Last Plane Out of Saigon

Last Plane Out of Saigon PDF Author: Richard Pena
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780989715416
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
In 1973, sixty-one days after the Paris Peace Accords was signed specifying that American troops must withdraw from Vietnam-one day beyond the terms of the agreement-Richard Pena, was among the final handful of Americans to leave the country. LAST PLANE OUT OF SAIGON is a faithful reproduction of the journal he kept as a draftee working in the operating room of Vietnam's largest military hospital during the final year of the war. Supporting historical and political context is provided by award-winning scholar, John Hagan. Richard's entries were written in real time and, as they chronicle the last desperate year of this tragic war, present readers with a better understanding of the complicated final year of the Vietnam War from the inside, looking out. A year that tragically remains unfamiliar to most Americans. This landmark book describes, in part, the hasty departure of American troops from Vietnam but is timely now as America again withdraws from war and is challenged with multiple global conflicts. It is a gripping real-time account of the anger, resistance and resilience forged in one man by the horrors of Vietnam witnessed up close, in graphically human terms, touching on mistakes that were made then and which our country continues to make today. The reader will feel the weight of this compelling account, as the Vietnam War continues to plague the consciousness of our country. All Americans should read this important piece of history, bound to leave them with chills. Richard Pena served in Vietnam as an Operating Room Specialist for the United States Army and left on the last day of American withdrawal. He is now a nationally renowned practicing attorney in Austin, Texas. He is a former President of the American Bar Foundation and State Bar of Texas and served on the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association. John Hagan is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Law at Northwestern University and Co-Director of the Center of Law & Globalization at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago. He has published nine books and more than 150 articles in nationally renowned magazines and journals.

Last Plane Out of Saigon

Last Plane Out of Saigon PDF Author: Richard Pena
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780989715416
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 138

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1973, sixty-one days after the Paris Peace Accords was signed specifying that American troops must withdraw from Vietnam-one day beyond the terms of the agreement-Richard Pena, was among the final handful of Americans to leave the country. LAST PLANE OUT OF SAIGON is a faithful reproduction of the journal he kept as a draftee working in the operating room of Vietnam's largest military hospital during the final year of the war. Supporting historical and political context is provided by award-winning scholar, John Hagan. Richard's entries were written in real time and, as they chronicle the last desperate year of this tragic war, present readers with a better understanding of the complicated final year of the Vietnam War from the inside, looking out. A year that tragically remains unfamiliar to most Americans. This landmark book describes, in part, the hasty departure of American troops from Vietnam but is timely now as America again withdraws from war and is challenged with multiple global conflicts. It is a gripping real-time account of the anger, resistance and resilience forged in one man by the horrors of Vietnam witnessed up close, in graphically human terms, touching on mistakes that were made then and which our country continues to make today. The reader will feel the weight of this compelling account, as the Vietnam War continues to plague the consciousness of our country. All Americans should read this important piece of history, bound to leave them with chills. Richard Pena served in Vietnam as an Operating Room Specialist for the United States Army and left on the last day of American withdrawal. He is now a nationally renowned practicing attorney in Austin, Texas. He is a former President of the American Bar Foundation and State Bar of Texas and served on the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association. John Hagan is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Law at Northwestern University and Co-Director of the Center of Law & Globalization at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago. He has published nine books and more than 150 articles in nationally renowned magazines and journals.

Last Flight from Saigon

Last Flight from Saigon PDF Author: Thomas G. Tobin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781410205711
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
A moving account of how the largest aerial evacuation in history was performed.

Last Men Out

Last Men Out PDF Author: Bob Drury
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143916102X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
"Last Men Out" tells the riveting story of the last 11 United States soldiers to escape South Vietnam on April, 30, 1975, the day America ended its combat presence.

Getting Out of Saigon

Getting Out of Saigon PDF Author: Ralph White
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982195193
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
A “captivating” (The Washington Post) true story of “courage, resolve, and determination” (Christian Science Monitor), author Ralph White’s successful effort to save nearly the entire staff of the Saigon branch of Chase Manhattan bank and their families before the city fell to the North Vietnamese Army. In April 1975, Ralph White was asked by his boss to transfer from the Bangkok branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank to the Saigon Branch. He was tasked with closing the branch if and when it appeared that Saigon would fall to the North Vietnamese army and ensure the safety of the senior Vietnamese employees. But when he arrived, he realized the situation in Saigon was far more perilous than he had imagined. The senior staff members there urged him to evacuate the entire staff of the branch and their families, which was far more than he was authorized to do. Quickly he realized that no one would be safe when the city fell, and it was no longer a question of whether to evacuate but how. Getting Out of Saigon is an “edge-of-your-seat” (Oprah Daily) story of a city on the eve of destruction and the colorful characters who respond differently to impending doom. It’s a remarkable account of one man’s quest to save innocent lives not because he was ordered but because it was the right thing to do.

