The Vintage Book of War Stories

Tan Son Nhut airport was being rocketed, and although many South Vietnamese pilots went on fighting, going up in gunships to hit the Communist positions, others now fought each other for the possession of planes. They made their escape in these, flying them out to Thailand.

There were thunderstorms that day, I remember: the noise mingling with the sound of shelling. Mike and I moved about the city, getting pictures and film. Restaurants and shops were still open, but thousands of people were streaming out to the airport in cars, lorries and on foot, still hoping that they could somehow get on planes.

The Army of South Vietnam continued to defend the city’s perimeter. It had fought with great bravery in these last stages, but now it was falling into panic. The South had put all its hopes on the military aid promised by the Americans: now the news had come through that there would be no more aid. The last shipment of artillery had been sent, and there were no shells. The Government and the ARVN troops knew now that there was nothing more to hope for.

The end came the next day: on Tuesday the 29th. That morning, the US embassy began its evacuation. Americans in Saigon had been told to listen for a coded message on US Armed Forces Radio as the signal that evacuation had begun; it would come every fifteen minutes, followed by Bing Crosby singing ‘White Christmas’. When this was heard, all the remaining foreign media offices began packing up – in the Eden Building, the Caravelle Hotel and elsewhere. The Telenews staff had gone the week before, taking their equipment to Bangkok, abandoning the office, and leaving me the keys. London was happy for me to cover since I chose to do it, I was told, but Telenews took no responsibility for me.

Despite the rocketing of Tan Son Nhut, Marine helicopters were being sent there from the US fleet off the coast to ferry out all remaining American citizens in Saigon. They were also to take Vietnamese who worked for American agencies. But fixed-wing aircraft could no longer fly because the bombardment had closed down the airport, and this meant that fewer Vietnamese could now be taken out than the Americans had planned. The people in the city knew this, and panic grew. The Americans had told Western correspondents that places would be found for them on the choppers; special buses were picking their people up from prearranged points around the city, and journalists were told to go to these points. Only a very small number of journalists and photographers decided to stay, as Mike and I were doing.

We had made our base in the deserted Telenews office in the Eden Building. The AP office was on the floor above, and at around 11 A.M., after we’d loaded and checked our cameras, we decided to look in there and say goodbye.

Nobody had much time to speak to us. The scene was frantic, like an out-of-control schoolroom. Phones were ringing and not being answered, an American voice was coming over a radio, and all over the room people were emptying desks and files and stuffing things into bags, moving very fast. Most of them were sweating a lot; some were laughing and joking; some looked pale and scared.

One of them glanced up at us from an airways bag he was packing: he was a staff writer with a blond moustache, whose name I’ve forgotten. You guys coming? he said. Better move your asses.

No, we said, we were staying.

And we gave him some film to take out and deliver for us. He did it, too, and Telenews were very happy with what I sent; it was shown in a great number of countries.

You’re lunatics, he said. Crazy as Ed Carter. You’re gonna die.

In the middle of the jerking and hurrying and shouting figures, Ed was sitting at his desk with his feet up, reading a newspaper. Ed was always very calm.

We went over to him, and he looked up over his glasses. I figured somebody should be around to welcome General Giap, he said. You guys gonna keep me company? I’ve got transport.

And he held up a bunch of keys.

The correspondents going out on the choppers had only been allowed to take one bag each; they had to leave everything else. One AP staff writer had been forced to leave a beautiful Ford Mustang, and he’d given the keys to Ed, with instructions that Ed was eventually to sell the car and send the money, if the Communists spared his life. So we went out to the man’s house and picked up his Mustang, and drove in it around the city.

The crowds in the streets were huge, surging everywhere. Everyone carried bags or children. Many were running in a sort of hysteria: but I don’t think they knew any longer where they were running to. I saw one little grey-haired man in a white canvas hat, a small suitcase in one hand, who was actually running in circles, in the middle of Nguyen Hue: I think he’d lost his wits. The White Mice had now disappeared, and we realized there was no law and order any more: no one was in charge of the city. There was supposed to be a curfew, but that meant nothing now. It was like a crazy carnival: but not a carnival of happiness.

The American buses for Tan Son Nhut were moving about the city to their special pickup points, collecting their passengers; and the people in the streets were following these buses in tens of thousands, begging and screaming to be let on. They saw the buses as their last hope, and they were right. The drivers were fighting them off when they opened the doors, not always successfully. Most of the windows were protected with heavy-duty mesh, but some people got in through sliding windows at the back; others pushed their babies in. Cars stood abandoned, keys still hanging in the dashboards: if you wanted a car, you just had to steal one. In many side streets, we saw ARVN uniforms lying in the gutter; the soldiers were changing into civilian clothes, and melting into the crowd. Looting had begun: people were breaking into rich villas, and the streets were getting dangerous. Many now hated the Americans for deserting them, and as we went by, and they saw the white faces of Mike and Ed Carter, they shouted: Go home, Yankees. The Saigon Cowboys were out on their Honda motor scooters, looking for what they could steal. We also saw people who did nothing; who stood crying on the pavements like lost children.

