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01:00On March 30, 1972, massed North Vietnamese Army artillery opened up in a shattering barrage.
01:13The targets for the guns and rockets were South Vietnamese positions across the demilitarized zone, separating north and south.
01:26As the guns blasted South Vietnamese defenses, upwards of 20,000 of Jop's troops and 200 of his 600 tanks
01:34waited in their jumping-off positions.
01:38At noon, they surged forward as the South Vietnamese units fled in panic.
01:50Facing the northern onslaught was a weak South Vietnamese infantry division and a marine brigade.
01:57Their 12,000 troops were scattered across 13 combat bases and outposts.
02:07The enemy assault caught the infantry division just as it was moving regiments from one position to another.
02:21The southern defense was thrown into complete chaos.
02:25Intelligence reports had predicted a northern attack, but no one had expected it to come on the demilitarized zone.
02:35After two days of confused fighting, on April 2, the South Vietnamese began to retreat to a new defensive line.
02:55The northern offensive across the demilitarized zone had forced the South Vietnamese to fall back to Route 9 and the
03:02Khoa Viet River.
03:07To the west, the line was held by Camp Carroll, the Rock Pile and the Mylock Combat Base.
03:17In two days, these bases fell and the NVA pushed to within 10 miles of Quangtree City.
03:34Further south, the city of Hue was threatened from two directions.
03:40Facing the NVA were the South Vietnamese 1st Division and a division of Marines.
03:51The attack opened on April 1st, 1972.
03:58To the west, the 324B Division pushed southern forces back in heavy fighting.
04:08For a time, the defenders held a line from the Maichan River to Firebase Bastogna, an old American outpost.
04:19But soon, even that line was being pushed back.
04:35The North Vietnamese attack on Quangtree City and the push towards Hue were furious assaults.
04:42But on April 9th, after a few days of fighting, the NVA were forced to halt their attacks and resupply.
04:53Outside Quangtree, the North's failure to keep up the pressure saved the South Vietnamese defense from complete collapse.
05:18For the first few days of the Northern Offensive, poor weather had prevented full-scale intervention by American aircraft.
05:27However, as the skies cleared, U.S. fighter bombers and helicopter gunships began pounding NVA positions.
05:39They were joined by massive air reinforcements rushed to the region, including B-52s and four more aircraft carriers.
05:58Three days after the first North Vietnamese attack, in the far south of Vietnam, there was another major thrust.
06:06This time, the assault was barely 50 miles from the southern capital, Saigon.
06:22The South Vietnamese forces defending Saigon were the 18th Division, the 5th Division, and the 25th, along with three ranger
06:33groups.
06:38On the North Vietnamese side, three divisions, at one time southern Viet Cong, but now almost completely northern, were backed
06:46by tanks and two independent infantry regiments.
06:55The North Vietnamese first launched a diversionary attack towards Thay Ninh City, overrunning South Vietnamese garrisons.
07:08And the
07:09In the main blow, the 5th Division assaulted Lhoc Ninh.
07:14In spite of an intense American air support, the town fell.
07:21Meanwhile, the 7th cut Route 13 and the 9th prepared to attack on Lhoc.
07:44At An Lough, more than 12,000 North Vietnamese were besieging less than 1,500 South Vietnamese
07:50army troops.
07:52The town was surrounded and ripe for an immediate assault.
07:55NVA artillery was pounding the defenders.
08:04The assault at An Lough had been entrusted to the 9th Division, but almost a week passed
08:09and the division still hadn't launched its attack.
08:16Supplies of ammunition, fuel and spare parts were arriving far too slowly and their tanks
08:22became bogged down.
08:39During the holdup, American helicopters were ferrying men and supplies into the threatened
08:44city.
08:44B-52 strikes hit the NVA assembly areas with devastating effect.
08:58The NVA finally mounted its assault on An Lough on April 13, 1972.
09:05At once, American helicopter gunships pounced on the attackers.
09:12In three days of mass infantry assaults, spearheaded by tanks, North Vietnamese troops managed to
09:18seize the northern part of the city.
09:21But they failed to break the defense.
09:27The 4,000-strong South Vietnamese force, reinforced by elite airborne units, held their positions
09:33and launched furious counterattacks, accompanied by renewed B-52 strikes.