After Saigon's Fall

After Saigon's Fall PDF Author: Amanda C. Demmer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108804748
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Few historians of the Vietnam War have covered the post-1975 era or engaged comprehensively with refugee politics, humanitarianism, and human rights as defining issues of the period. After Saigon's Fall is the first major work to uncover this history. Amanda C. Demmer offers a new account of the post-War normalization of US–Vietnam relations by centering three major transformations of the late twentieth century: the reassertion of the US Congress in American foreign policy; the Indochinese diaspora and changing domestic and international refugee norms; and the intertwining of humanitarianism and the human rights movement. By tracing these domestic, regional, and global phenomena, After Saigon's Fall captures the contingencies and contradictions inherent in US-Vietnamese normalization. Using previously untapped archives to recover a riveting narrative with both policymakers and nonstate advocates at its center, Demmer's book also reveals much about US politics and society in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Wings of Freedom

Wings of Freedom PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781604521719
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
At the end of the Vietnam War, Pan American World Airways successfully evacuated 463 American and Vietnamese civilians on April 24, 1975, aboard a Boeing 747-the last plane out. At the time, Allen H. Topping was serving as the Pan Am Director of South Vietnam and Cambodia and was instrumental in the success of that last flight. Topping lived and worked in South Vietnam for two and a half years. In addition to its global network of scheduled services, Pan Am was also involved in many other rescue and humanitarian operations throughout the world. These operations and missions included the Berlin Airlift, rescue operations from Tehran, operational support for US forces in WW II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and, most recently, the Gulf War. Prior to joining Pan Am Allan Topping worked for the Institute of International Education on and United Airlines in New York City. He joined Pan Am on June 2, 1969 as a sales representative, assigned to the San Francisco sales office. In November of 1972, Al became the Director of Vietnam and Cambodia, based in Saigon, South Vietnam. After managing operations at various stations overseas for almost eight years, he returned to the U.S. in 1982, Pan Am appointed him as Assistant to The Chairman Consumer Affairs. Topping continued to hold other management positions un���� l the company ceased operations on December 4, 1991. For the next 23 years he worked for The Miami-Dade School Board Administration, The Miami Herald and the Miccosukee Golf & Country Club in Miami, Florida. Now fully re���� red Topping is playing lots of golf in Ocala, Florida.

Tears before the Rain

Tears before the Rain PDF Author: Larry Engelmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195363795
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
CBS camera-man Mike Marriott was on the last plane to escape from Danang before it fell in the spring of 1975. The scene was pure chaos: thousands of panic-stricken Vietnamese storming the airliner, soldiers shooting women and children to get aboard first, refugees being trampled to death. Marriott remembers standing at the door of the aft stairway, which was gaping open as the plane took off. "There were five Vietnamese below me on the steps. As the nose of the aircraft came up, because of the force and speed of the aircraft, the Vietnamese began to fall off. One guy managed to hang on for a while, but at about 600 feet he let go and just floated off--just like a skydiver.... What was going through my head was, I've got to survive this, and at the same time, I've got to capture this on film. This is the start of the fall of a country. This country is gone. This is history, right here and now." In Tears Before the Rain, a stunning oral history of the fall of South Vietnam, Larry Engelmann has gathered together the testimony of seventy eyewitnesses (both American and Vietnamese) who, like Mike Marriott, capture the feel of history "right here and now." We hear the voices of nurses, pilots, television and print media figures, the American Ambassador Graham Martin, the CIA station chief Thomas Polgar, Vietnamese generals, Amerasian children, even Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers. Through this extraordinary range of perspectives, we experience first-hand the final weeks before Saigon collapsed, from President Thieu's cataclysmic withdrawal from Pleiku and Kontum, (Colonel Le Khac Ly, put in command of the withdrawal, recalls receiving the order: "I opened my eyes large, large, large. I thought I wasn't hearing clearly") to the last-minute airlift of Americans from the embassy courtyard and roof ("I remember when the bird ascended," says Stuart Herrington, who left on one of the last helicopters, "It banked, and there was the Embassy, the parking lot, the street lights. And the silence"). Touching, heroic, harrowing, and utterly unforgettable, these dramatic narratives illuminate one of the central events of modern history. "It was like being at Waterloo," concludes Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes. "It was so important, so historical. And today it is still very obvious that we Americans have not recovered from Vietnam....Nothing else in my lifetime was as important as that--as important as Vietnam."

Escape from Saigon

Escape from Saigon PDF Author: Ralph S. Watts
Publisher: Pacific PressPub Assn
ISBN: 9780816321131
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description


Saigon at War

Saigon at War PDF Author: Heather Marie Stur
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107161924
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
An examination of the political and cultural dynamism of the Republic of Vietnam until its collapse on April 30, 1975.

Mystery of Missing Flight F-BELV

Mystery of Missing Flight F-BELV PDF Author: Stephen Wynn
Publisher: Pen and Sword Aviation
ISBN: 1473845963
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
The true story of the aircraft that disappeared between Saigon and Hanoi, one of the enduring mysteries of the Vietnam War. Following the Geneva Accords in 1954, Vietnam found itself separated into North and South, with communist North Vietnam under the control of Ho Chi Minh. At the same time, the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC) was established, whose role it was to oversee the implementation of the Accords. On October 18, 1965, an ICSC aircraft, F-BELV, was on a regular weekly flight from Saigon to Hanoi, stopping at Phnom Penh, in Cambodia, and Vientiane, in Laos. Twenty minutes after leaving Vientiane, the captain contacted the authorities at Hanoi to give his ETA, but the aircraft never arrived. It is believed to be the only aircraft never to have been recovered from the Vietnam War. But what really happened and why? Did the aircraft crash, or was it shot down? Did it happen over Laos or North Vietnam? Mystery of Missing Flight F-BELV examines all aspects of the Vietnam War, particularly the events of 1965, and how tensions in the region heightened as the first American combat troops arrived in Vietnam. It investigates the role of the CIA, and whether their involvement had any bearing on the disappearance of F-BELV. It looks at those on board the aircraft, including James Sylvester Byrne, a sergeant in the Canadian Army and a relation to the author of this book. Was he just a regular soldier? Or was he really an intelligence officer gathering information to share with the Americans? This compelling book delves into these questions and into one of the enduring mysteries of the war.