Operation Frequent Wind was the final phase in the evacuation of American civilians and "at-risk" Vietnamese from Saigon, South Vietnam, before the takeover of the city by the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) in the Fall of Saigon. It was carried out on 29–30 April 1975, during the last days of the Vietnam War. More than 7,000 people were evacuated by helicopter from various points in Saigon. The airlift resulted in several enduring images.
Evacuation plans already existed as a standard procedure for American embassies. At the beginning of March, fixed-wing aircraft began evacuating civilians from Tan Son Nhat Airport through neighboring countries. By mid-April, contingency plans were in place and preparations were underway for a possible helicopter evacuation. As the imminent collapse of Saigon became evident, the U.S. Navy assembled Task Force 76 off the coast near Vũng Tàu to support a helicopter evacuation and provide air support if required. In the event, air support was not needed as the North Vietnamese paused for a week at the outskirts of Saigon, possibly waiting for the South Vietnamese government to collapse and avoiding a confrontation with the U.S. by allowing the mostly-unopposed evacuation of Americans from Saigon.
On 28 April, Tan Son Nhut Air Base (next to the airport) came under artillery fire and attack from Vietnamese People's Air Force aircraft. The fixed-wing evacuation was terminated and Operation Frequent Wind began. During the fixed-wing evacuation 50,493 people (including 2,678 Vietnamese orphans) were evacuated from Tan Son Nhut. The evacuation took place primarily from the Defense Attaché Office compound, beginning around 14:00 on 29 April, and ending that night with only limited small arms damage to the helicopters. The U.S. Embassy in Saigon was intended to be only a secondary evacuation point for embassy staff, but it was soon overwhelmed with evacuees and desperate South Vietnamese. The evacuation of the embassy was completed at 07:53 on 30 April, but some Americans chose to stay or were left behind and some 400 third-country nationals were left at the embassy.
Tens of thousands of Vietnamese evacuated themselves by sea or air. With the collapse of South Vietnam, numerous boats and ships, Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) helicopters and some fixed-wing aircraft sailed or flew out to the evacuation fleet. Helicopters began to clog ship decks and eventually, some were pushed overboard to allow others to land. Pilots of other helicopters were told to drop off their passengers and then take off and ditch in the sea, from where they would be rescued. In Operation Frequent Wind a total of 1,373 Americans and 5,595 Vietnamese and third-country nationals were evacuated by helicopter. The total number of Vietnamese evacuated by Frequent Wind or self-evacuated and ending up in the custody of the United States for processing as refugees to enter the United States totalled 138,869.
Planning
Planning for the evacuation of the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies from South Vietnam had begun before April 1975. When U.S. President Gerald Ford met with the National Security Council on 9 April 1975 he was told by Henry Kissinger that a maximum of 1.7 million people had been identified as possible evacuees and that these included: American citizens and their relatives, the diplomatic corps, the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), third-country nationals under contract by the U.S. government and the employees of the U.S. and their dependents (estimated at 200,000 people). In addition, the Vietnamese relatives of American citizens and senior Government of Vietnam officials and their dependents (about 600,000 people) were also identified as potential evacuees, along with Vietnamese formerly employed by the U.S. and their dependents.
Although American officials at the highest levels of the intelligence community (e.g. CIA Director William Colby) were certain that the South Vietnamese government would collapse, the U.S. government underestimated the speed of the North Vietnamese advance during the 1975 Spring Offensive and how quickly the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) would collapse.
Evacuation plans are standard for American embassies. The Saigon plan had been developed over several years. Originally codenamed "Talon Vise", the operation was renamed "Frequent Wind" when the original codename was compromised.
By 1975, the Frequent Wind plan aimed to evacuate about 8,000 U.S. citizens and third-country nationals, but it was never able to estimate the number of South Vietnamese to include. There were about 17,000 at-risk Vietnamese on embassy rolls, which, using an average of seven dependents per family, meant that the number requiring evacuation was 119,000. Taken with other categories of Vietnamese, the number quickly passed 200,000. The Frequent Wind plan set out four possible evacuation options:
- Option 1: Evacuation by commercial airlift from Tan Son Nhut and other South Vietnamese airports as required
- Option 2: Evacuation by military airlift from Tan Son Nhut and other South Vietnamese airports as required
- Option 3: Evacuation by sea lift from Saigon port
- Option 4: Evacuation by helicopter to US Navy ships in the South China Sea
With Option 4, the helicopter evacuation would be expected to be similar to Operation Eagle Pull, the American evacuation by air of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on 12 April 1975.
