You’ve probably seen pictures of the mob which stormed the American Embassy in Saigon desperate to find a way out in the final hours of the Vietnam War. But maybe you haven’t heard the radio transmissions of the American pilots who pulled off the largest helicopter evacuation in history. I know I hadn’t, until we found some of them in the Marine Corps archives.
> Okay, let’s pick it up here. It looks like things are about to close up and we want to be able to give them the support they need.
> All right – max it out.
That’s the airborne commander directing helicopters into both the embassy and Tan Son Nhut Airport outside Saigon to pick up hundreds of Americans and thousands of Vietnamese. “Alamo” is the call sign for the airport, which was being shelled by advancing North Vietnamese troops.
Hear radio transmissions of the operation:
> Roger, find out for sure how many aircraft Alamo needs at this time. …
> Okay, they’re on their way. Their feet wet at this time and we’ll have them there as soon as possible.
“Feet wet” means the helicopters are still over the South China Sea flying from aircraft carriers off the coast.
> Okay, two more 53s as soon as possible.
“53s” are CH-53s, the largest of the helicopters.
> OK, understand. Dash 1 and Dash 2 are fully loaded.
> That’s a Roger and we got a big load again.
> About 60 per bird?
> At least that.
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There were 70 helicopters shuttling between ships and shore.
> Everything’s blinking and turning.
> Fleet, pass to all aircraft coming inbound. They must come in with rotating beacon on the final. We have [unintelligible] aircraft trying to land on each other.
Two Marines at the airport, Charles McMahon and Darwin Judge, had been killed by North Vietnamese shelling, and the helicopters are in danger of being shot down.
> Be advised we’re having many reports of triple A airburst and also lots of muzzle flashes using tracers.
Tan Son Nhut Airport was becoming too dangerous.
> Alamo says 10 more lifts and that’s it. 10 more lifts.
> Roger. Understand 10 more lifts.
Vietnam News Agency/AFP via Getty Images 
That left the embassy as the only way out of Saigon. But the embassy was under siege by a panicked crowd.
> Two-six Bravo proceed inbound toward the embassy area. I believe that’s the area I can use you in.
> OK, be advised. As I understand it there’s 2,000 uncontrolled people in the courtyard. You want to put a 53 in there?
Gerry Berry, the first pilot to land at the embassy, set down in the parking lot about one o’clock. His call sign: Lady Ace 09.
> This is Lady Ace Zero-9, Roger, we’re outbound at this time. We’ve got passengers.
> How many passengers?
> Zero-9 has 1-8 on board. Lady Ace Zero-1 has 2-0.
> Roger 1-8 and 2-0. Copy good.
Berry flew a CH-46 helicopter, which could carry 25 combat troops. “So, if you carried Vietnamese who are much smaller and they weren’t carrying any bags, we could put 50 to 60 on there when we’d carry them out,” Berry said.
The CH-46 is light enough to land on the embassy roof, opening up a second landing zone inside the crowded compound.
> Land on the rooftop, on the rooftop of the embassy. Over.
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Up on the roof … and a tempting target. Berry said, “I also felt that there was probably a lot of North Vietnamese that had infiltrated the city earlier. I felt we could have been taken out probably if somebody wanted to at about any time. It was very, very scary when you landed on that roof and you could see all those people down below.”
The rooftop was also where Marine guards are burning mountains of classified documents.
> The embassy’s got a large fire on the rooftop at this time. They’re loading people at this time. Lady Ace one-four is in there.
Glitches are inevitable.
> The last two that went in there – Swift Two-One flight – no one got aboard. There was nobody on the rooftop.
But the helicopters don’t have time to wait. Berry said, “A helicopter has so much flight time. You could only fly a CH-46 about two hours.”
It’s about 40 minutes each way from the ships to the embassy, not counting the time it takes to load.
> I haven’t been able to make contact with anybody at this time. Now I’ve got Bingo fuel.
“Bingo” is pilot talk for low on fuel.
“Now the weather gets bad,” said Berry. “It’s about 7:30, 8 in the evening. Weather comes in and it’s going a little slower.”
Two Marines died when their helicopter ran out of fuel.
> There’s bad weather in the area. Are you above or below the cloud deck at this time?
> Sir, we’re below the cloud deck at this time.
> Okay, I suggest you stay below the cloud deck
Berry recalled: “I’m flying up the Saigon River at about maybe 150 feet because the weather’s closing in, and that’s when I thought there’s got to be all kinds of wires across this river. So, you pull back on this and you climb like mad. The heart stopped beating for a minute, because it was dark, couldn’t see anything.”
And the North Vietnamese were getting closer. “I can see the tanks coming down the road, North Vietnamese tanks,” said Berry. “Because their lights are on. They’re driving down the highway.”
> You are to land on the rooftop and deliver a message. I say again, deliver a message: “All U.S. must come out now.”
Until now, Ambassador Graham Martin has refused to leave. “I land on the embassy roof at 4:56 in the morning on 30 April 1975,” said Berry. “And I called the Marine security guard over and I said, ‘You go tell the ambassador this helicopter’s not leaving the roof until he’s on board.’ And then in my best aviator voice, I said, ‘The President sends.'”
“Order from the President. Did you have authority?” I asked.
“I have no authority to do that, at all,” said Berry. “But I mean, there’s got to be an end here. Two minutes later, his whole entourage are up, they’re ready to go.”
The ambassador brought the American flag with him.
I asked, “Did it feel to you then, hey, the war is over?”
“Certainly, it did,” Berry replied. “You go through this thing in your brain right away: Was this all for naught? Did we lose the 58,000 plus Americans, hope for something?”
Berry flew the ambassador to one of the ships offshore, only to find that the war was not over. “Well, now you have to go back and get the Marines,” he said.
> We’ve got Swift 3-3 and Swift 2-2 choppers going into the embassy to pick up the last Americans there. There should be about 33 to 35 of them left.
The Marines who guarded the embassy were barricaded on the roof. “We felt for sure that we were going to be left there,” said Juan Valdez, now 87, who was the sergeant in charge. “Kind of swallow hard, you know, because by that time the tanks were passing by from the Vietnamese.”
Jerome Thomas, one of his Marines, said, “The question that was going through everybody’s mind was, should we fight or should we surrender? And everybody there, to a man, was like, ‘We’re fighting, you know, because Marines never surrender.'”
Valdez said, “We were there for two, two-and-a-half, maybe three hours waiting, and then all of a sudden at a distance we saw two choppers coming back.”
> According to the count they gave me it should be 2-5, 2-5 remaining.
> I tell you what, it looks like more than 25 down there to me.
> I recommend that you pick up as many as you can when you go in. We had an underestimate on report before, and this is why we had to scramble you two birds. So try to pick up as many as you can and also when you come off give us a good headcount of how many is left for 2-2 to pick up.
> Uh, Roger, we’ll do what we can.
> We’ve made our pickup. We have 22 on board and there’s 10 left for Swift 2-2 to pick up.
Actually, there were 11 left to be picked up by the final helicopter, Swift 22. Sergeant Valdez was the last one to go aboard.
> All souls on board. All souls on board. Over.
> Understand you have 11 pax on board with the commander.
> Swift 2-2 says he is out with 11 pax on board including the commander. All the Americans are out. That is it.
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Story produced by Mary Walsh. Editor: Joseph Frandino. Digital producers: Roman Feeser and David Morgan.
