(AP) Today, April 30th, marks the 35th Anniversary of the fall of Saigon, when communist North Vietnamese forces drove tanks through the former U.S.-backed capital of South Vietnam, smashing through the Presidential Palace gates. The fall of Saigon marked the official end of the Vietnam War and the decadelong U.S. campaign against communism in Southeast Asia. The conflict claimed some 58,000 American lives and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese.
The war left divisions that would take years to heal as many former South Vietnamese soldiers were sent to Communist re-education camps and hundreds of thousands of their relatives fled the country.
In Vietnam, today is called Liberation Day and the government staged a parade down the former Reunification Boulevard that featured tank replicas and goose-stepping soldiers in white uniforms. Some 50,000 party cadres, army veterans and laborers gathered for the spectacle, many carrying red and gold Vietnamese flags and portraits of Ho Chi Minh, the father of Vietnam’s revolution. In a reminder of how the Communist Party retains a strong grip on the flow of information despite the opening of the economy, foreign journalists were forbidden from conducting interviews along the parade route. The area was sealed off from ordinary citizens, apparently due to security concerns.
The photos below offer a look back at the Vietnam War from the escalation of U.S. involvement in the early 1960′s to the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
A
South Vietnamese soldier holds a cocked pistol as he questions two
suspected Viet Cong guerrillas captured in a weed-filled marsh in the
southern delta region late in August 1962. The prisoners were searched,
bound and questioned before being marched off to join other detainees.
(AP Photo/Horst Faas) #
A
U.S. crewman runs from a crashed CH-21 Shawnee troop helicopter near
the village of Ca Mau in the southern tip of South Vietnam, Dec. 11,
1962. Two helicopters crashed without serious injuries during a
government raid on the Viet Cong-infiltrated area. Both helicopters were
destroyed to keep them out of enemy hands. (AP Photo/Horst Faas) #
3A
Helmeted U.S. Helicopter Crewchief, holding carbine, watches ground
movements of Vietnamese troops from above during a strike against Viet
Cong Guerrillas in the Mekong Delta Area, January 2, 1963. The communist
Viet Cong claimed victory in the continuing struggle in Vietnam after
they shot down five U.S. helicopters. An American officer was killed and
three other American servicemen were injured in the action. (AP Photo) #
Caskets
containing the bodies of seven American helicopter crewmen killed in a
crash on January 11, 1963 were loaded aboard a plane on Monday, Jan. 14
for shipment home. The crewmen were on board a H21 helicopter that
crashed near a hut on an Island in the middle of one of the branches of
the Mekong River, about 55 miles Southwest of Saigon. (AP Photo) #
Flying
at dawn, just over the jungle foliage, U.S. C-123 aircraft spray
concentrated defoliant along power lines running between Saigon and
Dalat in South Vietnam, early in August 1963. The planes were flying
about 130 miles per hour over steep, hilly terrain, much of it believed
infiltrated by the Viet Cong. (AP Photo/Horst Faas) #
A
South Vietnamese Marine, severely wounded in a Viet Cong ambush, is
comforted by a comrade in a sugar cane field at Duc Hoa, about 12 miles
from Saigon, Aug. 5, 1963. A platoon of 30 Vietnamese Marines was
searching for communist guerrillas when a long burst of automatic fire
killed one Marine and wounded four others. (AP Photo/Horst Faas) #
The
sun breaks through the dense jungle foliage around the embattled town
of Binh Gia, 40 miles east of Saigon, in early January 1965, as South
Vietnamese troops, joined by U.S. advisors, rest after a cold, damp and
tense night of waiting in an ambush position for a Viet Cong attack that
didn't come. One hour later, as the possibility of an overnight attack
by the Viet Cong diasappeared, the troops moved out for another long,
hot day hunting the elusive communist guerrillas in the jungles. (AP
Photo/Horst Faas) #
Capt.
