عملية الريح المتكررة
عملية الريح المتكررة Operation Frequent Wind كانت المرحلة الأخيرة من إجلاء المدنيين الأمريكان والڤيتناميين "المهدَدين" من سايگون، ڤيتنام الجنوبية، قبل أن يستولي على المدينة 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 a number of 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 possible confrontation with the U.S. by allowing the mostly-unopposed evacuation of Americans from Saigon.[1][2]
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.[3] The evacuation took place primarily from the Defense Attaché Office compound, beginning around 14:00 on the afternoon of 29 April, and ending that night with only limited small arms damage to the helicopters. The U.S. Embassy in Saigon was intended to only be 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.[3] 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.[2] This operation was the debut combat deployment of the F-14 Tomcat aircraft.
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التخطيط
By 1975, the Frequent Wind plan aimed to evacuate about 8,000 US citizens and third-country nationals, but it was never able to estimate the number of South Vietnamese to include.[4] 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.[4] The Frequent Wind plan set out four possible evacuation options:[4]
- 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.[5]
قوة المهمة 76
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Tan Son Nhut under attack
إير أمريكا
As part of the evacuation plan agreed with the DAO, Air America committed 24 of its 28 available helicopters to support the evacuation and 31 pilots agreed to stay in Saigon to support the evacuation; this meant that most helicopters would have only one pilot rather than the usual two.[4] At 08:30 on 29 April, with the shelling of Tan Son Nhut Airport subsiding, Air America began ferrying its helicopter and fixed-wing pilots from their homes in Saigon to the Air America compound at Tan Son Nhut, across the road from the DAO Compound.[6] Air America helicopters started flying to the rooftop LZs in Saigon and either shuttled the evacuees back to the DAO Compound or flew out to the ships of TF76.[6] By 10:30 all of Air America's fixed-wing aircraft had departed Tan Son Nhut, evacuating all non-essential personnel and as many Vietnamese evacuees as they could carry and headed for Thailand.[6] At some point during the morning RVNAF personnel took five ICCS UH-1H Hueys and one Air America Bell 204 from the Air America ramp.[6]
مجمع DAO
At 14:06 two UH-1E Huey helicopters carrying General Carey and Colonel Alfred M. Gray Jr. (commander of Regimental Landing Team 4 (RLT4)) landed at the DAO Compound.[4] During their approach to the compound, Carey and Gray got a firsthand view of the PAVN's firepower as they shelled nearby Tan Son Nhut Airport with ground, rocket, and artillery fire. They quickly established an austere command post in preparation for the arrival of the Marine CH-53s and the ground security force.[7]
9th MAB intelligence photo of the DAO Compound with LZs marked
9th MAB post-operation map of the DAO Compound and Air America Compound with LZs marked
A Marine provides security as helicopters land at the DAO Compound
USMC CH-53s at LZ 38
Vietnamese evacuees board a CH-53 at LZ 39
Aerial reconnaissance photos of the destroyed DAO Headquarters building with Air America Compound in the foreground
السفارة
فوضى في البحر
During the course of the operation an unknown number of RVNAF helicopters flew out of what remained of South Vietnam to the fleet. Around 12:00 five or six RVNAF UH-1Hs and one of the stolen ICCS UH-1Hs, were circling around Blue Ridge. The RVNAF pilots had been instructed after dropping off their passengers to ditch their helicopters and they would then be picked up by one of the ship's tenders. The pilot of the stolen ICCS Huey had been told to ditch off the port quarter of the ship, but seemed reluctant to do so, flying around the ship to the starboard bow he jumped from his helicopter at a height of 40 feet (12 m). His helicopter turned and hit the side of Blue Ridge before hitting the sea. The tail rotor sheared off and embedded itself in the engine of an Air America Bell 205 that was doing a hot refueling on the helipad at the rear of the ship. The Air America pilot shut down his helicopter and left it and moments later a RVNAF UH-1H attempted to land on the helipad, locked rotors with the Air America Bell, almost pushing it overboard.[6] The stolen Air America Bell 204, landed on Kirk, from where US Navy pilots flew it to Okinawa.[6]
So many RVNAF helicopters landed on the TF76 ships that some 45 UH-1 Hueys and at least one CH-47 Chinook were pushed overboard to make room for more helicopters to land.[4] Other helicopters dropped off their passengers and were then ditched into the sea by their pilots, close to the ships, their pilots bailing out at the last moment to be picked up by rescue boats.[8]
Sea Stallions returning from the DAO Compound approach USS Midway
Evacuees offloaded onto USS Midway
RVNAF Hueys and a CH-47 Chinook arrive at USS Midway
RVNAF Huey full with evacuees on the deck of USS Midway
RVNAF Huey is pushed overboard from USS Midway.
