30 avr. 1975 - Fall of Saigon

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North Vietnam captured Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam, on April 30th, 1975 as part of its 1975 spring offensive. This led to the collapse of the South Vietnamese government and the evacuation of thousands of U.S. personnel and South Vietnamese civilians, and marked the end of the Vietnam War. The aftermath ushered in a transition period under North Vietnamese control, culminating in the formal reunification of the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) under communist rule on July 2nd, 1976.

The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC), under the command of General Văn Tiến Dũng, began their final attack on Saigon on April 29th, 1975, with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces commanded by General Nguyễn Văn Toàn suffering a heavy artillery bombardment. By the next day, President Minh had surrendered while the PAVN/VC had occupied the important points of the city and raised the VC flag over the South Vietnamese Presidential Palace, ending 26 years of existence of pro-Western Saigon regimes.

The capture of the city was preceded by Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of almost all American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians who had been associated with the Republic of Vietnam. A few Americans chose not to be evacuated. United States ground combat units had left South Vietnam more than two years prior to the fall of Saigon and were not available to assist with either the defense of Saigon or the evacuation. The evacuation was the largest helicopter evacuation in history.  In addition to the flight of refugees, the end of the war and the institution of new rules by the communist government contributed to a decline in the city's population until 1979, after which the population increased again.

On July 2nd, 1976, Vietnam was unified for the first time since 1954. The same day, the National Assembly of Vietnam renamed Saigon in honor of Hồ Chí Minh, the late Chairman of the Communist Party of Vietnam and founder of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). April 30th has still been commemorated in Vietnam by the SRV as a national holiday called Reunification Day.

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