Donald R. Brown of Annapolis, Md., advisor to the 2nd Battalion of the
46th Vietnamese regiment, dashes from his helicopter to the cover of a
rice paddy dike during an attack on Viet Cong in an area 15 miles west
of Saigon on April 4, 1965 during the Vietnam War. Brown's counterpart,
Capt. Di, commander of the unit, rushes away in background with his
radioman. The Vietnamese suffered 12 casualties before the field was
taken. (AP Photo/Horst Faas) #
Paratroopers
of the U.S. 2nd Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade hold their automatic
weapons above water as they cross a river in the rain during a search
for Viet Cong positions in the jungle area of Ben Cat, South Vietnam,
Sept. 25,1965. The paratroopers had been searching the area for 12 days
with no enemy contact. (AP Photo/Henri Huet) #
Wounded
U.S. paratroopers are helped by fellow soldiers to a medical evacuation
helicopter on Oct. 5, 1965 during the Vietnam War. Paratroopers of the
173rd Airborne Brigade's First Battalion suffered many casualties in the
clash with Viet Cong guerrillas in the jungle of South Vietnam's "D"
Zone, 25 miles Northeast of Saigon. (AP Photo) #
Chaplain
John McNamara of Boston makes the sign of the cross as he administers
the last rites to photographer Dickey Chapelle in South Vietnam Nov. 4,
1965. Chapelle was covering a U.S. Marine unit on a combat operation
near Chu Lai for the National Observer when she was seriously wounded,
along with four Marines, by an exploding mine. She died in a helicopter
en route to a hospital. She became the first female war correspondent to
be killed in Vietnam, as well as the first American female reporter to
be killed in action. Her body was repatriated with an honor guard
consisting of six Marines and she was given full Marine burial. (AP
Photo/Henri Huet) #
A
U.S. paratrooper moves away after setting fire to house on bank of the
Vaico Oriental River, 20 miles west of Saigon on Jan. 4, 1966, during a
"scorched earth" operation against the Viet Cong in South Viet Nam. The
1st battalion of the 173rd airborne brigade was moving through the area,
described as notorious Viet Cong territory. (AP Photo/Peter Arnett) #
First
Cavalry Division Medic Thomas Cole, from Richmond, Va., looks up with
his one uncovered eye as he continues to treat a wounded Staff Sgt.
Harrison Pell during a January 1966 firefight in the Central Highlands
between U.S. troops and a combined North Vietnamese and Vietcong force.
(AP Photo/Henri Huet) #
In
a sudden monsoon rain, part of a company of about 130 South Vietnamese
regional soldiers moves downriver in sampans during a dawn attack
against a Viet Cong camp in the flooded Mekong Delta, about 13 miles
northeast of Cantho, on Jan. 10, 1966. A handful of guerrillas were
reported killed or wounded. (AP Photo/Henri Huet) #
President
Lyndon Johnson speaks during a televised address from the White House,
Jan. 31, 1966, announcing the resumption of bombing of targets in North
Vietnam. The president, who was photographed from a television screen at
the New York studios of NBC-TV, said he was requesting Amb. Arthur
Goldberg to call for an immediate meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
(AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler) #
A
U.S. Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter comes down in flames after
being hit by enemy ground fire during Operation Hastings, just south of
the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam, July 15, 1966.
The helicopter crashed and exploded on a hill, killing one crewman and
12 Marines. Three crewman escaped with serious burns. (AP Photo/Horst
Faas) #
A
U.S. infantryman from A Company, 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry carries a
crying child from Cam Xe village after dropping a phosphorous grenade
into a bunker cleared of civilians during an operation near the Michelin
rubber plantation northwest of Saigon, August 22, 1966. A platoon of
the 1st Infantry Division raided the village, looking for snipers that
had inflicted casualties on the platoon. GIs rushed about 40 civilians
out of the village before artillery bombardment ensued. (AP Photo/Horst
Faas) #
An
American F-105 warplane is shot down and the pilot ejects and opens his
parachute in this photo taken by North Vietnamese photograper Mai Nam
on September 1966 near Vinh Phuc, north of Hanoi. This photo is one of
the most recognized images taken by a North Vietnamese photographer
during the war. The pilot of the aircraft was taken hostage and held in a
Hanoi prison from 1966 to 1973. (AP Photo/Pioneer Newspaper/Mai Nam) #
Paratroopers
of the 173rd U.S. airborne brigade make their way across the Song Be
River in South Vietnam en route to the jungle on the North Bank and into
operation Sioux City in the D Zone on Oct. 4, 1966. Troopers and
equipment were flown in by helicopter to the central highlands area, but
the choppers couldn't land in the D zone jungles. The operation began
late in the week of September 25. (AP Photo) #
A
wounded U.S. soldier of the 1st Infantry Division, 26th Infantry
Regiment, 1st Battalion, receives first aid after being rescued from a
jungle battlefield south of the Cambodian border in Vietnam's war zone
C, April 2, 1967. A reconnaissance platoon ran into enemy bunkers, and
their recuers were pinned down for four hours in fighting that left 7
U.S. dead and 42 wounded. (AP Photo) #
A
U.S. Marine sergeant points directions to a group of newly arrived
replacement soldiers atop embattled Hill 881, below the demilitarized
zone near the Laotian border, South Vietnam, in May 1967. The men were
flown in by helicopter to enforce U.S. Marine lines badly weakened by
casualties after several days of fighting for the strategic hills. (AP
Photo) #
U.S.
