These National Security Agency intercepts captured communications from rescue helicopters as they wove in and out of artillery fire and dodged gas bombs to rescue Vietnamese refugees and American personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam.
The helicopters were part of Operation Frequent Wind, put in motion because Saigon’s airport was under rocket fire. This emergency measure used scores of helicopters to ferry 7,000 evacuees directly from the American Embassy and other rally sites to ships in the China Sea in less than 24 hours. The final trip rescued 11 stranded U.S. Marines who had spent the night on the embassy roof.
After the Paris Peace Agreement to end the Vietnam War was signed in 1973, the Communists had continued to infiltrate South Vietnam. The 1973 Case-Church Amendment prohibited U.S. military activity in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia without congressional approval. The United States continued to supply its ally, South Vietnam, with some military equipment and arms.
North Vietnamese Army forces attacked major cities in the highlands in March 1975. The South Vietnamese Army crumbled. A frenzied, last-minute evacuation of American civilians and South Vietnamese citizens at risk of retaliation by the communists ended just hours before a North Vietnamese Army tank crashed the Imperial Palace gates.
