Fall of Saigon Fifty years on, city remembers end of the Vietnam war

The day Saigon fell, Xuan Phuong, a war correspondent, could only hear shouting and commotion. It was 30 April 1975, and helicopters were frantically lifting personnel and civilians from the US embassy.

- Rebecca Ratcliffe

The day Saigon fell, Xuan Phuong, a war correspondent, could only hear shouting and commotion. 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 warned fighting was ongoing. When she was finally able to reach the centre of the city the following day, 1 May, she found chaos. Clothes and luggage were scattered and discarded in the streets. Buildings were being looted.

It felt like a dream, said Phuong, now 96. 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 following a decades-long war that had killed as many as 2 million Vietnamese. For the US, which lost 58,000 servicemen in the Vietnam war, the episode was humiliating.

Today, Vietnam celebrates the 50-year anniversary of 30 April 1975, known officially as Day of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification, with huge parades planned in what is now called Ho Chi Minh City. In the run-up to the celebrations, streets have been lined with the Vietnamese red flag with gold stars, and fighter jets have roared through the skies, rehearsing formations.

The Trump administration has told its senior diplomats in Vietnam not to participate in anniversary events, according to a New York Times report - a decision that has dismayed veterans who have dedicated their lives to reconciliation.