Marines of the 3rd Battallion, 4th Marines, crouch in the cover of a
pagoda entrance as their patrol moves through a village along the Ben
Hai river in the southern sector of the DMZ in South Vietnam, on May 22,
1967. The pagoda walls are richly decorated with images of dragons and
snakes. (AP Photo/Kim Ki Sam) #
Medic
James E. Callahan of Pittsfield, Mass., gives mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation to a dying soldier in war zone D, about 50 miles northeast
of Saigon, June 17, 1967. Thirty-one men of the 1st Infantry Division
were reported killed in the guerrilla ambush, with more than 100
wounded. (AP Photo/Henri Huet) #
Secretary
of Defense Robert S. McNamara (second from left), and Gen Earle
Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, huddle in one corner
while Ellsworth Bunker, U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam (second from
right), and Gen. William C. Westmoreland, right, commander of U.S.
Forces in Vietnam, go over a report at the beginning of briefings for
the secretary at U.S. Army Headquarters on Tan Son Nhut Air Base,
Friday, July 6, 1967 in Saigon. (AP Photo/Cung) #
Vietnamese
Navy boats laden with Vietnamese Army infantrymen swing along the Bien
Tre river to launch a search mission some 50 miles south of Saigon in
the Meking Delta's Kien Hoa province, July 11, 1967. Viet cong
guerrillas fired on the flotlla from the brushy shoreline, but no major
contact was made. (AP Photo) #
Part
of a crowd of pro-Vietnam War demonstrators hold up signs and American
flags in support of U.S. policy in Vietnam in Wakefield, Mass., on Oct.
29, 1967. The demonstration was organized by 19-year-old Paul P.
Christopher, a Wakefield high school senior who became "burned up" by
anti-Vietnam War demonstrators. (AP Photo/J. Walter Green) #
Local
members of the "Hell's Angels" motorcycle club form a human pyramid to
wave flag and lead cheers at rally supporting American men fighting in
Vietnam. A crowd estimated by police at near 25,000 turned out for the
rally held this on October 29, 1967 on Wakefield, Massachusetts, common.
(AP Photo/J Walter Green) #
U.S.
troops move toward the crest of Hill 875 at Dak To in November, 1967
after 21 days of fighting, during which at least 285 Americans were
believed killed. The hill in the central highlands, of little apparent
strategic value to the North Vietnamese, was nevertheless the focus of
intense fighting and heavy losses to both sides. (AP Photo) #
More
than 12,000 U.S. Marines crowd into an outdoor amphitheater to watch
comedian Bob Hope and Phil Crosby open Hope's USO Christmas Show tour at
Da Nang, Vietnam, with Raquel Welch and singer Barbara McNair, left,
Dec. 19, 1967. Crosby, wearing a wig, carries a "Make Love Not War"
sign. (AP Photo) #
Two
U.S. military policemen aid a wounded fellow MP during fighting in the
U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon, Jan. 31, 1968, at the beginning of the
Tet Offensive. A Viet Cong suicide squad seized control of part of the
compound and held it for about six hours before they were killed or
captured. (AP Photo/Hong Seong-Chan) #
A
large section of rubble is all that remained in this one block square
area of Saigon on Feb. 5, 1968, after fierce Tet Offensive fighting.
Rockets and grenades, combined with fires, laid waste to the area. An
Quang Pagoda, location of Viet Cong headquarters during the fighting, is
at the top of the photo. (AP Photo/Johner) #
A
U.S. Marine shows a message written on the back of his flack vest at
the Khe Sanh combat base in Vietnam on Feb. 21, 1968 during the Vietnam
War. The quote reads, "Caution: Being a Marine in Khe Sanh may be
hazardous to your health." Khe Sanh had been subject to increased
rocket and artillery attacks from the North Vietnamese troops in the
area. (AP Photo/Rick Merron) #
U.S.
Air Force bombs create a curtain of flying shrapnel and debris barely
200 feet beyond the perimeter of South Vietnamese ranger positions
defending Khe Sanh during the siege of the U.S. Marine base, March 1968.
