it to America have either been demonized, or totally ignored, too. (Right now, the very left wing OC Weekly is having a hissy fit about those horrible, awful, anti-communist Vietnamese in Little Saigon. Da noice a’ dos guys, not liking Communism!)
Of course, in order for the fall of Vietnam to be justified, the Communists had to be noble, the ARVN weak and corrupt and all the boat people tucked away somewhere the Left wouldn’t have to think about them too much.
I’d like to hear the other side of the story. Any suggestions? Documents? Links?
By the way—you’ll notice that guys like Donks never said stuff like “This is the Moslems’ war, we should stay out of it” when we were bombing Serbia. (Of course, that was being done by a Democrat president.)
“The argument being made by me and others who disagree with you is that it was that abandonment that led to the fall of the South to the North in 1975.”
Ok, one last time Neo.
Read your own posts. Each one illustrates the fact that the South COULD’NT stand on it’s own.
We had been supplying the South since the late 50’s. We had hundreds of thousands of troops fighting and dying so that the South could take over the war (sound familiar)
And we abandoned them!
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Listen, I know you jumped from one end of the ideological spectrum to the other. This “process” is very important to you.
That’s Great. Personally I don’t care.
You place the fall of Vietnam on our shoulders. You say they were betrayed by “The Left”, whatever that is. The South fell because it could’nt stand.
Should we have stayed forever, should we have invaded Cambodia to stop the Kh
Donks like Donk will always call in the air strikes when their interests are threatened. Even Kennedy will nuke folks if his bank account got too low. You already know what Kerry would do
As for links, Talkin, you might as well start at the beginning. In which would probably be Diem.
link
battle of Xuan Loc
False histories and malicious myths
MEATGRINDER: Battle for Xuan Loc, 1975
It was the final curtain on a very long standing play spanning some 30 years. Nobody ever guessed that it would end at a small town called Xuan Loc, let alone starring a South Vietnamese division known to be an unreliable unit. Yet here from April 9th to the 21st, the ARVN 18th Division made a defiant, heroic last stand. Up till now, the NVA IV Corps with its three divisions had met little resistance as they traveled down Highway 1 and Highway 20. The main road to Bien Hoa and Saigon went through the town and the NVA simply wanted to take the key airbase at Bien Hoa. The NVA really had not planned for a battle, they too were surprised as their Spring Offensive steamrolled everywhere with huge forces, its focus on Saigon. Still, the NVA chose to engage rather than bypass and used the battle as a “meatgrinder” to wear down this last ARVN blocking force. Ruefully for them, ARVN air support was plentiful and dropped deadly daisy cutter and cluster bombs causing heavy NVA casualties each sortie. Executing a brilliant defense, the battle became a matter of pride for the ARVN troops and the NVA had to commit 40,000 men to take on a single division that simply refused to budge.
Link
1988
They did a great job destroying the stories of the past. For when you need to construct a shining testament to the hubris of the United States, you can not allow little things as heroic last stands to get in the way. Thermopylae is known because the Greeks won. Would it have been known if the Greeks lost and Xerxes wished to abolish the very event from the rolls of history? The burning of the Library of Alexander showed that it could be done.
CON’T
Should we have stayed forever, should we have invaded Cambodia to stop the Khmer Rouge.
History is not fantasy football. think should have been done.You tell me what you
Oy, I’m using someone elses laptop. I think it has a stutter.
Neo, tell me what you think we should have done beyond bombing communist tanks and infantry column’s.
By point, and your’s if you read your own post is, the South could’nt survive without us acting as their army.
Ymarsakar
Yes, the burning of the Alexandrian library, much of the history of Islam (wiping out the pre-Islamic history of the countries they captured) and Marxist re-writing of history shows that it can be done. Certainly, if Xerxes had won, the history of, say, the Spartan 300 would have read very differently (assuming it was remembered at all). Thanks for the links.
