The last Marines out of Saigon

(The last Marines out of Saigon a personal account of the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy from the commanding officer of the last Marine guards out. Ret. Col. James Kean was one of the last Marines on the roof of the U.S. Embassy during the final chaotic evacuation of Vietnam in 1975.)

INTRODUCTION

On Monday afternoon, April 28, 1975, a South Vietnamese air force captain who had defected led a flight of five captured U.S.-made aircraft in an attack on Saigon. The assault destroyed the facade of calm and safety the city had largely enjoyed during the Vietnam War. Palace guards manning an anti-aircraft battery at the presidential palace fired back, and the town went crazy. James Kean was 33, a major in the Marine Corps and in command of security guards at U.S. embassies and consulates in Asia. Over the next two days, his job would include getting a reluctant ambassador on a helicopter, helping evacuate as many Vietnamese as possible, holding off the tragically unlucky who were left behind and holding his men together when it looked as if they'd been forgotten on the roof of the embassy.

THE FINAL EVACUATION

following the attack on April 28, martial law was declared. Advancing North Vietnamese army gunners began shelling the military complex at Tan Son Nhut Airfield, killing two Marine security guards and destroying the runway. At noon on April 29, Ambassador Graham Martin told Washington, D.C., he needed an emergency helicopter evacuation.

About 150,000 North Vietnamese troops had encircled Saigon, more than double the 60,000 South Vietnamese troops defending the city. About 43,500 people, including 5,000 Americans, had already been evacuated. But tens of thousands of Vietnamese were still clamoring to get out. Ambassador Martin had declared on television days earlier that any Vietnamese who wanted to come to the United States was welcome and that we would help them. It made the CIA furious because Martin had made a promise he couldn't deliver on, and, when the Vietnamese realized that, there would be utter panic. A Chinese businessman tried to hand a baby up to Marines on the embassy wall, along with a bag of uncut gems as payment. The Marines refused both.

By daybreak on April 29, thousands of Vietnamese had massed at the U.S. Embassy to be evacuated. While some Marines held off the throngs, others were sent into the crowds to escort selected people into the embassy compound. A Chinese businessman tried to hand a baby up to Marines on the wall encircling the compound, along with a brown paper bag filled with uncut gems as payment. The Marines refused both.

But many Marines and hundreds of other Americans in the city were trying to help their Vietnamese friends escape. One Marine drove a bread truck full of prostitutes to an airstrip in town and put them on a C-141. He said they were all personal friends, and he signed as responsible for them.

At 11 a.m., a Marine picked up Mrs. Martin and the Martins poodle, Nit Noy, and took them to the embassy. Ambassador Martin asked me if it was appropriate to take down the flag at the residence, and I advised him to wait because of the message it would send to the desperate crowds.

Amid the gathering chaos, I received a call from the U.S. Embassy in Manila saying that my wife, Rosanne, who was in Hong Kong, was pregnant with our fourth child.

MANNING THE WALLS

We would be operating two landing zones at the embassy, one from the parking lot and another from the roof. Because of the bedlam and because of fears that North Vietnamese saboteurs might have infiltrated the crowds, we manned the compound walls, and placed sodium nitrate burn barrels and machine gun teams at key locations inside. If we had to fight, people coming over the walls would have to penetrate a wall of flames and the grazing fire of the machine guns.In the early afternoon, the ambassador ordered up the limousine for a run to his residence to pick up personal affects and to dispose of confidential documents. I cringed, thinking of the crowds and the danger. Several Marines tried to open the gate, but it was no use. The throng outside swallowed one Marine and we had to pull him back over the wall.

I told Ambassador Martin that it was impossible for him to leave in a car. The ambassador stormed back to the embassy, but then decided to walk. Not particularly wise for a chain-smoker with bronchitis and pneumonia, and no sleep. A detail was formed to accompany him, and he slipped out a pedestrian gate by the French Embassy. Martin had the three Marines guarding the residence assist him in destroying communications equipment and personal files. As a sign of his frustration, a thermite grenade was left on the grand piano as well.

Battle Scars

Back at the embassy, the famous tamarind tree that once provided precious shade from the tropical sun was reduced to cord wood to make room for landing the largest of helicopters, and a huge luminous “H” was painted where the tree formerly stood. Other Marines assisted State Department personnel in destroying approximately $4.7 million in brand-new U.S. currency.