09:39The carnage would continue until on May 15, the Viet Cong forces withdrew.
09:57In the central highlands, the targets for two NVA divisions were the provincial capitals
10:02of Khan Tum and Plei Khu.
10:07The defenders, the South Vietnamese 22nd Division, fell back in disarray, but were instantly reinforced,
10:14and they succeeded in holding the town.
10:17Meanwhile, the NVA seized control of most of Binh Dinh province, threatening to cut the country
10:23in two.
10:30On April 6, Nixon ordered the resumption of full-scale airstrikes over the north and naval
10:35gunfire to support the beleaguered South Vietnamese.
10:46On April 27, two weeks after the first North Vietnamese attack on Quang Tri City, the NVA renewed
10:53their assault.
10:55Reinforced by the 325th Division, they pushed to within a few miles of the city.
11:01The defenders, the South Vietnamese 3rd Division, which had withstood heavy bombardment for over
11:07a month, panicked and fled down Highway 1, along with thousands of civilians.
11:15Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese Army took possession of Dong Ha on April 29 and Quang Tri on May 1.
11:37Abandoned by their officers, the flight of the South Vietnamese Army's 3rd Division, along
11:43with the soldiers' families and the inhabitants of Quang Tri, was a rout.
11:47In the confusion, bridges were blown too soon, stranding men and equipment.
11:54The road had been mined, and the North Vietnamese added to the chaos by shelling the retreating
11:59columns with tank and artillery fire.
12:02As many as 20,000 may have been killed or wounded, many of them civilian refugees.
12:08The fear now was that the NVA would follow up their victory by storming down Route 1 to the
12:13city of Hue. There, the South Vietnamese Army's 1st Infantry Division and two brigades of marines
12:19were dug in round the city.
12:23In fact, massive American firepower, including the heavy guns of warships offshore, made certain
12:30the northern divisions could advance no further.
12:52American air support for the South Vietnamese Army, codenamed Operation Freedom Train, had unleashed
12:59tens of thousands of airstrikes against the attacking northern troops and their supply lines.
13:04Two days after the invasion, the Americans had also started to bomb North Vietnam, the first big
13:11raids in three and a half years.
13:25American bombers, including B-52s, were attacking military facilities, supply depots, rail yards,
13:32and fuel storage.
13:43North Vietnamese leaders had expected the raids, but they were sure that pressure from their allies,
13:49the Soviet Union and China, would stop the Americans launching an all-out air offensive.
13:55The North had miscalculated badly. Both superpowers were far more interested in good
14:00relations with the Americans than with the fate of Vietnam.
14:21The American airstrikes on both South and North Vietnam were launched by Air Force planes from Thailand.
14:27Navy aircraft from carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin and B-52s from Thailand and the Pacific.
14:36By June, 77 aircraft were brought down by NVA gunfire.
14:41The attacks swept northward and within two weeks were hitting targets around Hanoi and Haiphong.
14:50In a second phase, codenamed Operation Linebacker, power stations and airfields were hit.
15:00The strategic port of Haiphong and six other harbors were mined and closed to all sea traffic.
15:11Soon after, the rail and road transport links to China were the targets for heavy raids.
15:25United States forces have been directed to take appropriate measures.
15:28With Operation Linebacker, the American president, Richard Nixon, meant to force North Vietnam's leaders
15:34to call off their offensive against the South and negotiate a peace.
15:53The intensity of the bombing shocked North Vietnamese leaders.
15:58Worst of all, their allies did no more than protest.
16:05Even when Soviet ships in Haiphong were damaged, there was no dramatic reaction from the Russians.
16:15On May 20th, 1972, to the dismay of the North Vietnamese,
16:20Nixon's planned visit to the Soviet Union went ahead as scheduled.
16:39On July 19th, the South Vietnamese Army, with U.S. air support,
16:44began a drive to recapture bin in province and its cities.
16:48The battles would last until September 15th, by which time Quang Tri was reduced to rubble.
16:54The NVA, however, still held the northern part of the province.
16:59In five months of battles, the attackers reckoned they had killed 100,000 NVA and NLF troops
17:06and had captured vast quantities of weaponry. The offensive was over.
