Surviving the fall of Saigon
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When South Vietnam fell in 1975, most could not escape. In the last days, the US airlifted its remaining personnel and some high ranking Vietnamese officials - but millions were left behind to await their fate. This is the account of one South Vietnamese veteran who remained in Saigon as North Vietnamese forces took the city. Dr Tran Xuan Dung served as a doctor in the South Vietnamese Marines. He would spend three years imprisoned in a "re-education" camp before fleeing with his family in 1978.
Photo: A South Vietnamese soldier helps his wounded friend during fighting with communist forces in Saigon, 28th April 1975 (Bettmann/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last. |
| 0:47.0 | And today we're going back to another time of airlifts, fear and panic |
| 0:51.0 | to hear the story of someone who was left behind. |
| 0:54.8 | This is a South Vietnamese veteran's account of the fall of Saigon, when after the withdrawal |
| 1:00.3 | of US forces South Vietnam eventually fell to the North Vietnamese Army in 1975. Dawn on the last day. The last helicopter came in for a handful of US Marines, a |
| 1:20.7 | humiliating end to the American present. |
| 1:24.0 | It happened so fast. |
| 1:26.0 | After the fall of Saigon, every moment of my life was characterized by fear. Everything I did felt desperate and hopeless. |
| 1:36.9 | Dr Sun Sung Tran is now in his 80s his hearing damaged from his service in the Vietnam War. |
| 1:43.6 | Back then he was a doctor in the elite South Vietnamese Marines |
| 1:47.4 | treating the wounded while under fire on the front lines. |
| 1:51.0 | By April 1975, the final days of the war, he held the rank of Major and was stationed in |
| 1:56.9 | Saigon as invading North Vietnamese forces closed in on the South Vietnamese capital after a lightning advance. |
| 2:05.0 | I was the last officer on duty at the military medical school before Saiguol fell. |
| 2:10.0 | It was not like now where there are mobile phones. |
| 2:14.0 | Rumors preceded actual news and you were never sure what was true or not. |
... |
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