Last Chopper Out of Saigon

"Gentlemen, start your engines." The laconic command, copied from the Indianapolis 500 auto race, echoed from the public-address system of the U.S.S. Hancock. Moments later, the commander of Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463, Lieut. Colonel Herbert Fix, lifted his CH-53 Sea Stallion off the deck of the aging carrier. When the other seven choppers in his squadron had left the deck, they fluttered off in a tight formation through blustery winds and dark, ominous rain clouds that hovered over the South China Sea. Operation "Frequent Wind," the emergency evacuation of the last Americans in Saigon, was under way.

The rescue operation had been delayed as long as possible--too long, in the view of many Pentagon officials. In recent weeks 44 U.S. naval vessels, 6,000 Marines, 120 Air Force combat and tanker planes and 150 Navy planes had been moved into the area. But Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the U.S. ambassador in Saigon, Graham Martin, argued that the final withdrawal of the American community would probably set off a wave of panic in Saigon and hasten the fall of the South Vietnamese government.

During the preceding eight days, U.S. planes had evacuated almost 40,000 American and South Vietnamese refugees from Tan Son Nhut airbase near Saigon. But by last week, the airlift was growing increasingly dangerous. Artillery shells and rockets closed Tan Son Nhut airport Monday morning. Next day a U.S. C-130 transport was hit by a rocket on the runway and burst into flames as the crew escaped. A short tune later, two U.S. Marine corporals guarding the U.S. defense attache's compound at Tan Son Nhut were killed by Communist artillery.

News of the destruction of the C-130 and the Marines' deaths reached President Ford during a meeting with his energy and economic advisers. He scribbled a note to the deputy director of the National Security Council, Lieut. General Brent Scowcroft: "We'd better have an N.S.C. meeting at 7."

Plainly, evacuation by commercial flights, by military airplanes or by sea was no longer feasible. The security advisers discussed whether conditions might permit a resumption of the military airlift. If not, they would have to go to a fourth option, the riskiest of all: evacuation in Marine helicopters. Scarcely two hours after the meeting ended with no decision, Ford learned that two C-130s attempting to land at Tan Son Nhut had been waved off; the airport was blocked by thousands of panicky South Vietnamese. By then all of Ford's advisers, including Martin, agreed that it had to be "Option Four." At 10:45 p.m., the President ordered Operation Frequent Wind to begin.

Kissinger telephoned Ford to report that a fleet of 81 helicopters was about to embark on its mission, then, at 1:08 a.m. Tuesday, he called again with the news that the evacuation had begun. In Saigon, the center of activity for much of the day was the landing zone at Tan Son Nhut airport, a tennis court near the defense attache's compound. Landing two at a time, the helicopters unloaded their squads of Marines--860 in all, who reinforced 125 Marines already on the scene--and quickly picked up evacuees (see box following page).

As the operation continued, many helicopters came under fire. Most evacuees sat in cold panic as their choppers took off. "For the next three minutes as we gained altitude," reported TIME Correspondent William Stewart, "we held our breaths. We knew the Communists had been using heat-seeking missiles, and we were prepared to be shot out of the sky. As I turned around to see who was aboard, Buu Vien, the South Vietnamese Interior Minister, smiled and gave a thumbs-up signal. Forty minutes later we were aboard the U.S.S. Denver, a landing-platform dock, and safe."

By nightfall, the mission had been completed at Tan Son Nhut, but the evacuation of the embassy was still to be accomplished. Sheets of rain were pelting the city, and visibility had dropped to barely a mile. Some choppers had to rely on flares fired by Marines within the embassy compound to find landing zones; others homed in on flashlights.

Through Tuesday night, the Vietnamese crowd grew uglier; hundreds tried to scale the ten-foot wall, despite the barbed wire strung atop it. Marines had to use tear gas and rifle butts to hold back the surging mob. Some screamed, some pleaded to be taken along. Floor by floor, the Marines withdrew toward the roof of the embassy with looters right behind them. Abandoned offices were transformed into junkyards of smashed typewriters and ransacked file cabinets. Even the bronze plaque with the names of the five American servicemen who died in the embassy during the 1968 Tet offensive was torn from the lobby wall. Marines hurled tear-gas grenades into the elevator shaft; at tunes the air was so thick with tear gas that the helicopter pilots on the roof were affected.

By that tune, tempers were frayed in Washington as well as Saigon. Martin had drawn up a list of 500 Vietnamese to be evacuated; he refused to leave until all were safely gone. His delay prompted one Administration official to quip, "Martin got all 600 of his 500 Vietnamese out." Finally, at 5 p.m. Washington tune--it was then 5 a.m. in Saigon--Kissinger told the President that Martin was closing down the embassy and destroying its communications equipment. Minutes later, a helicopter broadcast the message: "Lady Ace Zero Nine, Code Two is aboard." Lady Ace 09 was the chopper's own call signal; Code Two designates an ambassador.

As many as 130 South Vietnamese planes and helicopters, including F-5 fighter-bombers, transports and attack planes, were reported meanwhile to have reached the U.S.-run Utapao air-base in Thailand with about 2,000 soldiers and civilians; already some 1,000 Cambodian refugees were crowded into tents there. Alarmed, the Thai government announced that the refugees had to leave within 30 days and that it would return the planes to "the next government in South Viet Nam." Defense Secretary James Schlesinger firmly advised Bangkok that it should do no such thing; under aid agreements, the equipment cannot be transferred to a new government but must revert to U.S. possession.

By the end of the week, another seven or so South Vietnamese helicopters had landed or tried to land on the U.S. naval vessels. One South Vietnamese pilot set his chopper down on top of another whose blades were still whirring. Others ditched their craft and had to be fished out of the water. An American search-and-rescue helicopter from the U.S.S. Hancock crashed at sea, and two of its four crew members were listed as missing, possibly the last American fatalities of the war.

"The last days of the evacuation were very hairy indeed," Ford confessed afterward. "We were never sure whether we were going to have trouble with the mobs." As Ford noted, the whole operation had gone better "than we had any right to expect." According to the Defense Department, 1,373 Americans and 5,680 South Vietnamese--many more than the U.S. had originally intended--had been removed. Another 32,000 desperate Vietnamese had managed to make their way by sampan, raft and rowboat to the U.S. ships offshore, bringing to about 70,000 the number evacuated through the week.

Almost three hours after the ambassador's departure the last U.S. Marine was withdrawn from the Saigon embassy. A few American journalists, missionaries and others remained behind, as did six Americans in South Vietnamese jails. But the U.S. presence in Viet Nam can be said to have ended last Wednesday morning at 7:52 local time when a helicopter pilot radioed the final official message from Saigon: "Swift 22 is airborne with eleven passengers. Ground-security force is aboard."

At week's end another group of nearly 600 refugees reached Thailand after an arduous, 3 1/2-day truck journey from Phnom-Penh. Mostly French, the evacuees had sought haven in the French embassy when Cambodia's capital fell to the Khmer Rouge and had been virtual prisoners ever since. To the annoyance of France, one of the first non-Communist countries to recognize the Khmer Rouge, the embassy had been turned into a virtual prison. Food, medicine and communications had been cut off. After protests from Paris, the regime finally allowed the 600 out. Sidney Schanberg, a correspondent of the New York Times, was one of several journalists in the group, most of whom seemed in good health. All the journalists have agreed not to write their stories until those remaining in the embassy, about 250 in all, have also reached safety.

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