The photographer, a South Vietnamese officer, was badly injured when
bombs fell even closer on a subsequent pass by U.S. planes. (AP
Photo/ARVN, Maj. Nguyen Ngoc Hanh) #
Bodies
lay in the road leading from the village of My Lai, South Vietnam,
following the massacre of civilians on March 16,1968. Within four hours,
504 men, women and children were killed in the My Lai hamlets in one of
the U.S. military's blackest days. (AP photo/FILE/Ronald L. Haeberle,
Life Magazine) #
U.S.
President Lyndon B. Johnson addresses the nation in a radio and
television broadcast from his desk at the White House in Washington,
D.C., on March 31, 1968. In his speech the president talked about plans
to de-escalate the war in North Vietnam and his plans not to run for
re-election. (AP Photo) #
Pfc.
Juan Fordona of Puerto Rico, a First Cavalry Division trooper, shakes
hands with U.S. Marine Cpl. James Hellebuick over barbed wire at the
perimeter of the Marine base at Khe Sanh, South Vietnam, early April
1968. The meeting marked the first overland link-up between troops of
the 1st Cavalry and the encircled Marine garrison at Khe Sanh. (AP
Photo/Holloway) #
A
supply helicopter comes in for a landing on a hilltop forming part of
Fire Support Base 29, west of Dak To in South Vietnam's central
highlands on June 3, 1968. Around the fire base are burnt out trees
caused by heavy air strikes from fighting between North Vietnamese and
American troops. (AP Photo) #
At
a hilltop firebase west of Chu Lai in Vietnam, a huge army "Chinook"
helicopter prepares to lift a conked-out smaller one to a base for
repairs, April 27, 1969. The firebase was named LZ West and was manned
by the troopers of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade forming part of the
American Division. The smaller helicopter - a Huey UH-ID - had developed
engine trouble so its crew chief called in the local aerial towing
service. One sturdy nylon strap to the chopper's winch and the two were
off. (AP Photo/Oliver Noonan) #
A
small boy holds his younger brother and looks at the remains of what
was once his village, Tha Son, South Vietnam, 45 miles Northwest of
Saigon, Vietnam on June 15, 1969. He and his family fled the village
when Viet Cong troops infiltrated. Counter-attacking allied troops used
artillery and bombs to push the Viet Cong out. The allies had told the
people to leave their homes before the barrage began. (AP Photo/Oliver
Noonan) #
Supporters
of the Vietnam moratorium lie in the Sheep Meadow of New York's Central
Park Nov. 14, 1969 as hundreds of black and white balloons float
skyward. A spokesman for the moratorium committee said the black
balloons represented Americans who died in Vietnam under the Nixon
administration, and the white balloons symbolized the number of
Americans who would die if the war continued. (AP Photo/J. Spencer
Jones) #
Vietnamese
soldiers of the 21st Recon Company rush to board waiting Huey choppers
in the rice paddies near their forward command post in South Vietnam on
Nov. 14, 1969. The men are to be transported into the interior of the
U-Minh forest, the large marshy and swamp and forest area at the
southern tip of Vietnam, long considered to be a VC strong-hold. For the
previous month, an all Vietnamese operation called "Operation u-minh"
had been attempting to drive the VC and NVA regulars from the area. It
was the second such operation within the year. (AP Photo/Godfrey) #
Photographer
Larry Burrows, far left, struggles through elephant grass and the
rotorwash of an American evacuation helicopter as he helps GIs to carry a
wounded buddy on a stretcher from the jungle to the helicopter in
Mimot, Cambodia, May 4, 1970. The evacuation was during the U.S.
