45 years ago today: the beginning of the end in Vietnam

April 29, 1975

"Shortly before 11:00 AM, the American Radio Service network begins to broadcast the prerecorded message that the temperature in Saigon is “105 degrees and rising” followed by a 30-second excerpt from the song “White Christmas.” This signals the start of Operation Frequent Wind, the emergency evacuation of Saigon. American personnel begin converging on more than a dozen assembly points throughout the city. Over the next 24 hours, some 7,000 Americans and South Vietnamese are flown to safety. The following morning, North Vietnamese troops enter downtown Saigon and the South Vietnamese government surrenders unconditionally."

"(Beginning in 1971, AFVN began to close some stations in Vietnam. The last station to close was the key station in Saigon in 1973. Broadcasting continued under civilian leadership on FM only and using the name American Radio Service (ARS).^[30] The civilian engineers were provided by Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE). ARS stayed on the air until the Fall of Saigon in April 1975. It was to play Bing Crosby's version of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" as a signal for Americans that the final evacuation of Saigon had begun. The Crosby version of the record could not be found so Tennessee Ernie Ford's record was played."


ALSO Vietnam related:  (two months after I was born).

July 26, 1950 - United States military involvement in Vietnam begins as President Harry Truman authorizes $15 million in military aid to the French.
 
American military advisors will accompany the flow of U.S. tanks, planes, artillery and other supplies to Vietnam. Over the next four years, the U.S. will spend $3 Billion on the French war and by 1954 will provide 80 percent of all war supplies used by the French.

I arrive in Vietnam in December of 1970 for a one year tour.

     My first assignment is as a writer/photographer for a Brigade newspaper in Quang Tri...a city about as far North as you can go in South Vietnam without crossing the DMZ into North Vietnam.

     Halfway through my tour I hear there is an opening at the local Armed Forced Vietnam Network station...I ask for a transfer and it is granted. Next thing you know I am anchoring a 10:00 PM TV News 10 miles or so south of North Vietnam.

SP4 Tim Lennox anchoring in 1970/71

I look like I am 15, and probably am not a lot more mature than that, all things considered. The station is designated AFVN Detachment # 5, which had been located in Hue, until The 1969 Tet offensive resulted in the station being taken over.


It was then moved to Qung Tri, where I would join the staff as an anchor for the rest of my tour.
The white trailer in the photo below contained the guts of the station, including a tiny camera position from which a broadcast could be carried out. Thankfully the green tin-roof building next to it was built as an actual studio from which the news was aired. 

I was gone from 'Nam early in 1971...and a few years later, the war ended. 

• May 1, 1972 - South Vietnamese forces abandon Quang Tri City to the NVA

• The AFVN stations continued to broadcast till the end of the war. HERE is one such broadcast from the Saigon Station. Sp4 Robert Morecock is the anchor...these days he runs a website for veterans of the Network.

• April 30, 1975 - At 8:35 a.m., the last Americans, ten Marines from the embassy, depart Saigon, concluding the United States presence in Vietnam. North Vietnamese troops pour into Saigon and encounter little resistance. By 11 a.m., the red and blue Viet Cong flag flies from the presidential palace. President Minh broadcasts a message of unconditional surrender. The war is over.