Timelines by John Rees

Author:John Rees
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2012-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

When, in 1973, Secretary of Defence James Schlesinger said he would recommend renewed bombing of North Vietnam if the offensive against the South Congress immediately passed the Case-Church Amendment to make any such action illegal. In 1974, Congress voted to end all US military aid to South Vietnam within two years. In December, North Vietnam attacked areas 60 miles north of Saigon. In 1975, North Vietnam began an offensive in the Central Highlands. They were massively outgunned by their Southern enemies. The South had twice the number of armoured cars and tanks, 1,400 aircraft and a two-to-one superiority in combat troops. Much of the hardware, however, could not be used because of the oil crisis that was then affecting the world economy. As the Northern forces and the Viet Cong gained ground, President Thieu ordered a retreat to stop Southern forces being cut off in the North. The retreat quickly turned to a rout as panic set in and Officers abandoned their soldiers. By April, the so-called ‘column of tears’ had been all but annihilated. Thieu ordered that a stand must be made at Vietnam’s third largest city, Hue. But panic seized Southern forces again. They fired on civilians to make way for their own retreat. Some 100,000 leaderless Southern troops surrendered. By the end of March Hue had fallen.

As April opened, the Northern forces and the Viet Cong were 40 miles from Saigon. President Thieu fled to Taiwan. In late April, 100,000 North Vietnamese troops surrounded 30,000 South Vietnamese troops in Saigon. The Southern Government surrendered. Tanks crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace and at 11:30am on 30 April 1975 the NLF flag was raised. US Diplomatic Staff were lifted by helicopter from the roof of their own Embassy as it was overrun by Viet Cong. The images stand as reminder of the moment when a superpower was humbled. The cost of the unification and independence of Vietnam was high. At the moment they finally achieved liberation, the Vietnamese had been fighting foreign involvement in their country (by French, Chinese, Japanese, British and Americans) for 116 years. In the War with the US, one-in-ten Vietnamese had been casualties, with nearly a million and a half dead and another three million wounded. By contrast, 60,000 US troops had lost their lives. Yet, the Vietnamese had achieved much more than their own independence. They had shown the world that even the greatest power on earth can be beaten. It is a lesson that is still remembered every time people protest against war or fight against Imperial domination.

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