April 30, 1975

Fall of Saigon

Fall of Saigon and surrender of South Vietnam

The last Marine helicopter left the embassy roof at 7:53 a.m. Dương Văn Minh surrendered less than three hours later.

7:53 a.m.: the roof empties

On 30 April 1975 a Marine CH-46 lifted the final U.S. Marine security guards off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, ending the embassy evacuation. Ambassador Graham Martin had gone at 4:58 a.m.

Official U.S. tallies for Operation Frequent Wind disagree. The modern Defense Department breakdown gives 6,968 helicopter evacuees — 1,373 Americans and 5,595 Vietnamese and third-country nationals — while a contemporaneous Joint Staff account reported 7,806 people evacuated by the U.S. military.

10:24 a.m.: the surrender

President Dương Văn Minh, who had taken office only two days earlier on 28 April, announced South Vietnam's surrender and ordered its armed forces to cease fighting.

The Hồ Chí Minh Campaign's general assault on Saigon had begun on 26 April, under Văn Tiến Dũng, and had broken through the remaining defenses.

Midday at Independence Palace

People's Army of Vietnam tanks entered central Saigon and broke through the Independence Palace gates around midday. The Vietnamese government's chronology puts the revolutionary flag over the palace at 11:30 a.m.

Communist forces controlled Saigon by the afternoon and the Republic of Vietnam no longer exercised authority in its capital. Formal reunification into one state came later, on 2 July 1976.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 7 sources 2 audit passes

How this was checked

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What the sources leave uncertain

Official U.S. sources give different evacuation totals because they use different time windows and categories. The modern Defense Department breakdown totals 6,968 helicopter evacuees, while a contemporaneous Joint Staff account reported 7,806 people evacuated by the U.S. military.
Sources differ by minutes in their reported times for the last helicopter and by roughly half an hour in palace-entry and flag-raising chronologies. These differences do not affect the event date.
April 30 ended separate South Vietnamese rule, but legal reunification into one state did not occur until July 2, 1976.