Review of Asian Studies



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The fall of Saigon


For some reason, even when Da Nang fell in March 1975, President Gerald R. Ford and his administration continued to believe the regime in Saigon regime would not fall. On 10 April, the President Ford asked Congress for $722 million supplemental military aid to prop up the ARVN and $250 million in economic and refugee aid. His rationale seemed to have changed.100 Where as in the past he argued that without aid South Vietnam would become the first domino to fall in Southeast Asia, now he claimed he feared that, “If we say ‘no more money’ Thieu. . . won’t do something totally irrational.”101 In short, he worried that the South Vietnamese might turn on the remaining Americans and demand ransom. Ultimately, the Congress, influenced by anti-war sentiment throughout the nation and dominated by anti-war Democrats, determined that Ford was simply overreacting. They concluded he might very well be delaying the evacuation of the remaining U.S. personnel and civilians in Vietnam in order to force the aid bill through. Congressional debate ended on 17 April. There would be no more funds for Saigon. By this point, Xuan Loc was being overrun and resistance was now futile.102

While the political maneuvering continued, Gen. Toan, commander of the ARVN II Corps, organized five centers of resistance for the defense of the city. The interlocking centers tightly connected to form an arc enveloping the entire area west, north, and east of Saigon. The 25th Division defended the Cu Chi front in the northwest, while the 5th Division secured Binh Duong, in the north. Remnants of the 18th Division guarded Bien Hoa in the northeast, the 1st Airborne Brigade and one battalion of the 3rd Division secured Vung Tau and the 15 Route front, to the southeast. Finally, the Long An front, for which the Capital Military District Command was responsible, was defended by elements of the re-formed 22nd Division. The ARVN defensive forces around Saigon totaled roughly 60,000 troops. In addition, nearly 200,000 additional armed ARVN refugees from Xuan Loc and other disastrous defeats over the past month had made their way into Saigon. While this increased the number of troops, they were mostly worn out and leaderless. Rather than increasing the number of defenders they, instead, only added to the chaos in Saigon.103


Morale in the capitol, which hung by a thread, was further eroded when, on 17 April, the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, and the Americans did nothing to stop it. On 21 April, Thieu resigned as president. In his televised speech, he admitted his order to evacuate the Central Highlands and the north led to the existing disaster. Still, he declared it had been the only course of action open to him and went on to say the plan might still have worked except that his generals had failed him.104 As noted, Thieu saved his greatest criticism for the U.S. saying that, “our great ally...the leader of the free world...The United States has not respected its promises.... It is inhumane. It is not trustworthy. It is irresponsible.”105
The NVA’s Final Attack
At this point General Dung, at his forward command post in Ben Cat, formulated his plans for taking Saigon. He had surrounded Saigon with four NVA corps totaling 19 divisions supported by artillery and armored units--around 130,000 men. He hoped to avoid concentrated street combat within Saigon, itself, by initially attacking and tying up ARVN forces in their outer defensive positions and, then, launching five spearheads through them into the city, each of which had a specific target. These included the Independence Palace, the JGS headquarters, the national police headquarters, Tan Son Nhut AB, and the Special Capital Zone headquarters.106
The planned assault began on 26 April with the NVA launching an all-out attack on Bien Hoa and the extensive logistical complex at Long Binh from the south and southeast. On 28 April, as they squeezed the noose tighter, the NVA also began their attack on the port city of Vung Tau and against the Cu Chi front. Throughout, the same chaos, lack of leadership and anarchy that caused the collapse of ARVN I and II Corps troops during their series of defeats in the Central Highlands spread all over Saigon. In an effort to curb the lawlessness, officials imposed martial law. It had little effect. The reality that the NVA would soon seize control of all Vietnam sent shock wave across all of South Vietnamese society leaving them petrified with fear and unable to act in any way to prevent their nation’s downfall. In an effort to stimulate some kind of resistance, South Vietnamese officials warned that if the communists won, there would follow another massacre like the one in Hue in 1968 during the Tet Offensive. The ploy failed and, instead of unifying the citizenry it left them in a state of complete paralysis when the time came to defend the city. 107
After nibbling away at the flanks of the ARVN defenses most of the 26th, the main PAVN assault developed on the 27th even as the South Vietnamese National Assembly made General Duong Van Minh the new president. President Minh was sworn in on the 28th believing he would be able to ascertain a cease-fire and re-open negotiations. In fact, this was a pipe dream since the communists had the upper hand on the battlefield and final victory was within reach, regardless of political changes in Saigon. After fighting for 30 years to unify Vietnam under a communist government, they were not going to be denied absolute victory. They were not going to make the same mistake they had made in the 1950s when they accepted the Geneva Agreement.108
As defeat became more certain with each passing minute, hard-liners in South Vietnam, especially those who had used extreme interrogation methods against NLF operatives and sympathizers during their detainment, sought ways to leave Vietnam. Those Americans still in Saigon had been leaving since 1 April from Tan Son Nhut AB. This route eventually became untenable as the NVA attacks intensified. It was during this time that two Marines, Lance Corporal Darwin Judge and Corporal Charles McMahon, Jr., were killed by an enemy rocket attack while manning the main gate checkpoint at the airbase. They were the last Americans killed during the Vietnam War.109
On 28 April, NVA troops pushed into the outskirts of Saigon. At the Cau Tan Cang or the Newport Bridge, roughly three miles from the heart of the city, ARVN forces made a desperate stand against communist forces trying to cross the bridge and cut Saigon’s last overland connection to the south, gaining access to downtown Saigon. That afternoon, even as President Minh was completing his acceptance speech, four captured A-37s, flown by Northern pilots, bombed Tan Son Nhut airport ending exit flights by American and South Vietnamese. Concurrently, Bien Hoa AB fell and, General Toan fled to Saigon. In his final report he informed the Saigon government that nearly all of the top ARVN leadership had virtually resigned themselves to defeat and were seeking ways to escape.110
As the attacks expanded on 29 April, chaos broke out everywhere. Military and civilians made a dash to get on any kind of aircraft to escape what they saw as certain death. In one case, crew members of one overloaded C-130 pushed ARVN soldiers off the rear cargo ramp in order for the plane to gain enough altitude to take off. One C-7 “Caribou” crashed and burned because it was overloaded.111 Lt. Col. James Willbanks described the scene as follows: “VNAF pilots manned anything that would fly and took off for Thailand. This symbolized the disintegration of the Vietnamese Air Force; eventually 132 aircraft were flown to U Tapao Air Base in Thailand.” These included 26 F-5 fighters and 27 A-37 fighter-bombers.112
Finally on 29 April at 1051 hours (Vietnamese time), U.S. helicopters commenced Operation “Frequent Wind,” the aerial evacuation of American military, embassy, and civilian personnel as well as South Vietnamese who were deemed to be at risk of communist reprisals. By the time the exodus had started, 42 ships of the U.S. 7th Fleet had arrived to recover the choppers and their passengers. All totaled, 1,373 American and 5,595 Vietnamese were flown to the waiting armada. In addition, approximately 60,000 more were rescued from boats, which made their way out to the American vessels.113 Officially, “the evacuees included 57,507 removed by air and 73,000 by sea.” As they left, Saigon “descended into pandemonium.”114