incursion into Cambodia during the Vietnam War. (AP Photo/Henri Huet) #
American
flag-bearing construction workers, angered by Mayor John Lindsay's
apparent anti-war sympathies, lead hundreds of New York City workers
supporting U.S. war policy in Vietnam in a demonstration inside a
barricaded area near Wall Street in lower Manhattan, May 12, 1970. More
than 1,000 police were on the scene to prevent possible clashes with
anti-war student demonstrators, who were among office workers along the
barricades. (AP Photo) #
With
a helmet declaring "Peace," a soldier of the 1st Cavarly Division, 12th
Cavalry, 2nd Battalion, relaxes June 24, 1970, before pulling out of
Fire Support Base Speer, six miles inside the Cambodian border. The
troops were returning to South Vietnam after operations against enemy
sanctuaries in Cambodia. (AP Photo) #
South
Vietnamese forces follow after terrified children, including 9-year-old
Kim Phuc, center, as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an
aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places on June 8,
1972. A South Vietnamese plane accidentally dropped its flaming napalm
on South Vietnamese troops and civilians. The terrified girl had ripped
off her burning clothes while fleeing. The children from left to right
are: Phan Thanh Tam, younger brother of Kim Phuc, who lost an eye, Phan
Thanh Phouc, youngest brother of Kim Phuc, Kim Phuc, and Kim's cousins
Ho Van Bon, and Ho Thi Ting. Behind them are soldiers of the Vietnam
Army 25th Division. (AP Photo/Nick Ut) #
A
line of South Vietnamese troops move along a devastated street in Quang
Tri City as the battle continues for the provincial capital on July 28,
1972. Government forces were the midst of a campaign to retake the
northern South Vietnamese city which was captured by enemy forces two
months earlier. (AP Photo) #
Unaware
of incoming enemy round, a South Vietnamese photographer made this
picture of a South Vietnamese trooper dug in at Hai Van, South of Hue,
Nov. 20, 1972. The camera caught the subsequent explosion before the
soldier had time to react. The incident occurred during one of many
continuing small scale fire fights in South Vietnam, despite talk of a
forthcoming ceasefire. (AP Photo) #
President
Nixon confers with Henry A. Kissinger in New York on Nov. 25, 1972,
after the presidential adviser returned from a week of secret
negotiations in Paris with North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho. Documents
released Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008, from the Nixon years shed new light on
just how much the Nixon White House struggled with growing public unrest
over the protracted war in Vietnam. (AP Photo) #
The
four delegations sit at the table during the first signing ceremony of
the agreement to end the Vietnam War at the Hotel Majestic in Paris,
Jan. 27, 1973. Clockwise, from foreground, delegations of the Unites
States, the Provisonal Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, North
Vietnam and South Vietnam. (AP Photo) #
Released
prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family at
Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., as he returns home from the
Vietnam War, March 17, 1973. In the lead is Stirm's daughter Lorrie, 15,
followed by son Robert, 14; daughter Cynthia, 11; wife Loretta and son
Roger, 12. (AP Photo/Sal Veder) #
An
iron door opens on a compound of the "Hanoi Hilton" prison, where the
French once locked up political prisoners, shown March 18, 1973. When
33 Americans were freed from it days earlier, all the cells were empty
for the first time in more than eight years. Journalists were allowed to
visit the prison, located in downtown Hanoi days after it was emptied.
(AP Photo/Horst Fass) #
A
South Vietnamese soldier rests his eyes at a lonely outpost northeast
of Kontum, 270 miles north of Saigon, March 25, 1974. The hill overlooks
a vital North Vietnamese supply road and is located rear the scene of
some of the bloodiest fighting in South Vietnam since the cease fire.
The soldiers on the hill say the enemy is "all around them." (AP
Photo/Nick Ut) #
Mrs.
Evelyn Grubb, of Colonial Heights, Va., left, follows her husband
Wilmers coffin at Arlington National Cemetery, Thursday, April 4, 1974,
Washington, D.C. Col. Grubb's name was released by the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam as one of the prisoners of war who died in
captivity. Mrs. Grubb holds the hands of two of her sons, Roy, 7, right,
and Stephen, 10. The rest of the group is unidentified. (AP Photo/Henry
Burroughs) #
A
woman villager holding a small rock yells at a South Vietnamese
military policeman on Feb. 10, 1975 during a confrontation near Hoa Hao
in the Western Mekong Delta in Vietnam. Villagers had erected barricades
along the highway to protest a government order disbanding the private
army of a Buddhist sect in the area. (AP Photo) #
Hundreds
of vehicles of all sorts fill an empty area as the refugees fleeing in
the vehicles pause near Tuy Hoa in the central coastal region of South
Vietnam, Saturday, March 23, 1975 following the evacuation of
Banmethuout and other population centers in the highlands to the west.
(AP Photo/Ut) #
A
South Vietnamese father carries his son and a bag of household
possessions as he leaves his village near Trang Bom on Route 1 northwest
of Saigon April 23, 1975. The area was becoming politically and
militarily unstable as communist forces advanced, just days before the
fall of Saigon. (AP Photo/KY Mhan) #
U.S.
Navy personnel aboard the USS Blue Ridge push a helicopter into the sea
off the coast of Vietnam in order to make room for more evacuation
flights from Saigon, Tuesday, April 29, 1975. The helicopter had
carried Vietnamese fleeing Saigon as North Vietnamese forces closed in
on the capital. (AP Photo/jt) #
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