by Todd DePastino

In 1973, after the ceasefire of January 27 and the departure of the last remaining US combat troops on March 29, North Vietnam decided to play the long game.

The country had been torn apart and its forces routed in the disastrous Easter Offensive of the previous year. They believed ultimate victory was within reach – but only if they tread carefully.

Communist units in the South were ordered to avoid large-scale battles and conserve strength. With American bombers grounded, the Ho Chi Minh Trail could be improved, even paved with gravel. Supplies flowed South in large numbers. Still, Hanoi’s generals closely monitored Washington’s intentions. They worried that if they pushed too hard too soon, American air and naval power might return with a vengeance.

This cautious approach led to intense debates in Hanoi’s halls of power. Some hardliners urged launching a new offensive as early as 1974, arguing that South Vietnam was weakening by the day. Others, including Ho Chi Minh’s protege, Premier Pham Van Dong, counseled restraint – the North needed to rebuild and avoid provoking the Americans​.

In the end, they adopted a plan of gradual pressure: limited attacks to test South Vietnamese defenses and, critically, to see if the United States would react.

Through 1974, Communist forces probed ARVN with local assaults. In one clash after another – in the Central Highlands, along the Cambodian border – they noted something remarkable. No US bombers came roaring to the rescue.

By the end of the year, it was clear that Washington was done with Vietnam. War fatigue had weakened the American will for re-engagement. And the Watergate scandal had removed the one man who’d promised South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu that the US would re-start the war if Saigon was threatened.

“You have my assurance . . . that we will respond with full force should the settlement be violated by North Vietnam,” Nixon had written Thieu in 1973.

Now, Nixon was gone, and South Vietnam was on its own.

Meanwhile, South Vietnam was suffering withdrawal symptoms after a lifetime of dependence on US dollars. Administrations stretching back to Eisenhower had pumped billions into Vietnam every year. Then, in 1965, even more money came by way of American GIs’ pockets.

South Vietnam was, in many ways, an artificial country reliant on the US for its survival and economic viability. With troops gone and aid reduced to $1 billion in 1974, Saigon’s lifeline was suddenly cut.

The oil shock of 1973 had sent fuel costs soaring worldwide, and South Vietnam’s fragile economy was hit especially hard​. Prices for rice, cooking oil, and transportation skyrocketed. The South Vietnamese currency plummeted in value, wiping out savings overnight and giving rise to a pervasive black market of bartering. Factories that once churned with US orders fell silent, and homeless people massed in shanty towns along the Saigon River.

For ordinary South Vietnamese, daily life became a struggle. President Nguyen Van Thieu was ill-equipped to respond. By late 1974, the Saigon government was essentially bankrupt, its budget in chaos.

Even ARVN – technically one of the largest armies in the world thanks to American provision – was breaking down. Units lacked fuel, spare parts, and ammunition. Paychecks for soldiers were delayed or shrank in value so badly that a month’s salary might not buy a sack of rice​

Morale plummeted. Seasoned troops watched their worried families slide into poverty. Desertion rates climbed sharply as soldiers slipped away to take care of their loved ones or simply lost faith in the cause​. Corruption, endemic in ARVN, continued as always. “Ghost soldiers” who had died remained on rosters so their officers could collect their paychecks. “Flower soldiers” who failed to report were also counted as present for the same reason.

Through 1974, the South Vietnamese had learned that peace could be worse than war.

Hanoi sensed opportunity. In late 1974, the North Vietnamese Politburo concluded that the long war first launched in 1945 to unify Vietnam under its rule had finally entered its “last stage.”

Initially, they thought 1975 would be a year of limited gains and positioning, with a decisive “general offensive” in 1976.

But events on the battlefield accelerated their timetable. General command believed the Saigon regime was on the verge of collapse.

The test came in late 1974 against lightly defended Phuoc Long province, northeast of Saigon. Communist forces overran Phuoc Long’s town and outposts. ARVN troops pulled back, and the United States did nothing. Not even a single airstrike.

Hanoi took note. The time, they decided, was right. The final offensive would be begin with the dry season of March 1975.​

The Communist plan targeted the Central Highlands to split ARVN forces in the north from Saigon. The NVA used an elaborate ruse to convince ARVN that the attack would focus on Pleiku. Instead, the city chosen was Ban Me Thuot to the south.

Tens of thousands of seasoned troops, supported by tanks and heavy artillery that had been ferried down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, moved into position. Monitors scanned for a possible US carrier off the coast or a wave of B-52s. But as their final offensive gathered, all was quiet from Washington.

The assault that began on March 10, 1975 was swift and brutal. Within two days of fierce fighting through the streets and around the airfield, the NVA raised its flag in Ban Me Thuot’s city center.