The last chopper out of Saigon. Desperate people climb to the top of the US embassy.
As for the bedraggled ad hoc units of ARVN left, they put up a determined resistance throughout the city, even counterattacking at one point. The PAVN were shocked by the ARVN soldiers who had been abandoned by their officers, but continued to fight heroically. Most were certain they were on the communists’ execution lists and, thus, made suicidal strikes at the enemy, hoping for a quick death. The NVA forces assigned the capture of key buildings and targets, also found themselves being attacked by more disciplined forces commanded by officers who had not been able to escape. They used the equipment left behind by their ARVN comrades, who had escaped, to create a perimeter around the city. They fought fanatically! All of their efforts proved to be fruitless. They did not have enough men or weapons to resist for long.115
By 30 April, nothing was left to stop the NVA advance into central Saigon. That same day, at around 5:00 a.m., American Ambassador Graham Martin, holding a furled U.S. flag under his arm, embarked on a CH-46, for the USS Blue Ridge stationed just off the coast in the South China Sea. This was the last helicopter to depart the Saigon Embassy. Five and one-half hours later, President Minh directed all ARVN forces to cease fighting. It was a useless order since the ARVN had already ceased to exist. Soon after, Minh made his way to a nearby radio station and announced the unconditional surrender of his government.116 In their book, The Fall of the South Clark Dougan and his colleagues described the final moments as follows:
Around noon, a PAVN tank, number 390, crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace. A crewman from the 843, which rammed into the side gate and got stuck, jumped out, ran up the steps, carrying the flag of the Provisional Revolutionary Government. A Western reporter on the scene asked the soldier his name and the man replied, “Nguyen Van Thieu.” On that ironic note the Vietnam War came to an end.117



A Soviet-built NVA tank breaks through the gates of the Independence Palace.
Even with this, the war was not completely over. General Le Van Hung’s ARVN forces in the Mekong Delta were still intact and, apparently ready to continue the fight. His plan was to assemble what he called a “secret section.” They would exploit the abundance of the Delta’s agricultural resources and form a resistance. The plan never came to fruition because the NLF’s Southern guerilla forces, or VC, thwarted the plan. Most Americans and South Vietnamese believed that they had been all but destroyed by the Phoenix Program designed to assassinate NLF leaders. The program proved to be less successful than thought and long hidden communist sympathizers fought these last ARVN soldiers. Ultimately, this ARVN IV Corps was isolated from Saigon or any other important city. Soon Le Van Hung was killed and, with him died the “secret plan” and the IV Corps. 118