Taking the Mustang, Mike and Ed and I went around to the American embassy that evening. Mike and I shot film of the Marine Corps Sikorsky and Sea Knight helicopters landing inside the compound and on the roof, taking out the embassy staff while Marines stood guard on top of the walls. The Jolly Green Giants and the smaller Sea Knights had been coming and going since late afternoon, and it was now around seven-thirty. They would keep on coming at intervals until dawn. We got hold of an American newspaper journalist by the gates who was going out on one of the choppers, and gave him our film to deliver. You’ll have seen the pictures – including the shots Mike took that were published in his American newsweekly, and which now appear in books on the war.

Thousands of people were hammering at the closed gates and on the walls with their fists, demanding, pleading, weeping, many of them holding up documents. A lot of the time it was raining, and very dark: the city’s power supply had cut out at seven o’clock. The whirring and beating of twin rotors filled the blackness, and the choppers hovered and tilted, the glaring white lights in their noses guiding them down. Young Vietnamese climbed the walls and made it to the top, but the big Marine guards kicked and fought them off. Other Marines lobbed tear gas canisters into the crowd. What are you doing? I thought. You came here long ago to help them against their enemies; how can you do this to them now? And I felt ashamed to be filming.

There were some ARVN soldiers there, full of anger against the Americans for deserting them, and shouting up at the Marines. Du-ma, they called – meaning ‘mummyfucker’. Yet some of the people around the walls were actually in a cheerful mood, knowing that we who were staying behind faced a new situation together, and that there was nothing more to be done. There’s a sort of excitement in such disaster: a comradeship which most of us don’t admit. And these people had now faced the fact that what they most wanted they were never going to have: they would never be lifted out by one of those giant green choppers that were the only things that could save them. All they could do now was to watch the white lights that kept on coming down through the dark, like lights from another world.

I won’t forget those scenes; but what I find hardest to forget are certain other rooftops in the city, which we passed later in the evening. The Americans had sent some helicopters to these buildings in midafternoon, to pick up Vietnamese who’d been promised evacuation. Now, although many were still left, the choppers did not reappear. Yet little groups of people stood on those rooftops in the dark, quiet and patient, their luggage beside them. The throbbing of the choppers was gone from the air, except in the direction of the embassy; the evacuation was over. But still these people could not believe that the Americans would not come back. I heard that they were still there at dawn, watching the sky. They were waiting for helicopters that were only in their minds, coming to rescue them from tomorrow.

Mike and Ed Carter and I sat at breakfast in the restaurant of the Continental: orange juice, croissants and coffee. There were only about half a dozen others there: some Italians, two French journalists from Le Monde, and a Japanese photographer. It was a hot morning, calm and pleasant. The power was working again, the big ceiling fans turned, and the Chinese waiters in their starched white jackets stood by the yellow pillars.

The whole city seemed silent, and the streets were half empty. Out on the square, some military trucks went by, and a few refugees still trudged through the streets with their possessions. But there were no ARVN troops; no black market operators; no Saigon Cowboys on Hondas; no White Mice. The blue haze of exhaust fumes was dissolving, and the air was almost clean. After the din and fear of the day before, waking to this silence had been like waking from a fever to find yourself well. Saigon was waiting for the victors to arrive.

Sure is peaceful, Ed said. I can handle plenty of this. The only thing is: who’s in charge?

No one’s in charge, Mike told him. I never thought I’d miss those little White Mice – but not having them around’s a bit creepy.

We laughed, and Ed signalled for more coffee. One of the old Chinese waiters came shuffling forward, carrying the tall silver coffee pot. He had a dignified expression, but I detected a faint frown of worry. I wondered what would become of him after today. He’d probably been at the Continental for forty years: could he even understand what was happening?

We began to discuss where we should position ourselves, to be ready for the NVA’s arrival. No one could know when that would be, or where they’d head for first when they came into the city.

Right here in the middle of town seems best to me, Ed said. We might as well make ourselves comfortable. I don’t want any dealings with the South Vietnamese Army, either: they’re pretty mad at Americans today. Yesterday on the sidewalk an ARVN sergeant spat at me, and told me we were running out on them. I told him I was staying, and then he shook my hand. They’re feeling pretty emotional.

Can you blame them? Mike asked. His face grew set and bitter, and Ed looked at him.

I guess not, he said.

We were quiet for a moment; then Ed said: The NVA are going to want to hoist their flag somewhere significant, when they come into town. Maybe at the Palace. I guess Big Minh’s sitting in his office out there, waiting to surrender. But my bet is they’ll go just around the corner here, to City Hall.