RVNAF pilot jumps from his Huey after dropping evacuees on USS Midway
One of the more notable events occurred on Midway when the pilot of an RVNAF Cessna O-1 dropped a note on the deck of the carrier. The note read "Can you move these helicopter to the other side, I can land on your runway, I can fly 1 hour more, we have enough time to move. Please rescue me. Major Buang, Wife and 5 child." Midway's commanding officer, Captain L.C. Chambers ordered the flight deck crew to clear the landing area; in the process an estimated US$10 million worth of UH-1 Huey helicopters were pushed overboard into the South China Sea. Once the deck was clear Major Buang approached the deck, bounced once and then touched down and taxied to a halt with room to spare.[9] Major Buang became the first RVNAF fixed-wing pilot to ever land on a carrier. A second Cessna O-1 was also recovered by USS Midway that afternoon.[4]
Major Buang on final approach
Major Buang taxies to a halt
Midway deck crew surround Major Buang and his family
At the same time as the aerial evacuation, tens of thousands of South Vietnamese fled towards TF-76 aboard junks, sampans, and small craft. MSC tugs pulled barges filled with people from Saigon Port out to TF-76. A flotilla of 26 Republic of Vietnam Navy and other vessels concentrated off Long Sơn Island southwest of Vũng Tàu with 30,000 sailors, their families, and other civilians on board. On the afternoon of 30 April, TF-76 moved away from the coast, picking up more refugees as they went. On 2 May, Task Force 76, carrying the Operation Frequent Wind evacuees and 44,000 seaborne evacuees and the RVN Navy group set sail for reception centers in the Philippines and Guam.[5]
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نتائج الإخلاء
في الثقافة الشعبية
On the afternoon of 29 April 1975, Hubert van Es, a Saigon-based photographer for United Press International, took the iconic photo of Operation Frequent Wind of an Air America UH-1 on a rooftop picking up Vietnamese evacuees.[10][11] The building in the photo was the Pittman Apartment building at 22 Gia Long Street (now 22 Lý Tự Trọng Street), which was used as a residence by various embassy, CIA, and USAID employees. It has often been misidentified as the US Embassy.[12] Hubert van Es' photo is frequently used in political cartoons commenting on US foreign policy.[13]
انظر أيضاً
الهامش
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Marine Corps.
- ^ Summers, Harry G. (1995). Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War. Houghton Mifflin. p. 202. ISBN 9780395722237.
- ^ أ ب Thompson, Larry (2009). Refugee Workers in the Indochinese Exodus: 1975–1982. MacFarland & Co. ISBN 9780786445295.
- ^ أ ب Drury, Bob; Clavin, Tom (3 May 2011). Last Men Out: The True Story of America's Heroic Final Hours in Vietnam. Simon and Schuster. p. 258. ISBN 978-1-4516-1025-3.
- ^ أ ب ت ث ج ح خ خطأ استشهاد: وسم
<ref>غير صحيح؛ لا نص تم توفيره للمراجع المسماةTobin - ^ أ ب "Chapter 5: The Final Curtain, 1973 – 1975". history.navy.mil. 2000. Retrieved 24 July 2007. هذا المقال يضم نصاً من هذا المصدر، الذي هو مشاع.
- ^ أ ب ت ث ج ح Leeker, Dr Joe F (2009). "Air America in South Vietnam III: The Collapse" (PDF). University of Texas at Dallas. p. 19. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 November 2010.
- ^ خطأ استشهاد: وسم
<ref>غير صحيح؛ لا نص تم توفيره للمراجع المسماةDunham - ^ Bowman, John S. (1985). The Vietnam War: An Almanac. Pharos Books. p. 434. ISBN 0-911818-85-5.
- ^
Warren, JO2 Kevin F (July 1975). Naval Aviation News: Set Down to Sanctuary. Chief of Naval Operations and Naval Air Systems Command. pp. 32–33.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "Corbis Image archives: Helicopter evacuating crowd from rooftop". Corbisimages.com. 29 April 1975. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
- ^ Hubert van Es (29 April 2005). "Thirty Years at 300 Millimeters". The New York Times.
- ^ Butterfield, Fox; Haskell, Kari (23 April 2000). "Getting it wrong in a photo". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
- ^ "Fall of Saigon in Cartoons". Cagle Cartoons. 30 April 2012.
للاستزادة
- Engelmann, Larry. Tears before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam. Oxford University Press, USA, 1990. ISBN 978-0-19-505386-9
- Rhodes, J. E. (1979). The evacuation of Saigon: "Operation Frequent Wind". Marine Corps Command and Staff College. OCLC 14276659.
- Todd, Olivier. Cruel April: The Fall of Saigon. W.W. Norton & Company, 1990. ISBN 978-0-393-02787-7
وصلات خارجية
مجموعات أرشيف
- Guide to the Khanh Van Thi Nguyen Narrative on Operation Frequent Wind. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
غيرهم
- Last Days in Vietnam on Youtube
- BBC News footage of the Fall of Saigon
- ITN News footage of the Fall of Saigon at YouTube.
- Saigon Facilities Map 1969
- Scenes from Operation Frequent Wind at YouTube.
- 21st SOS Frequent Wind and Mayaguez Incident gallery
- Video clip: Footage of evacuation operations underway aboard USS Midway, including historic Cessna O-1 landing by VNAF pilot Major Buang