Conclusion
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, there have been many heated exchanges in the U.S. regarding who lost Vietnam. There have been those, such as President Thieu, who have argued that the Paris Accords were the main reason for the Southern defeat since they allowed the NVA to keep 150,000 troops inside South Vietnam after the accords took effect. Not only had the U.S. negotiated and signed this agreement without the presence or approval to her South Vietnamese allies but, in permitting the communists to maintain robust forces in the South, they all but doomed the cease-fire. Of course, President Richard M. Nixon had promised to take military action if the need arose. Specifically, America promised a reintroduction of airpower if necessary. In the end, the U. S. Congress refused to take military action in the face of communist violations of the cease-fire. Advocates of such action still contend that South Vietnam could have been saved by another Linebacker-style bombing campaign. The problem with this notion is that the tension between the Ford Administration and the Congress had grown since Linebacker II in late 1972 and, by 1975, there was no inclination among legislators or the American public for a new campaign.
Assuming that Ford could have honored Nixon’s pledge and initiated such an aerial campaign, one must ask what other issues might have arisen? What kind of aircraft would the U.S. have used? How long would the bombing have lasted? What would the targets have been? How long would it have taken to prepare to start the campaign? How would the Americans have measured success or failure? How many new Prisoners-of-War would have been taken, and how would the U.S. have brought them back? After all, the previous return of POWs had not been easy, and issues with those Missing-in-Action have lasted into the 21st Century.
Years later, former President Nixon condemned a “Congress which refused to fulfill our obligations was solely to blame for what he called a “tragic and irresponsible action.”119 Gen. Vien pointed to cutbacks in U.S. military and materiel aid as having “accelerated the whole process and made defeat inevitable.”120 While shortages probably explain why the Central Highlands had to be evacuated, they do not account for the departure of senior ARVN leaders and generals that led to complete collapse at the end. In his book Without Honor, historian Arnold Isaacs, who was present in South Vietnam during the last days, maintains that, “The psychological damage of the aid cuts was almost certainly greater than the real damage. Even with the full amounts requested by the executive, South Vietnam could not have done any more than preserve the battlefield deadlock for another year, after which, the whole exhausting debate would have to be replayed yet again–and in a presidential election year.”121
Still other analysts have claimed that President Nixon’s “Vietnamization” program was at the heart of the final collapse. They believe that beginning in 1969, the abrupt and fast-tracked downsizing of American forces left the ARVN ill-equipped to continue to fight the same kind of war they had up to that point. In short, the withdrawals happened more quickly than the South Vietnamese expected and left them groping to build up their own forces.122 Major General Nguyen Duy Hinh believed that “Vietnamization” did not “provide the ARVN with enough time,” saying that, “While the troop increases could be achieved fairly rapidly, it was almost impossible to improve the quality and technical capabilities ...within the span of a few years.”123
In 1974, General Douglas Kinnard conducted a survey of U.S. Army General officers who had served in Southeast Asia and found that 73 percent believed the “Vietnamization” program should have been initiated, in earnest, years before. In short, it had come too late and, by the time it began its positive effect proved minimal.124 In summation, historian Gabriel Kolko contended that, “For seven years, the American military had molded South Vietnamese forces into a facsimile of itself, yet it ended up with a system that had all of the liabilities of American military technology and few of its assets.”125
Of course, one cannot examine this final defeat without placing some blame at the feet of the South Vietnamese themselves. President Thieu, as it turned out, was a poor military leader and strategist. Beginning in early 1973, as the initial cuts in U.S. aid were happening, neither he nor his General Staff even entertained strategy, doctrine, organizational, or training alterations to compensate for the inevitability of further aid reductions. On top of this, Thieu denied subordinates, especially battlefield commanders any strategic or tactical flexibility. Ultimately, this contributed greatly to the defeat. To top this off, throughout his tenure as President, Thieu’s government and military were rife with corruption and ineptitude within the officer corps itself. To quote Col. Willbanks, “Early defeats during the final campaign were compounded not by a lack of will or ability on the part of the enlisted men, but by the cowardice and failing morale the officers.”126 According to Arnold Isaacs, “The army did not collapse in its foxholes or for lack of supplies. It disintegrated when its senior officers...deserted it.”127
Years after the American Civil War, Major General George Picket, who led the disastrous infantry attack on the Union center on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg, was asked why the attack had failed and why the South had lost the battle. Pickett replied, “I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.”128 In a very real sense the same can be said for the fall of South Vietnam. The skill of the officers and men of the highly-motivated and newly modernized PAVN cannot be overlooked. For the first time in the war, they were not confronted with American airpower and they were free from the restraints of nonsensical Marxist combat doctrine. As leaders in Hanoi realized the possibility for victory was at hand, they afforded battlefield commanders more flexibility, which increased the tempo of operations and allowed them to swiftly employ intense pressure against key strategic targets. These successes were also made possible to better weapons, tactical coordination, modern communications, and increased transport and logistical capability. As a result, NVA commanders attained the goal of all leaders, the rapid application of overwhelming force leading to the utter defeat of the enemy at little cost to their own forces. Throughout the final weeks of the war, the communists suffered relatively few casualties; except at Xuan Loc. General Dung later declared that, “The numbers killed and wounded was very small in proportion to the victories won, and the expenditure in terms of weapons and ammunition was negligible.”129
One last point must be made and that is that, while the NVA out-performed the ARVN in many ways, in many ways the resupply of military aid must be at the core of the fall of Saigon. In one memorandum report drawn up by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in late 1974, the authors stated that “communist aid to North Vietnam from 1970-1974 is estimated at $5.6 billion. Total communist military and economic aid was higher in 1974 than in any previous year.” The high point came in 1972 with other communist states, primarily the Soviet Union, sending $1.2 billion in military and economic aid to replace the losses experienced in the failed NVA Spring Offensive. In late 1973, as the U.S. withdrew, so did communist aid, slipping to $935 million. Once the NVA re-initiated their major military actions in 1974, aid increased to more than 1.5 billion. All totaled, this was significantly more than what the South Vietnamese were getting from the Americans. Over a five-year period this built up to make a critical difference.130
The North seldom had to worry about having more and better weapons. Not only were they getting resupplied with a seemingly endless torrent of military and economic supplies from the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic, but they were also clever enough to employ captured U.S. materials as they marched south. On the other hand, the reduction in aid from the U.S. to the South Vietnamese proved significant both in terms of morale and combat capability.
Ultimately, while it was as much a Northern victory as a Southern defeat, the last battle for Vietnam mirrored a failure in leadership and policy in both the U.S. and South Vietnam that had been planted at the very beginning of the 1960s. It was at Xuan Loc where the heroism of the ARVN was best demonstrated, but the heroic defense had come far too late.