Preparations on the ground
On 1 April an evacuation control center manned by U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force (USAF) and U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) personnel began operating at the Defense Attaché Office (DAO) compound on 12-hour shifts, increasing to 24-hour shifts the next day. Also on 1 April, Plan Alamo was implemented to defend the DAO compound and its annex so it could serve as a holding area for 1,500 evacuees for five days. By 16 April, Alamo was complete: water, C-rations, petroleum, oil, and lubricants had been stockpiled; backup electricity generators had been installed; sanitary facilities were completed; and concertina wire protected the perimeter.
On 7 April Air America pilot Nikki A. Fillipi, with U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Robert Twigger, assigned to the DAO as the U.S. Navy liaison officer, surveyed 37 buildings in Saigon as possible landing zones (LZ), selecting 13 of them as fit for use. Workers from Pacific Architects and Engineers visited each of the 13 LZs to remove obstructions and paint 'H's the size of a UH-1 Huey helicopter's skids. President Ford, in an address to the American public on 11 April, promised to evacuate Vietnamese civilians of various categories. The 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade (9th MAB), which was to supply helicopters and a security force for the evacuation, sent a delegation to consult with Ambassador Graham Martin on current plans on 12 April. Martin told them that he would not tolerate any outward signs that the United States intended to abandon South Vietnam. All planning would have to be conducted with the utmost discretion. Brigadier General Richard E. Carey, commander of the 9th MAB, flew to Saigon the next day to see Martin; he later said, "The visit was cold, non-productive and appeared to be an irritant to the Ambassador". Thirteen Marines from the Marine Security Guard (MSG) detachment were deployed to the DAO Compound on 13 April to replace eight Marine guards who had been providing security after they were withdrawn from the closed Da Nang and Nha Trang consulates.
By late April, Air America helicopters were flying several daily shuttles from TF76 to the DAO Compound to enable the 9th MAB to conduct evacuation preparations at the DAO without exceeding the Paris Peace Accords' limit of 50 U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam. The U.S. government was continuing to observe its obligations under the Accords, notwithstanding the North Vietnamese invasion. In late April, the MSG Marines were ordered to abandon Marshall Hall/Marine House, their billet at 204 Hong Thap Tu Street (now 204 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street), and move into the recreation area in the embassy compound.
The two major evacuation points chosen for Operation Frequent Wind were the DAO Compound next to Tan Son Nhut Airport for American and Vietnamese civilian evacuees, and the U.S. Embassy, Saigon for embassy staff. The plan for the evacuation included stationing buses and American civilian bus drivers at 28 buildings throughout metropolitan Saigon. The buses would follow one of four planned evacuation routes from downtown Saigon to the DAO Compound, each route named after a Western Trail: Santa Fe, Oregon, Texas, etc.
Options 1 and 2: fixed-wing evacuation
By late March, the embassy began to reduce the number of U.S. citizens in Vietnam by encouraging dependents and non-essential personnel to leave the country by commercial flights and on Military Airlift Command (MAC) C-141 and C-5 aircraft, which were still bringing in emergency military supplies. In late March, two or three of these MAC aircraft were arriving each day and were used to evacuate civilians and Vietnamese orphans. On 4 April, a C-5A aircraft carrying 250 Vietnamese orphans and their escorts suffered explosive decompression over the sea near Vũng Tàu and made a crash-landing while attempting to return to Tan Son Nhut; 153 people on board died in the crash.
With the cause of the crash still unknown, the C-5 fleet was grounded and the MAC airlift was reduced to using C-141s and C-130s. Rather than loading as many evacuees as possible, each evacuee was required to have a seat and a seatbelt, reducing the number of passengers that could be carried on each flight to 94 in a C-141 and 75 in a C-130. But these restrictions were relaxed and eventually ignored altogether as the pace of the evacuation quickened. Armed guards were also present on each flight to prevent hijacking. American commercial and contract carriers continued to fly out of Tan Son Nhut, but with decreasing frequency. In addition, military aircraft from Australia, Indonesia, Iran, Poland, the United Kingdom, France, and other countries flew in to evacuate their embassy personnel.
