Department of History

April 1975. During the chaotic final days of the Vietnam War, as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon, the South Vietnamese resistance crumbled. The united States had only a skeleton crew of diplomats and military operatives still in the country. With the lives of thousands of South Vietnamese hanging in the balance, those in control faced an impossible choice-who would go and who would be left behind to face brutality, imprisonment or even death. At the risk of their careers and possible courts-martial, a handful of individuals took matters in their own hands. Engaging in unsanctioned and often makeshift operations, they waged a desperate effort to evacuate as many South Vietnamese as possible.