Thanks for the links. And Donks, you’re the one who should be ashamed, railing at Neo because you don’t approve of her politics. It’s obvious why trolls like you come here—you’re mad because Neo left the Left, and you want to scream, rage, bully and shout at her until she either shuts up, or meekly returns. Well, shame on you and those like you! Is this your compassionate liberal tolerance?
Why don’t you read the essays Neo’s already written on the subject, Donks?
I think she’s already answered your questions in them.
“Why don’t you read the essays Neo’s already written on the subject, Donks?
I think she’s already answered your questions in them.”-Talkinkamel
Your looking down the wrong end of the telescope Talkinkamel.
She continues to make the case that the South Vietnamese government could’nt stand on it’s own, then come to the conclusion that it’s the “Lefts” fault.
She has a dyslexic understanding of history.
Allow me to shed some light on human behavior, Talkin, if you would.
Read Kathy and just continue down the list
Neo, tell me what you think we should have done beyond bombing communist tanks and infantry column’s.
By point, and your’s if you read your own post is, the South could’nt survive without us acting as their army.
please remember what I have written and what Loyal Achates have said, Neo.
Donks, the Left pushed for the US to get out of Vietnam, and sapped American morale. When told that there would be re-education camps and massacre, and that there would be a domino effect, this was laughed off as right-wing paranoia. They voted against supporting the Vietnamese who were still holding out in ’75, despite what you claim.
Well, there were re-education camps, more Vietnamese died during the “peace” than the war, the boat people took to the sea to escape their communist “liberators”, Cambodia fell the Khmer Rouge and Thailand was threatened.
By the way, Left wing pundits, such as Noam Chomsky, tried to convince us the genocide in Cambodia wasn’t really happening, and that the Cambodian refugees were just making the whole thing up. Then, when it couldn’t be denied any longer, he blamed the US. Of course.
The Left continually wants to present this as some sort of moral victory, but, let’s face it, it was a bloody mess.
Have you ever stopped to consider that one of the reasons people do put stuff like this “on your shoulders”—-the Vietnam debacle, Castro’s Cuba, the support for Stalinist Russia and now the sympathy for the “insurgents” in Iraq is because you do deserve some of the blame? Not all, but a lot of it, and your constant undercutting of America, and her allies, and your making excuses for despots does neither you, your America, nor the oppressed masses you claim to champion any good?
The curious thing is DK’s implicit assumption that might makes right.
If one country cannot stand against another, to hell with them, they don’t deserve continued existence.
By that standard, we’d save an awful lot of time on UN roll calls. Europe would be speaking German and/or Russian, and most of Asia would be speaking Japanese. Most of SE Asia would be speaking Vietnamese…unless, of course, we vaporized them, which would be fine, since might makes right. Correct?
DK, what we should have done is mined Haiphong harbor, bombed Hanoi, blockaded the supply routes from China and Cambodia, and relaxed the ROE to let the generals fight the war instead of a (bad) auto exec like Macnamara. Please stop proving that you’re the imbecile we all know you to be.
Occam’s Beard
Yes, they do seem believe in Might makes Right—at least in cases such as Vietnam, where they want the side fighting against an American ally to win.
You’ll note they never invoke it, however, when it’s somebody they support, such as the Palestinians, or the Kosovar Albanians. Then we’re just supposed to support them unquestioningly against all enemies.
I would note, DonkeyKong, that you make no mention of the vast material support the Soviets and Chinese provided. I’m confused – is your argument that unless South Korea was able to resist the (limited but nonetheless significant) economic & industrial might of the Red nations on its lonesome, it didn’t deserve to live? The North Vietnamese were hardly independant; their war was financed and fueled from more developed industries.
Talk about the personal being political; I joined the Air Force after my experience with resettling refugees after the fall of Siagon.
http://www.ncobrief.com/index.php/archives/saigon-and-cinnamon/
Perhaps that is why I am identified as a conservative (small c) to this day. (Sorry, my HTML skilz are not that madd)
After 9/11 when the These Colors Don’t Run t-shirts came out, I had to snort. They ran in 75 and they’ll run again.