1

Notes
For a detailed account of the last days of Republic of Vietnam see, David Butler, The Fall of Saigon: Scenes from the Sudden End of a Long War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.



2 Merle L. Pribbenow & George J. Vieth, “Fighting is an Art: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s Defense of Xuan Loc, 9-21 April 1975,” The Journal of Military History, Vol. 68, No. 1 (January 2004), pp. 191-200. 

3For details on these matters see, Samuel Lipsman, Stephen Weiss, et. al., The False Peace, (Boston: Boston Publishing Co., 1985), p. 37; Cao Van Vien, The Final Collapse, (Washington,D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1985), p. 11, [hereafter Final Collapse]. Cao Van Vien was the Defense Minister of South Vietnam.

4 Frank Snepp, Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End Told by the CIA’s Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam, (New York: Random House, 1977), pp. 91-93, [hereafter Decent Interval]. Updated edition published by University of Kansas Press in 2002.

5 William E. Le Gro, Vietnam from Cease Fire to Capitulation, Publication 90-29, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1981, 1985, 2001), p. 96-122; also Honolulu, Hawaii: University of the Pacific Press, 2006, [hereafter Capitulation]; James H. Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War, (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2004), p. 192, 210, [hereafter Abandoning Vietnam].

6 Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam, p. 193; Paper, Lt. Col. James H. Willbanks, Ph.D., USA Ret., U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, T. Leavenworth, Kansas, “The Last 55 Days,” Third Triennial Vietnam Symposium, The Vietnam Center, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, 15-17 April 1999, pp. 1-3, [hereafter Last 55 Days].

7 For more on aid, see, Anthony J. Joes, The War for South Vietnam, 1954-1975, (New York: Praeger, 1989), p. 125.

8 Dong Van Khuyen, The RVNAF, Indochina Monographs, (Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, 1979), p. 387, [hereafter RVNAF].

9Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam, p. 199.

10 Clark Dougan, David Fulghum, et. al., The Fall of the South (The Vietnam Experience), (Boston: Boston Publishing, 1985), p. 11, [hereafter The Fall of the South].

11 Ibid.; Van Tien Dung, Our Great Spring Victory: An Account of the Liberation of South Vietnam, trans., John Spragens, Jr., (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), p. 12, [Spring Victory]; Willbanks, Abandoning Vietnam, p. 221.
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