Battle scars Fall of Saigon leaves its traces on city 50 years on

The day that Saigon fell, Xuan Phuong, a war correspondent, could only hear shouting and commotion.

- Rebecca Ratcliffe

It was 30 April 1975, and helicopters were frantically lifting personnel and civilians from the US embassy.

Phuong, who had travelled down from the north, was initially held back by troops who said fighting was still continuing. When she was finally able to reach the centre of the city the following day, she found chaos. Clothes and luggage were scattered and discarded along the streets. Buildings were being looted.

It felt like a dream, Phuong, now 96, said. She stood inside the Presidential Palace on 2 May, watching as the president of South Vietnam, Duong Van Minh, surrendered.

"He left through the palace’s back door, because at the front there were all the tanks [of the North Vietnamese]," said Phuong.

North Vietnam was victorious and the country was to be reunified after a decades-long war that had killed as many as 2 million Vietnamese civilians. For the US, which lost 58,000 servicemen, the episode was one of its most humiliating in history.

Last Wednesday, Vietnam celebrated the 50th anniversary of 30 April, known officially as the Liberation of the South and National Reunification Day, with huge parades in what is now Ho Chi Minh City, named after the revolutionary leader.