Operation Frequent Wind

As the situation in South Vietnam deteriorated, following the start of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Ho Chi Minh spring campaign on 1 Mar, the 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade aboard the USS Blue Ridge began planning on 26 Mar for the non-combatant evacuation of Saigon.

Between 18 and 24 Apr, a Navy, Marine Corps and Military Sealift Command combined fleet assembled off Vung Tau as Task Force 76. By 9 Apr, about a dozen of the most suitable building rooftops in Saigon had been cleared of obstructions and painted with a large letter H. Evacuation flights had been leaving frequently from Tan Son Nhat airport, coordinated by the Defense Attache Office (DAO) based there, until 29 Apr when damage from NVA attacks made further fixed wing flights out untenable. Marine Aircraft Group 39 (MAG-39) was committed to the evacuation; it consisted primarily of HMH-462 (USS Okinawa), HMH-463 (USS Hancock) and HMM-165 for airport and Embassy extraction and UH-1 of Air America for the other Downtown Saigon sites. The US Ambassador in Saigon was reluctantly persuaded to ask for the go-ahead to commence the evacuation, which was quickly approved in Washington DC. In the early afternoon of 29 Apr, the first helicopters of Operation Frequent Wind were launched by the USS Hancock heading for the DAO LZs.

Air Traffic Control was complex and the team aboard USS Okinawa needed to de-conflict inbound and outbound flights, avoid NVA strong points en route, minimise air-air incidents, ensure safe cross-decking arrangements and the management of vacant spots and unloading of evacuees amongst the ships of TF76.

By 0030 on 30 Apr, the final US Marines covering the evacuation of the DAO compound were departing, after setting charges to destroy the building, classified documents, a considerable amount of sensitive equipment and a signifcant amount of currency, to prevent it all falling to the NVA. All that was left was to evacuate the US Embassy, with the US Ambassador, his remaining staff and the USMC embassy security team. But this proved problematic as, contrary to the plan, there were also at least 2000 evacuees in the Embassy grounds who those engaged in the rescue thought had already been moved to the DAO LZs.

As well as achieving all this, a further unexpected complication to the operation arose when dozens of South Vietnamese helicopters arrived in the TF76 assembly zone carrying ARVN soliders, some with their dependents and aimed for any ship with a landing spot free.