he helicopter that took me away from Saigon rose from the compound of the American Embassy in a sudden squall. I could see below me panicked masses in the rain-washed streets desperate to get away. To the north, ammunition dumps were blowing up and fires raged in the distance.
We crossed the coast in the gathering dark where an American fleet lay waiting offshore to receive us. South Vietnamese helicopters, like butterflies borne on an offshore wind, landed briefly on the ships before being tossed overboard to make room for more, or, as if exhausted, fell into the sea themselves. What happened to their crews I do not know.
All about us in the darkness were the flotillas of overcrowded boats - the first hemorrhaging of Vietnamese that would grow to more than a million in the years to come. It was April, 29, 1975.
America's last day in Vietnam began with the sound of artillery shells bursting in the city. There had been weeks of rising tension as the South Vietnamese Army disintegrated before a North Vietnamese offensive, and this time there were no American troops, planes, or even advisors to help them.
Unparalleled scenes of panic had unfolded in the northern cities with hundreds trying to claw their way aboard the last departing boats and planes, some even hanging onto the wheels of aircraft as the debacle spread south.
On little transistor radios that reporters had, we could hear the communication traffic between the American Embassy and the airport. ''Tan Son Nhut (airport) being heavily shelled,'' said a voice. ''Four rounds in five seconds on the flight line.'' Two US Marines from the embassy had been killed: Corporal Darwin Judge and Corporal Charles McMahon, the last Americans to die in the Vietnam War. The first had been Lieutenant Colonel Peter Dewey, an officer in the OSS, who was ambushed trying to reach this same airport in 1945.
In the last weeks of April 1975, Americans and Vietnamese who worked for them had been flying out of the city to Guam, to the Philippines. Now those flights would end and the only way out would be by helicopter.
All Americans had been issued a map with instructions telling them where to report ''should it be felt necessary for US personnel to report to their designated assembly areas....'' The word ''evacuation'' was never mentioned in the instructions. We were told to keep tuned to the radio for a weather report announcing: ''105 degrees and rising,'' which would be followed by 30 seconds of Bing Crosby singing ''White Christmas.'' This would be the signal to report to designated areas and await the helicopters. I never heard the signal nor met anyone who ever did.
I decided to go to the embassy, where, during the day, surrealistic scenes would unfold, with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Vietnamese clamoring at the gates to be let in, and the embassy staff shredding documents and burning money, lest it fall into enemy hands.
When the helicopters arrived, the wind from their rotors sent shredded secrets bursting from their bags and flying over the walls into the city that was about to be abandoned. It was clear by afternoon that not all the Vietnamese that had been compromised by working for the Americans were coming with us. The knowledge of the coming betrayal kept many eyes averted. Many Vietnamese left behind would spend up to 20 years in concentration camps being ''reeducated''; many would die of neglect and malnutrition.
At first the city seemed not to realize what was going on, but as afternoon came, word spread and Saigon began to seethe with the rolling-eyed fear of animals caught in a burning barn. The crowds outside the embassy increased while American Marine guards beat back those who tried to climb over the wall, heedless of the barbed wire. As if from drowning passengers around a sinking ship, a moaning clamor arose outside the compound as the Vietnamese outside saw the helicopters come and go without them.
Cobra gunships swooped over the rooftops, ready to fire if the evacuation was impeded, but except for a few shots fired by angry South Vietnamese soldiers, the evacuation went on without hindrance and none of the helicopters was lost.
Later that evening, US Ambassador Graham Martin would arrive aboard a rescue ship by helicopter with his dog, which he had taken pains to rescue, and the following morning, North Vietnamese tanks would crash through the gates of Saigon's presidential palace. The 30-year war was over.