Our armed forces deserve a better country to defend.
Sargeant Mom, thanks for the link and for your story.
I notice you too had a commenter who also said that, hey, Vietnam’s now going capitalist anyway, so what’s the biggie, huh?
These people are incredibly stupid. . .
Oh, Al is/was a regular; A Brit and agent-provacateur, he liked to stir up things. It was kind of ironic, though, that after thirty years Vietnam is going capitalist. I suppose you could make a case for us having won, in a way. We pulled in the cream of their middle-class, and all the ambitious working-class…
But it doesn’t even begin to make up for how ugly it was for so many years for those Vietnamese who stayed behind, or how callously our anti-war intellectuals and politicians were about the predicament that emerged, once we pulled out all our support.
And I can’t even begin to say how frightened all these people were, of the Viet-Cong. The boy who lived with us for a year, whom we still call my parents’ Vietnamese son, did not even want his picture in the newspaper, when I was doing publicity about the resettlement groups’ needs. He was afraid that the Viet-Cong would see it, and hurt his family. He did not even want to write and tell them he was all right; he had been a Vietnamese AF security policemen, and on the last day as the North Vietnamese artillery began shelling the runways, he was working crowd-control at Tan Son Nhut. He was carried off his feet in a rush for a helicopter, and on an impulse he threw away his weapon and got on it. He had never intended to go, and came away with only what was in his pockets that day. He left his parents and eight brothers and sisters. A year later he wrote a letter to them, which one of our other refugees sent to her brother in France, who forwarded it to the office of the company he worked for in Indonesia, who sent it on to his family. That was the only way he dared to let them know that he was alive and safe.
John Kerry and Jane Fonda may very well be able to forget about all the Vietnamese refugees of 1975…but I never will.
John Kerry and Jane Fonda may very well be able to forget about all the Vietnamese refugees of 1975…but I never will.
Because you have a heart and care about the progress for human individuals. Other human individuals than yourself, that is.
These people are incredibly stupid. . .
useful idiots need not be stupid. Although it would be useful if they were. They weren’t designed with the intent that they be the leaders of anything, you know.
Yes, they do seem believe in Might makes Right–at least in cases such as Vietnam, where they want the side fighting against an American ally to win.
It is a function of nihilism, really. The belief that if humanity had nothing left to fight, die, or kill for then war and poverty would end instantly.
Some things, however, produce more reasons to fight and die for than others. Communism to the Left, produces universal harmony and they deny that anyone would ever kill or die for universal concepts that are non-physical. God has no place in communism or on the Left.
Liberty and Republics, however, produce wars and poverty just by existing. Therefore by culling these cancerous growths from humanity’s progress towards eternal peace and entropy, can the Left reduce the causes of war. After all, when there is no liberty to fight for, less people will fight, yes? And if less people fight then there will be less wars, and if there are less wars, there will be less starvation and poverty. Dictatorships and tyrants are not the perfect solution for the Left, but they are a far better solution than the United States of America.
Vietnam is one of the best examples of Leftist nihilism triumphing over war and death. The completion of the purging of dissenting figures and individuals that might have barred Vietnam’s endless lurch into the poison of pacifism and wealth. Just look at Europe and their malaise if you want the ultimate end result of nihilism.
The Soviets were never good at maintenance, not even the maintenance of their nuclear devices. If they were, we wouldn’t have to clean up the mess they left behind. Rogue weapons like socialism, the Left, and nihilism are the caltrops on our path as we face the charge of the barbarians.
Ymarsakar, if we ever by some chance should meet, I would be honored to buy you a drink.
And I would be honored to accept it.
Small c conservatives, small l libertarians… even small l liberals like me, are coming together in opposition to the extremists who think their beliefs are so important they must always be capitalized.
Let the case wars commence!
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