17:19In the United States, the renewed American bombing of North Vietnam had triggered widespread
17:24anti-war protests. Yet for President Nixon, the gamble had been a huge success.
17:30A presidential election was around the corner and his popularity had risen sharply.
17:38Now, Nixon wanted an agreement with North Vietnam that would free American prisoners of war
17:43and allow the remaining 32,000 U.S. troops in the South to leave.
18:00On and off since 1969, Nixon's national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, had been flying to Paris
18:07for secret behind-the-scenes meetings with the North Vietnamese while the main talks went on.
18:16Up to now, the talks had been in stalemate, but suddenly the northern envoy, Li Docto, offered a deal.
18:23Three weeks of intense negotiations produced an outline agreement.
18:31Meanwhile, the Americans restricted the bombing of North Vietnam.
18:41The negotiations in Paris had been carried on without consulting South Vietnamese President
18:47Nien Van Thieu. Thieu was outraged at the treaty's terms, especially in agreement that North Vietnamese
18:54forces in South Vietnam would be allowed to stay in position. Thieu demanded drastic changes,
19:00and soon the peace talks were again in deadlock.
19:12On December 13, 1972, the Paris peace talks broke down completely. Nixon was furious.
19:25He had won a landslide victory in the presidential elections, and with his popularity at its height,
19:30he was determined to force a solution. He ordered his military chiefs to prepare
19:35a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
19:42Publicly, he gave Northern leaders 72 hours to agree to return to the negotiating table.
20:11On December 18, 1972, President Nixon ordered the new bombing campaign to begin.
20:19Soon known as Linebacker II, it would last for 12 days and would include a three-day all-out effort
20:26by up to 120 B-52 bombers.
20:33Strategic surgical strikes were planned on fighter airfields, transport targets, and supply depots in
20:40and around Hanoi and Haiphong. This time, the majority of the attacks were carried out with deadly precision.
20:50They were mounted by Navy A-6 intruders and Air Force F-111s. The B-52s struck by night.
21:00North Vietnamese anti-aircraft defenses reacted furiously.
21:14As the defenses learned the paths taken by the B-52s to and from their targets,
21:19SAM anti-aircraft missiles took a heavy toll. 15 B-52s were shot down.
21:37After the Americans changed to less predictable flight paths, losses fell dramatically.
21:46By the 11th day, when North Vietnam agreed to talk peace, its air defense system had been wrecked.
21:54The bombers had utterly destroyed the North's industries, power plants, and transport system,
22:00and mistakenly hit the city's Bok Mai hospital.
22:08In Linebacker II, U.S. aircraft had dropped more than 20,000 tons of bombs.
22:1426 planes had been lost, and 93 airmen had been killed, captured, or were missing.
22:21Hanoi admitted to between 1,300 and 1,600 North Vietnamese dead.
22:32On January 8th, 1973, Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tu restarted their talks in Paris.
22:39In six days, they hammered out an agreement.
22:43This time, the Americans had told the South Vietnamese that they would get no more U.S. financial aid if
22:49they opposed the deal.
22:50On the 27th of January, 1973, all the warring parties signed a ceasefire.
23:13Within a month of the peace treaty, the first of 600 American prisoners of war were released by North Vietnam.
23:20By March 1973, the last American combat soldiers had left the South,
23:25though military advisors and Marines protecting U.S. installations remained.
23:30For the United States, officially, the war was over.
23:38The war in Vietnam had been the longest conflict in American history, costing more than 150 billion dollars.
23:47The U.S. armed forces had been left exhausted, barely able to meet their commitments across the globe.
23:56Of the more than three million Americans who had served, almost 58,000 were dead,
24:01and over 1,000 missing in action.
24:04For every soldier killed, six had been wounded, 150,000 seriously.
24:31Although the Americans had left Vietnam and a peace treaty had been signed,
24:36few Vietnamese believed that the war was over for them.
24:39The agreement had left 200,000 northern troops occupying strong positions inside the South.
24:49At the last minute, the Americans had given South Vietnam vast quantities of new weapons
24:54and were still giving large amounts of financial aid.
25:04In the wake of the peace agreement, South Vietnam's President Thieu had been given clear assurances by Nixon.
25:11If the North broke the treaty, the United States would retaliate with force.