The Seventh Fleet was about 50 miles away in the South China Sea, poised to dispatch the helicopters that would transport the lucky out.

FLIGHT BY HELICOPTER

We loaded as many as 85 Vietnamese on many birds. If the helicopter would lift off, the pilot would yell, ‘Put some more on! ' < Between 5 p.m. and just before nightfall, the 53s came in one at a time. A fleet of helicopters would circle in the air and one would touch down, pick up a load and head straight back up. I acted as ground control in the parking lot. We loaded as many as 85 Vietnamese on many birds. If the helicopter would lift off, the pilot would yell, “Put some more on!” We tried to keep families together, and we made them travel light. Aside from a small bag of belongings, we made them leave their luggage behind.

We sent the journalists out on one of the earliest lifts because they were becoming a pain in the ass.

We were under the impression that the flights would stop at dark, but Ambassador Martin persuaded Washington to continue. We parked embassy vehicles in a semi-circle and turned on the headlights to illuminate the night sky.

One of the first birds to come in after dark was an Air Force jolly green giant. It was a 53, not as powerful as the Echo model. Even with a minimum load of 30 people, it couldn 't get off the ground. We emptied it and told the pilot to leave and not come back.

We worked the loading zones in the parking lot and on the roof steadily until 10 p.m., turning the helicopters around in about 10 minutes while trying to maintain order among the frantic evacuees. Our next deadline was 11 p.m., and once again the ambassador requested more time. President Ford set a limit of 20 more lifts, and we kept loading foreign nationals.

I paid particularly close attention now because I knew that when the Defense Attaché Office compound was abandoned, I was the ground force commander in Vietnam and responsible for how things went in the final hours of our time there. People in apartments across the street from the embassy were firing at the helicopters, especially after dark.

On a couple of occasions Marines went over the wall after the gunmen. I never asked what happened, whether anyone had to kill anybody. I just said go take care of the problem because if one helicopter crashes, this baby is over. There were bullet holes in a lot of the helicopters, and the pilots could see the tracers coming at them. My guess is it could have been “cowboys,” as we called them, just street bandits.

GETTING OUT THE AMBASSADOR

At about 3:30 a.m., an inbound CH-46 received the signal, “Tiger, Tiger, Tiger!” indicating that the next bird on the rooftop would pick up the ambassador. I radioed Brig. Gen. Richard Carey on the USS Blue Ridge, the flagship of the Seventh Fleet, and told him that about 400 refugees remained in the embassy compound between the Marines on the walls and the front door of the embassy. He repeated the president 's express order that the remaining lifts were only to pick up U.S. officials and Marines.

I knew that Ambassador Martin had considered staying. But I also understood that it was my job to see to it that he left. Ultimately we were going to have to put him on a helicopter, and I was terrified of the prospect of picking this old man up and carrying him on because it didn 't look like he wanted to leave. But that 's exactly what we would have done. In the end, the ambassador did not put up a fight. Before he got on the helicopter, he was given the embassy colors, which had been lowered without appropriate fanfare after dark.

ESCAPE TO THE ROOF

I went down to the parking lot and passed the word that we were buttoning up. One Marine protested because of the remaining Vietnamese and said he would speak to the ambassador. I pointed to the departing helicopter on the roof. With that, the Marine shrugged and headed with the others for the embassy. People inside the great mahogany doors reached out and pulled us in. Suddenly, the crowd outside realized it was being abandoned and came at us. A big Seabee chief grabbed the huge timber that was used to bar the doors, put it across the small of his back, wrapped his arms around it and started spinning. Suddenly, the crowd outside realized it was being abandoned and came at us. A big Seabee chief grabbed the huge timber that was used to bar the doors, put it across the small of his back, wrapped his arms around it and started spinning. The rushing crowd, afraid of getting hurt, faltered and we bolted the door. But the electrically operated drop screen behind the doors froze halfway down. We sent the elevators to the top floor and locked the controls, then moved up floor by floor, sealing grill gates and dropping tear gas canisters down the stairs.

Soon the horde outside smashed through the embassy doors with a fire truck, and people began racing up the stairs.

There were about 60 Marines left. On the top floor, there was a passageway to the roof, with heavy fireproof doors at each end. We filled that hallway with wall lockers, fire extinguishers and other junk, and Cpl. Stephen Bauer stayed there to hold the frantic people off with gas grenades. When the crowd would try to break through, he would toss one through a broken window in a door and people would back up to avoid the stinging gas.

