Fifty years later, the surreal images of U.S. sailors and Marines scrambling to push, drag and muscle helicopters overboard into the sea in 1975 remain emblematic of America's long and ultimately futile effort to win "hearts and minds" in Vietnam.
The helicopters had to go to make room for more helicopters carrying Americans and South Vietnamese to land aboard the ships of naval Task Force 76, which had been assembled off the coast to aid in evacuations as North Vietnamese regulars pressed to take Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and end the war in April of that year.
There had been some talk aboard the ships about the Marines possibly going ashore to take positions on the Vung Tau peninsula to serve as an assembly point, but then-Marine 2nd Lt. Mark Cancian recalled that "all we ended up doing was searching for refugees and throwing helicopters into the South China Sea."
Cancian, who was aboard the amphibious transport dock USS Dubuque, said "everything that could fly was flying out of Saigon, but there was no room on the flight deck to put them. As soon as it landed, we took anything salvageable and pushed it over into the water."
"It was tragic, just so many South Vietnamese that we could not get out," said Cancian, now a senior adviser with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Vietnamese who could not get aboard the helicopters took to small boats and came down the Saigon River to meet the U.S. ships. "Someone called it the 'Saigon Regatta,'" Cancian said. "They came alongside. We brought some into the well deck, then pushed the boats off and sank them. People were desperate."
"We knew the end of the fighting was near, and the evacuation of Saigon was coming," said retired Rear Adm. Larry Chambers, who commanded the USS Midway aircraft carrier in Task Force 76. Chambers had off-loaded all of his fixed-wing aircraft and took on helicopters to prepare for the evacuation.
"We brought them in two at a time," the 95-year-old Chambers said of the helicopters flying out of Saigon, packed with civilians and the few belongings they could carry.
There is no official count of how many helicopters were pushed overboard during the Operation Frequent Wind evacuations, although varying estimates put the number at 40-50, but Chambers wanted it known that none of the helicopters he ordered to be scuttled were Navy helicopters.
"Not a single thing I pushed over the side had U.S. Navy on it -- there was Air Force, Army, Air America and more all over the side," but no aircraft with Navy insignia, Chambers said. "I figured it wasn't going to make any difference in how long I'd be in jail."
Chambers spoke Sunday on the flight deck of the USS Midway Museum in San Diego at ceremonies to mark the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and to honor the rescue missions flown as part of Operation Frequent Wind.
The ceremony aboard the Midway was one of the few to mark the 50th anniversary of the evacuations in the U.S., in contrast to the parades, flyovers and other events in Vietnam honoring those who fought in what the Vietnamese call the "American War."
In the run-up to the national holiday marking the anniversary, Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Van Nen told Vietnamese media that "it must be affirmed that it was a war of national defense, not about winning or losing. On the day peace came, there were mixed emotions -- some felt joy, others sorrow. But after 50 years, personal sorrow needs to merge with the joy of the nation."
It was unclear whether U.S. Ambassador Marc Knapper or other U.S. officials in Vietnam would be attending any of the 50th anniversary events. The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump had barred Knapper from going to the events, and NPR reported Tuesday that Knapper's name did not appear on the guest list for one of the main anniversary events in Ho Chi Minh City.
The White House and the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi did not respond to queries from Military.com.
In all,1,373 Americans and 5,595 Vietnamese and third-country nationals were flown out to the ships from various locations in Saigon in Operation Frequent Wind on April 29-30, 1975, according to the Defense Department. The pre-planned signal for the evacuees to begin moving to extraction points came when American Forces Radio began playing Bing Crosby's “White Christmas.”
Earlier, more than 50,000 people evacuated using fixed-wing aircraft flying out of Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon, but President Gerald Ford ordered those flights canceled after rocket fire killed two Marine security guards at Tan Son Nhut. Cpl. Charles McMahon and Lance Cpl. Darwin Judge were the last two combat deaths in a war that killed more than 58,000 U.S. service members.
In Washington on April 29, 1975, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger went to the White House press room to give an update on Operation Frequent Wind and take questions. Would he favor U.S. aid to rebuild North Vietnam -- he would not. What was the goal of U.S. military and diplomatic efforts in the last year -- peace with honor.
Then Kissinger was asked whether the entire U.S. involvement in blood and treasure in Vietnam had been in vain. He replied: "It is clear that the war did not achieve the objectives of those who started the original involvement."
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