25:17But by the summer of 1973, in the wake of the revelations about the secret bombing of Cambodia
25:23and other political considerations, Nixon no longer had the power to fulfill his promise.
25:29The U.S. Senate passed a bill banning combat operations over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
25:43In Hanoi, the North's leaders decided that the first priority now was to rebuild their battered forces.
25:50They would avoid big battles and instead try to regain important ground with small attacks
25:56in areas where the enemy was weakest.
26:03At the same time, they would prepare for a future offensive on a gigantic scale.
26:18North Vietnamese commanders were determined that this campaign
26:22should not suffer the supply holdups that plagued the 1972 invasion.
26:28In Laos, the Ho Chi Minh Trail was modernized while engineers began building
26:33a proper two-lane road just inside South Vietnam.
26:40It would be able to take heavy trucks and tanks from the North to within 70 miles of Saigon.
26:50Engineers also began laying 3,000 miles of fuel pipeline,
26:55planned to run from the demilitarized zone to the Mekong Delta.
27:13By the start of 1974, the North Vietnamese had rebuilt their divisions in the South.
27:20As yet, they were too weak to launch a full-scale offensive, but they had won some territory in key
27:25areas.
27:30On the South Vietnamese side, government forces seemed to be holding up well,
27:35but in the country, a crisis was looming.
27:46The withdrawal of American troops had already caused severe economic problems in South Vietnam.
27:53The economy had relied on U.S. aid, but had been inflated out of all proportion by the American presence.
28:02The American presence of the U.S. aid of the U.S. aid of the U.S. aid of the
28:09U.S. aid of the U.S. aid.
28:29support their families as prices rose and corrupt officers embezzled funds. Fuel shortages cut
28:36helicopter operations by 70 percent. A shortage of spare parts immobilized aircraft and vehicles.
28:43Ammunition was rationed.
28:55Steady cuts in American financial aid would add to the overriding sense of decay.
29:01The American tap was being slowly turned off.
29:10At the same time as the army's morale began to crumble,
29:13political support for President Thieu started to evaporate.
29:17Religious groups, ethnic minorities, the press and even some senior military officers came out against him.
29:27Then on August 9th, 1974, Thieu also lost his most powerful backer.
29:34The Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon to resign as President of the United States.
30:00The North Vietnamese Army used the spring and summer of 1974 to improve its position in South Vietnam.
30:09NVA commanders launched a series of strategic raids to regain the initiative and seize key pieces of territory.
30:26In five months of fighting, the North Vietnamese succeeded in gaining most of the ground they wanted.
30:32Their troops also gained valuable combat experience.
30:38Meanwhile, northern leaders argued about the timetable for the main offensive.
30:45At the 21st plenum held in Hanoi in October 1973,
30:50they decided to give priority to a military rather than a political offensive.
30:58While Giap remained chairman of the military committee,
31:01the day-to-day running of the army went to Van Tien Dung.
31:08It was Dung who would plan and lead the final assault.
31:14They hoped that this offensive would bring, after 10 years of struggle, the final victory.
31:43The North Vietnamese Army
31:43By December 1974, the North Vietnamese Army's main supply route from the North Vietnamese Army
31:48from the demilitarized zone to Loch Ninh was complete.
31:57The strategic raids had pushed the South Vietnamese Army towards the coast.
32:04Northern artillery now threatened several major cities.
32:11In the Saigon area, northern forces had gained ground on three sides of the capital.
32:26The new North Vietnamese plan was to try and seize Dong Shua,
32:31a vital road junction controlling access to Saigon from the east.
32:41On December 26, 1974, the 7th NVA Division captured Dong Shua.
32:49Next came diversionary attacks to pin down South Vietnamese forces.
32:59Phuc Long, an important province and city,
33:02was now threatened by two NVA divisions and two infantry regiments,
33:07backed by tanks and artillery.
33:23The North Vietnamese forces encircling Phuc Long City were more than 15,000 strong.
33:29Even after reinforcements had been flown into the city,
33:33the South Vietnamese defenders could muster only five and a half thousand men.
33:42The Southern Air Force was short of serviceable planes,
33:45and faced by heavy anti-aircraft defenses, it achieved almost nothing.