Through it all, the evacuation flights continued. It looked like Hades on the roof. Flames devouring classified materials leapt from burn barrels that the helicopter pilots used to guide their birds onto the rooftop. Soon there were 11 of us left, the last vestige of the American presence in Vietnam.
What we didn 't know was that when Ambassador Martin departed, Henry Kissinger had announced on national television that the evacuation was over, only to be told later that 11 Marines remained. No more helicopters had been dispatched, and we were to spend several hours ignorant of our situation before anyone in Washington or at sea knew we needed a ride.

WATCHING AND WAITING

All of us were zombies, working feverishly now for more than 70 hours. Some slept; others sat and stared at the pandemonium below. The embassy was being looted. One Marine passed around a jug of Johnny Walker Black Label.
We waited and waited as columns of North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon. We were scared to death, but the older Marines had an obligation to look stoic for the sake of the kids, who asked, “They 're coming aren 't they? And then the sun came up, a huge orange ball shining on the madness enveloping Saigon. Looters were walking down the streets with mattresses on their heads, and drunks were driving around, deliberately crashing cars. Some Vietnamese were still sitting on their luggage in the embassy parking lot, waiting to be called for a flight out of the falling city.

Some of us cried. It was terrible. I was ashamed. I had gone to Vietnam in 1966, and the Marine Corps had given me a home at a time when all I had going for me was a size 44 shirt and a size 2 hat. I probably would have gotten in a hell of a lot trouble if I hadn 't gone to boot camp and got a kick in the ass and been taught how to pay attention and do my job. I was a good corporal and they made me a second lieutenant and sent me to Officer Candidate School, and they promised to send me back to college to get a degree and I decided to stay. And when they told me that I would be getting my paycheck in Da Nang, it all made sense - what the hell was I training for? I didn 't object at all.

When I got to Vietnam, I wrote to my wife that we were in big trouble. I went over there determined that we were going to help the people of South Vietnam determine their own destiny. What I found was that 90 percent of the people lived in the rice paddies and were subject to absentee landlords, and they didn 't want us there any more than they wanted the North Vietnamese, French or anybody else. We were standing in their rice paddies and we were pissing off their water buffalo and we were in trouble.

As I stood on the embassy rooftop, I wondered what bizarre set of circumstances brought us to this situation. I recall so vividly feeling ashamed as I looked down at those Vietnamese, those innocent people sitting on their luggage. And now they were coming to grips in their own minds with the fact that they might die because the North Vietnamese were not going to treat them well, not after they had spent their lives working for the Americans. This was the first time that I was aware of in U.S. history that the nation had cut and run. I didn 't understand it. I never lost a fight the whole time I was in Vietnam. But we lost the war.


THE LAST CHOPPER

I wanted to get the kids who worked for me out of there because I was proud of them and they did the very best they could, and they shouldn 't have to feel ashamed.

On the horizon to the southeast, we spotted a CH-46, the morning light glinting off the bird 's fuselage. It looked like a flying frog and its call sign was SWIFT 22.

Master Sgt. John Valdez grabbed Bauer from the hallway and we all bolted for the tailgate of the helicopter. In a photo finish, Valdez stepped off once everyone was on board and snapped a picture. It was 0758 Hotel Saigon time, one week shy of the 21st anniversary of the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the battle site where the French fell to the Vietnamese 21 years earlier.

AFTERWORD

I retired from the Marine Corps on July 1, 1983, as a lieutenant colonel. I had served 23 years, three months and 16 days, of which four years, eight months and five days were foreign service in which I was separated from my family. I am proud of my Marine Corps career and my service in the Vietnam War. For better or worse, it represented a substantial part of my youth. Not a single day goes by that I don 't remember something about the war years. They come from sights, sounds, or smells, things that I recall.

I was excited on that roof. I was scared, I was tired, I wanted to go home to Mama. I feel terrible about what happened but the thrill of being there, of being a part of it, I guess you have to say that about war. It 's probably the reason we keep getting back into them. There 's always a fresh crop of young people that want to test themselves in the most extreme circumstances, and mothers and leaders have to be careful of that. It 's important to remember Vietnam, Bosnia and so on. When you go into places like that, you don 't get out easy. And there 's too much cost. There 's got to be a better way.