You take City Hall, Mike told Ed. Jim and I will go to the Palace. And twenty dollars says we’re right.

We shook hands on it, and Mike grinned. He still had a little of his old spirit; but he seldom smiled. His mind was always on Ly Keang.

So he and I went to the Presidential Palace, driving the Mustang again, which had survived the night in the Continental without being stolen.

It was now eleven-thirty, and the sun was growing hot. The streets were still very quiet, and out by the Palace it was quieter still. The big wrought-iron gates in front were locked as usual, and we drove down a side street to the service entrance, where journalists had always entered in the past. This gate was open, and there was no sign of the guards who used to be posted there. We walked into the grounds and around to the front of the long white building with its flight of marble steps going up to the entrance.

Here we found an even bigger quiet than the one in the city. The Palace stands in a wide parkland enclosed by iron railways, where spreading tamarinds and other trees stand in open, grassy spaces. These spaces were empty, all the way to the road and the railings a hundred metres or so away, and the quiet here was like sleep. Nothing but bird calls, and the whirring of cicadas. There seemed to be an unusual number of dragonflies in the air, hovering and shimmering, and I wondered what this signified. They must be a sign, I thought. But of what? I guess I’m superstitious; and I was now very keyed up.

The only people we found at the entrance of the Palace were some South Vietnamese troops: members of the palace guard. They were sitting and lying on the grass near the marble steps in a way that was very unmilitary, their automatic rifles stacked beside them, many of them with their helmets off. It looked almost like a picnic.

They no longer consider themselves soldiers, I thought. It’s over for them.

When we went up to them, we spoke to them in Vietnamese. I was concerned they might be hostile to us, like those Ed Carter had encountered, but they smiled back, and were quite friendly. Most of them were young, but there was a sergeant of middle age.

What are you doing? I asked.

Waiting to surrender, the sergeant said. Nothing more to do, now.

I guess that’s right, Mike said, and offered him a cigarette.

We sat down in the grass, and talked with them. Many ARVN troops had thrown away their uniforms today, they told us; but they thought it better to go on guarding the Palace until they were told to do otherwise. They wanted to do their duty. Then they would surrender their weapons.

It was very still, and getting much hotter; soon we spoke only in snatches, lying there in the grass. The whirring of the insects began to sound to me like some mechanical alarm system, warning us of what was to come.

Then I saw the tank.

I could not believe what I was seeing, at first. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it hadn’t been this; I squinted at it through the shimmer of the heat for a number of seconds, before I called out to Mike. It was a green, Soviet-made tank, and it was moving down the road outside the railings. It flew a huge National Liberation Front flag on a pole – blue and red, with a yellow star – and the number on the side of it was 843. A North Vietnamese trooper was looking out from its turret; others, in their sun helmets and familiar green cotton uniforms, were riding on the front. I glimpsed people running behind it; one of them was a British correspondent, and I recognized some French correspondents and photographers. As we watched, flame shot from the barrel of its cannon and there was a report; then it turned towards the closed Palace gates, and Mike and I stood up. The soldiers were standing up too, and raising their hands.

The tank smashed into the gates, and one of them came half off its hinges. Mike ran towards it across the lawn, his Leica at the ready. I had my CP16 Commag, a sound-on-film camera: I hoisted it on to my shoulder and started after him.

The tank stopped, like a big slow animal, and seemed to consider; then it reversed and charged the gates again, and I saw Mike raise his camera. This time the tank smashed straight through the gates and rolled on, lumbering across the lawn. I was still running, the camera slowing me down. I was checking my light meter as I went, my face pouring with sweat, my heart pounding. I knew only one thing: this was film I must get no matter what happened to me.

Mike was still taking pictures when the tank stopped again. Some of the soldiers were pointing at us, and beginning to climb down, and I became aware that Mike and I were alone in this space of grass; none of the palace guard had followed us. But I was shooting film now; everything else was vague: the drilling of the cicadas inside my head, the dragonflies dancing around me. Looking at the soldiers through the lens, I was seeing their faces clearly, and they suddenly seemed very familiar to me. They were very young, mostly just boys, and they reminded me of Captain Danh’s unit; I almost thought I recognized Doc and Weary and Prince among them, but of course I didn’t. And in that instant, I saw a soldier in a sun helmet running towards us and shouting, his AK-47 cocked. He was telling us to put our hands up.

He reached Mike first, and Mike raised his hands, his camera held in the right. I did the same: it took all my strength to suspend that heavy Commag. The soldier was standing close to Mike, the AK levelled, shouting in Vietnamese.

American! he shouted. You are American!

He had a broad brown country face, and his eyes had a fierce, hard shine: the killing shine.

Mike answered in Vietnamese, his hands still high. No, he said. Australian. Welcome to Saigon.

The soldier frowned and looked puzzled; then I saw the shine go out of his eyes. He lowered his gun, and I knew we were going to live.