Throughout April, the "thinning out" proceeded slowly, largely because the South Vietnamese government was slow to issue papers allowing Americans to take Vietnamese dependents with them, with the result that MAC aircraft were often departing empty. Finally, on 19 April, a simple procedure was implemented that cleared up the paperwork jam and the number of evacuees dramatically increased. The fall of Xuân Lộc on 21 April and the resignation of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu on 21 April brought greater crowds seeking evacuation to the DAO Compound as it became apparent that South Vietnam's days were numbered. By 22 April, 20 C-141 and 20 C-130s flights a day were flying evacuees out of Tan Son Nhut to Clark Air Base, some 1,000 miles away in the Philippines. On 23 April President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines announced that no more than 2,500 Vietnamese evacuees would be allowed in the Philippines at any one time, further increasing the strain on MAC which now had to move evacuees out of Saigon and move some 5,000 evacuees from Clark Air Base on to Guam, Wake Island and Yokota Air Base. President Thiệu and his family left Tan Son Nhut on 25 April on a USAF C-118 to go into exile in Taiwan. Also on 25 April the Federal Aviation Administration banned commercial flights into South Vietnam. This directive was subsequently reversed; some operators had ignored it anyway. In any case this effectively marked the end of the commercial airlift from Tan Son Nhut.
On 27 April, PAVN rockets hit Saigon and Cholon for the first time since the 1973 ceasefire. U.S. officials decided to stop using the less maneuverable C-141s, which had been loaded with up to 316 evacuees, and use only C-130s, which had been taking off with more than 240.
Task Force 76
With the fall of Saigon imminent, between 18 and 24 April the U.S. Navy assembled ships off Vũng Tàu under Commander Task Force 76, RADM Don Whitmire.
Task Force 76
Task Group 76.4 (Movement Transport Group Alpha)
Task Group 76.5 (Movement Transport Group Bravo)
Task Group 76.9 (Movement Transport Group Charlie)
The task force was joined by:
each carrying Marine, and Air Force (eight 21st Special Operations Squadron CH-53s and two 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron HH-53s) helicopters.
Amphibious ships:
A guided missile frigate:
and eight destroyer types for naval gunfire, escort, and area defense, including:
The USS Enterprise and USS Coral Sea carrier attack groups of Task Force 77 in the South China Sea provided air cover while Task Force 73 ensured logistic support.
The Marine evacuation contingent, the 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade (Task Group 79.1), consisted of three Battalion Landing Teams (BLT); 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines (2/4), 1st Battalion 9th Marines (1/9), 3rd Battalion 9th Marines (3/9) and three helicopter squadrons HMH-462, HMH-463, HMM-165 along with other support units from Marine Aircraft Group 39 (MAG-39).
In addition, a flotilla of Military Sealift Command (MSC) ships were assembled and these carried out seaborne evacuations from Saigon Port, this fleet comprised:
Tugboats:
- Asiatic Stamina
- Chitose Maru
- Haruma
- Osceola
- Shibaura Maru
and the following large transport ships:
Tan Son Nhut under attack
On 28 April at 18:06, three A-37 Dragonflies piloted by former RVNAF pilots, who had defected to the Vietnamese People's Air Force at the fall of Da Nang, dropped six Mk81 250 lb bombs on Tan Son Nhut Air Base, destroying several aircraft. RVNAF F-5s took off in pursuit, but they were unable to intercept the A-37s. C-130s leaving Tan Son Nhut reported receiving PAVN 12.7 mm and 37 mm anti-aircraft (AAA) fire, while sporadic PAVN rocket and artillery attacks also started to hit the airport and air base. C-130 flights were stopped temporarily after the air attack but resumed at 20:00 on 28 April. At 21:00 on 28 April Major General Homer D. Smith, the Defense Attaché, informed the evacuation control center that 60 C-130 flights would come in on 29 April to evacuate 10,000 people.
At 03:30 on 29 April a PAVN rocket hit Guardpost 1 at the DAO Compound, instantly killing Marine Corporals Charles McMahon and Darwin Judge. They were the last American ground casualties in Vietnam.