33:59By January 6, 1975, the North Vietnamese had overrun Phuc Long City and the surrounding province.
34:20The loss of Phuc Long was a disaster for the South Vietnamese.
34:28Confidence in President Thieu fell to a new low.
34:32The skill and strength of the North Vietnamese divisions had been a shocking revelation.
34:38Worst of all, the most blatant breach of the Paris Treaty yet seen in Vietnam
34:42had produced no reaction from the United States.
35:03To North Vietnamese leaders, the latest battles were proof that the Americans would not use their
35:08air power to defend South Vietnam.
35:15There was also good news from the Soviet Union, the promise of huge quantities of extra weapons
35:21and supplies. The Soviets were keen to increase their influence in the region
35:26and believed they were backing a winner.
35:39Even though North Vietnam now had the support it needed, its leaders still meant to move cautiously.
35:48But General Tran Van Tra, the commander in charge of Southern forces, pushed for decisive action.
35:56Once more, he won agreement for a sizeable attack, but not for a full-scale campaign.
36:06South Vietnamese generals had long ago been given clear orders about how they were to react to any
36:12northern offensive. They were to hold on to every scrap of Southern territory and their forces had been
36:18deployed for a defense on all fronts.
36:32On March 1st, 1975, the attack planned by General Tran Van Tra was unleashed in the Central Highlands.
36:51As ordered, government forces meant to stand and fight. But suddenly, President Thieu,
36:57the Southern leader changed the plan completely.
37:11The new South Vietnamese strategy was to hold all of the country below the town of Thuy Ha.
37:17Areas previously held by the North Vietnamese would be retaken.
37:25Above Thuy Ha, a series of defense lines would be created north and west of Hui,
37:31Da Nang, Kuang Nai, and Kui Nong.
37:39If need be, the lines could be abandoned one after the other in an orderly withdrawal,
37:44until a solid defense could be mounted.
37:54This latest North Vietnamese attack had begun with diversionary actions against the strategic
38:00cities of Pleiku and Khantum.
38:08But the real target to capture was Banh Mi Thuet, and the attack began on March 10th.
38:16The Southern 23rd Division mounted a counterattack, but failed hopelessly when
38:20South Vietnamese planes scored a direct hit on their own divisional operations center,
38:25ending any organized defense.
38:28A new plan was then put into effect.
38:32South Vietnamese army units in Khantum and Pleiku provinces
38:36were ordered to withdraw to the coast and hold Thuy Ha along Route 7B.
38:48President Thuy's order to the South Vietnamese army to abandon the central highlands did not
38:54include the regional military forces and the militia. As news leaked out, they and the civilian
39:00population panicked. What was supposed to be an orderly withdrawal soon descended into complete chaos.
39:09Military units, their families, and 400,000 fleeing civilians jammed the primitive road.
39:18The 120-mile retreat down Route 7B was a nightmare. North Vietnamese artillery shelled the column,
39:26and NVA infantry blocked the road. Food and water ran out.
39:33A South Vietnamese ranger battalion of 700 men successfully cleared the NVA roadblocks,
39:39but was itself eventually wiped out.
39:48By the time the column reached the coast, a third of the 60,000 troops that had set out
39:53were dead or missing. Of 400,000 civilians, a quarter had disappeared.
40:05Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese army launched a second major attack. A hundred thousand men
40:11converged on the major cities of Quang Tri, Hue, and Da Nang. They were spearheaded by powerful armored
40:18forces and backed by eight full regiments of artillery. And when news of the debacle in the central highlands
40:25reached these cities, panic set in. Worse still, the South Vietnamese elite airborne division,
40:33based north of Hue, was ordered to return to Saigon.
40:45The North Vietnamese plan was to attack from three directions.
40:51They meant to drive southern forces back to Da Nang. There, the enemy would be trapped and destroyed.
41:02Quang Tri Province was quickly captured, followed by the town of Tam Ki to the south.
41:10Refugees surged along Route 1 towards Da Nang. At the same time, the NVA advance threatened to cut Route 1.
41:18South Vietnamese army units were now ordered to abandon Hue and Chu Lai and retreat to Da Nang.
41:35On March 25, 1975, Hue, South Vietnam's third largest city, fell to the North Vietnamese army.
