Fall of Saigon

Saigon, South Vietnam (present-day Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)
Fall of Saigon
	Part of the 1975 spring offensive of the Vietnam War
	; A CIA officer helps evacuees up a ladder onto an Air America Bell 204/205 helicopter at 22 Gia Long Street on 29 April 1975
Date	30 April 1975
Location	Saigon, South Vietnam; 10°46′41″N 106°41′46″E / 10.77806°N 106.69611°E
Result	North Vietnamese victory
Belligerents
North Vietnam Viet Cong; ;	South Vietnam
Commanders and leaders
Lê Duẩn; Võ Nguyên Giáp; Văn Tiến Dũng; Trần Văn Trà; Lê Đức Anh; Nguyễn Hữu An; Lê Trọng Tấn	Dương Văn Minh ; Nguyễn Văn Huyền; Vũ Văn Mẫu; Nguyễn Văn Toàn; Trần Văn Minh; Nguyễn Văn Minh; Phạm Văn Phú †
Strength
270,000 regulars ; 180,000 irregulars and guerrillas	60,000 regulars ; 60,000 RF/PF militia; 5,000 police
Casualties and losses
At least 108 killed; At least 8 tanks and 1 armored vehicle destroyed or damaged;	Most of the troops were killed, captured, deserted or surrendered; Dozens of tanks, armored vehicles and aircraft were destroyed or captured;

Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, was captured by North Vietnam on 30 April 1975. This caused the collapse of South Vietnam to communism and the evacuation of thousands of civilians and U.S. personnel, and ended the Vietnam War. The aftermath ushered in a transition period under the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam until the formal reunification in 1976.

As part of the 1975 spring offensive, the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC) auxiliaries, under the command of General Văn Tiến Dũng, began their final attack on Saigon on 29 April 1975, with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 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 the existence of South Vietnam and its predecessor (1949-1975). The first time since 1954, Vietnam became a unified country.

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 government. A few Americans chose not to be evacuated. United States ground combat units had left South Vietnam more than two years before the fall of Saigon and were not available to assist with either the defense or the evacuation of Saigon. 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.

On 2 July 1976, the reunification was formalized and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was established with the capital in Hanoi. The same day, the Vietnamese National Assembly renamed Saigon Ho Chi Minh City after Hồ Chí Minh, the North Vietnamese President who passed away in 1969.