 A program
guide for members of
Prairie Public Broadcasting AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
A P R I L • 2015
LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM
Tune in April 28 at 8 pm CT
D
uring the chaotic final days of the Vietnam War, as the Nor th Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon, the South Vietnamese resist ance crumbled. The United States had only a skeleton crew of diplomats and military operatives still in t he country. With a communist victory inevitable and the U.S. readying to withdraw, many Americans on the ground worried their South Vietnamese allies and friends faced imprisonment or death at the hands of the approaching Nor th Vietnamese. With the clock ticking and the city under fire, a number of heroic Americans took matters into their own hands, engaging in unsanctioned and often makeshift operations in a desperate effort to save as many South Vietnamese as possible.
April 29, 1975. Desperate South Vietnamese clamber aboard barges in the port of Saigon in an attempt to escape advancing North Vietnamese troops on the day of the Fall of Saigon, ending the Vietnam War.
Aboard the U.S.S. Kirk, crew members signal the Chinook to hover over their deck and drop its passengers.
Sailors push a helicopter off a landing platform of the U.S.S. Kirk to clear room for more helicopters dropping off refugees.