41:47The mass of refugees were by now converging on Da Nang. Over two million were already crammed into the city,
41:55including tens of thousands of armed deserters.
42:03North Vietnamese rocket and artillery fire were slamming into the built-up areas in the docks.
42:16Fleets of ships and small boats crammed the harbor, and there was a frantic scramble for places.
42:22Thousands drowned or were crushed. Many were shot by troops or armed civilians in the desperate competition to escape.
42:36As 30,000 North Vietnamese troops advanced south to Da Nang,
42:41the South Vietnamese command ordered all its troops to be evacuated by sea.
42:48In the chaos, few succeeded in escaping. The scenes of panic and mayhem at the docks
42:54were repeated at Da Nang's airport.
43:04Over the next few days, the NVA just rolled into town after town without a fight,
43:10towns abandoned by the South Vietnamese forces.
43:14On March 30, 1975, the North Vietnamese army took Da Nang.
43:19It was just over 10 years since the first U.S. Marines had stormed ashore there.
43:25For the South, it was a shattering blow. Yet its leaders did little,
43:29clinging to the hope that American air power would finally intervene to save the day.
43:46By early 1975, five weeks into its campaign, the North Vietnamese army had made stunning gains.
44:0112 provinces and more than 8 million people were under their control.
44:10The South Vietnamese army had lost its best units, over a third of its men and almost half its weapons.
44:25Northern leaders were astonished by their own success. The question now was,
44:30could they press ahead and take the capital, Saigon, in a war-winning blow?
44:35Originally, they had not planned to get this far until 1976, but now it would have to be done within
44:41three weeks before the rainy season disrupted operations.
44:51The job of commanding the offensive was that of General Van Tien Dung.
45:01His deputy was General Tran Van Tra, the man whose aggressive strategy had opened the way to Saigon.
45:14Le Duc II, Henry Kissinger's adversary in the Paris peace talks, now one of the most powerful men in
45:20the Northern Politburo, would oversee the whole effort, accompanied by General Jap.
45:31The final offensive was named the Ho Chi Minh Campaign. For the assault, the NVA deployed a
45:38quarter of a million men and hundreds of tanks. The troops were superbly equipped and supported by
45:44massed artillery. And as they advanced south, they made use of hundreds of millions of dollars worth
45:50of equipment abandoned by the South Vietnamese. Behind them was a vast and sophisticated supply system.
46:03North Vietnamese transport aircraft and ships were now ferrying men and materials into captured airfields
46:09and ports in South Vietnam.
46:24North Vietnamese forces around Saigon were organized into four army corps.
46:33Each was made up of three or four divisions
46:37and was given a line of approach to the city.
46:44Facing them were four South Vietnamese divisions, along with remnants of an airborne division,
46:50an armored brigade, and units of rangers.
46:58As the Northern attack rolled inexorably on, they had to cut Route 4, isolating Saigon from its forces in the
47:06Mekong Delta.
47:12A key road junction covering the air bases at Ben Hua and Tan Sinut would be seized,
47:21opening up a route to the capital from the east.
47:34The first attacks of the Ho Chi Minh campaign opened on April 9, 1975.
48:02The only effective resistance to the advance took place at Schwan Lak,
48:07where for almost two weeks, Southern forces made a war.
48:10a desperate and die-hard stand.
48:31The North Vietnamese threw more than 30,000 men at Schwan Lak,
48:35backed by powerful tank and artillery forces.
48:45Against all the odds, the 6,000 men of the South Vietnamese 18th Division refused to crack.
48:58In two weeks of bitter fighting, the North Vietnamese hit the defenders of Schwan Lak with 20,000 shells and
49:06rockets.
49:08Still, Southern forces drove back mass infantry attacks.
49:14They killed over 5,000 NVA troops and destroyed dozens of tanks.
49:21It was to prove the last big battle of the Vietnam War.
49:28In the end, the defenders were forced to pull back.
49:34One in three of the South Vietnamese 18th Division were dead.
49:39The fall of Schwan Lak meant the road to Ben Ha and Saigon itself was wide open.
49:47With the direct threat to the capital, on April 21st, President Thieu resigned and fled to Taiwan.
49:54Members of the provisional revolutionary government in Paris had earlier indicated they'd be prepared to negotiate with General Duong Van
50:01Min, a trusted intermediary.