ARVN forces defending neighboring Pleiku and Kontum in the highlands were now trapped, cut off from resupply.

In Saigon, President Thieu convened an emergency meeting with his top commanders. Communications had broken down and panic was spreading. The roads were so clogged with fleeing civilians and soldiers, ARVN reinforcements couldn’t even reach Ban Me Thuot to counterattack. The only hope, Thieu decided, was to salvage a rump state of South Vietnam around Saigon. Thieu ordered a strategic withdrawal of ARVN from I Corps and II Corps to stage a final defense around the capital.

Thieu’s cold-blooded calculation made sense. But there was no plan for an orderly retreat. Instead, the ARVN simply abandoned its positions and bolted helter-skelter for Saigon. Retreat became a rout.

What followed was a humanitarian disaster. ARVN soldiers, along with their wives, children, elderly parents, and other civilians, jammed the highway out of Pleiku. Enemy artillery shells exploded around their jeeps, bicycles, and oxcarts. The fallen were shoved aside into ditches to clear the way for others. People stumbled past the bodies of loved ones, too pressed by fear to stop.

After a few days, people started collapsing from thirst. ARVN deserters looted from their fellow refugees. NVA ambushes split the column in pieces. Out of perhaps 200,000 who started the trek, only a fraction made it out of the highlands alive and uncaptured​.

The contagion of panic spread north to I Corps. A stampede of soldiers and civilians fled Hue for Danang. The NVA raised its flag over the citadel there on March 25.

Next came Danang, the country’s second largest city and home to a huge concentration of troops and refugees. Swollen beyond capacity, the city descended into anarchy.

On the beaches and at the airbase, scenes of desperation unfolded. Civilians and soldiers mobbed any available plane or boat, hoping to escape to Saigon or coastal enclaves still held by the government. Riots erupted at the port as US Navy and South Vietnamese ships attempted to take on evacuees. Some overcrowded barges flipped or were swept out to sea. Others who couldn’t get aboard simply waded into the water, clinging to makeshift rafts.

North Vietnamese forces carefully approached Danang’s outskirts before seeing that resistance had collapsed. When they finally moved in for the kill, there was hardly a battle at all – Danang had defeated itself. The NVA flag went up there on March 30.

President Thieu presided over a nation in free fall. In the span of three weeks, South Vietnam had lost almost two-thirds of its territory. Half of the ARVN’s combat units were wiped out in battle or lost during the chaotic retreats. Worse still, the sudden withdrawals shattered confidence, dealing a psychological blow from which South Vietnam would not recover.

Sensing final victory, Hanoi sent even more divisions racing south to join the offensive. The push for Saigon was on.

Isolated and desperate, President Thieu appealed to Washington. He reminded American leaders of President Nixon’s private promises – guarantees that the US would retaliate if the North violated the peace. Sympathetic but hamstrung by Congress, President Gerald Ford could do nothing except offer prayers and modest aid. The President covered himself with a request to Congress for emergency funds he knew would be rejected. Americans didn’t want to restart the Vietnam War.

Facing mounting pressure, Thieu bowed to the inevitable. On April 21, after giving a bitter speech lambasting the United States for betrayal, Thieu transferred power to his Vice President and fled with 15 tons of luggage to Taiwan.

In a last-ditch effort to reach a ceasefire, South Vietnam’s National Assembly transferred the Presidency to General Duong Van “Big” Minh, who had Communist contacts. The North Vietnamese divisions were now on Saigon’s doorstep, and nothing short of unconditional surrender was on the table.

Morning light on April 30 revealed NVA tanks closing in on the heart of Saigon. Just after 10 a.m., the lead tank column, bearing the flag of the Viet Cong liberation forces, smashed through the wrought-iron gates of the Presidential Palace. Inside was a handful of remaining South Vietnamese officials, including Big Minh.

“I have been waiting since early this morning to transfer power to you,” Minh told the North Vietnamese officers.

“There is no question of your transferring power,” an NVA colonel replied. “You cannot give up what you do not have.”

Over the radio, President Minh ordered all troops to lay down arms. A strange, heavy silence – the first true peace in decades – fell over the city.

On the streets, citizens cautiously emerged from shelter to witness the historic scene, their faces a mix of relief and anguish.

In front of the palace, jubilant Viet Cong guerrilla fighters who had lived in the shadows now walked openly, unfurling the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s flag– red with a single yellow star – to fly from the balcony.

For those who had sided with the Americans or the Saigon government, it was a day of dread over what the new regime would bring.

At the US Embassy compound, North Vietnamese soldiers found only crowds of bewildered Vietnamese civilians and a building shot up and smoldering.

By afternoon on April 30, 1975, after a 55-day offensive, the Vietnam War had officially come to its dramatic conclusion.