50:03However, for the moment, the southern government was paralyzed.
50:08A mass exodus of foreigners, government officials, and the remaining Americans was already underway.
50:16Saigon docks were crammed with boats as thousands tried to escape by sea.
50:33The northern plan was to encircle and destroy the remaining defenders outside the capital.
50:39That way, the NVA might avoid costly street fighting and the destruction of the city.
50:53On April 25th, 1975, they launched their final assault.
50:59One by one, the defending South Vietnamese divisions were cut off and overwhelmed.
51:09On April 28th, as NVA forces pressed in on the city, General Min was sworn in as president.
51:15Attacks on Tansunut Airport closed its runways. Only helicopters now offered a way out.
51:22Starting on April 29th, 1975, U.S. Marine and Air Force helicopters flying from carriers offshore began a massive airlift.
51:30In 18 hours, over 1,000 American civilians and almost 7,000 South Vietnamese refugees were flown out of Saigon.
51:48The helicopters were leaving from Tansunut Airport, now besieged by refugees desperate to escape.
52:00The scenes of panic and chaos were repeated at the U.S. Embassy, where helicopters were landing and taking off
52:06from inside the grounds.
52:10U.S. Marines, flown in to protect the evacuation, struggled to control the thousands of terrified civilians fighting for a
52:17place.
52:32At 4.03 a.m. on April 30th, two U.S. Marines were caught in a Viet Cong rocket attack
52:38on the airport.
52:39They were the last Americans to die in the Vietnam War.
52:43A constant stream of American helicopters shuttled between embattled Saigon and the rescue fleet off the coast.
52:50At the same time, South Vietnamese military pilots were using their own or commandeered aircraft to escape.
52:59The decks of some American ships became so crowded that helicopters had to be pushed overboard.
53:15The last Marines of the U.S. force guarding the evacuation of the embassy left Saigon at dawn on April
53:2230th, 1975.
53:24As their helicopter took off from the embassy roof, looters were already ransacking the lower stories of the building.
53:39Five hours after the last Americans had gone, North Vietnamese tanks rolled through the streets of the South Vietnamese capital.
53:46The government had ordered the army to lay down its weapons, and there was almost no resistance.
54:04Shortly before noon, T-54 tanks of the NVA II Corps rolled through the gates of the presidential palace.
54:31The bitter war, which ended on April 30th, 1975, had claimed the lives of huge numbers of Vietnamese.
54:40In 15 years, nearly a million NVA and NLF troops, and a quarter of a million South Vietnamese Army soldiers,
54:48had died.
54:51Hundreds of thousands of civilians had been killed.
55:05After the victory, Northern officials moved quickly to take control of every aspect of Southern life.
55:12Even the NLF had little say as Hanoi tightened its grip.
55:17Soon, hundreds of thousands of people, officers and men from the South Vietnamese Army,
55:22and those believed tainted by the old regime, would be sent to re-education camps.
55:34Some years later, starting in 1978, half a million more would risk death,
55:40fleeing in small boats across the open sea.
55:54Although the war was over, peace in Indochina did not last long.
55:58Within five days of the fall of Saigon,
56:01Khmer Rouge troops who had taken power in Cambodia
56:04carried out the first of many border attacks,
56:07killing more than 30,000 Vietnamese.
56:10On December 25th, 1978,
56:13Vietnam invaded Cambodia
56:15to liberate the population
56:16from the genocidal rule of Pol Pot.
56:20China, Pol Pot's ally,
56:22retaliated by attacking Vietnam.
56:24This conflict would cost another
56:27hundred thousand lives.
56:35For the United States,
56:37the Vietnam War left a painful legacy
56:39of bitterness and division.
56:45As the nation tried to forget
56:47a humiliating and frustrating episode in its history,
56:50those who had served
56:52were ignored or greeted with outright hostility.
56:57It was 1982
56:59before veterans of the conflict
57:01were finally recognized
57:02with the building of the Vietnam Memorial.
57:07For America,
57:08only then could the ghost of Vietnam
57:10finally begin
57:11to be laid to rest.
57:13the ghost of the Vietnam War.
57:55To be continued...
58:13To be continued...
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