Goodnight Saigon

by Charles Henderson

  “This child that you carry?” Luong asked.

  “A baby I found buried beneath a cart,” Tuan said. “Her parents lie back there on the road. I hoped to find her kin who might take her.”

  Ninh Ca clutched tightly to Tuan’s neck and looked fearfully at the growing crowd of black-clad men and women who looked back at her. Some of them smiled at her, but the terror of the past two days left her stoic.

  Then, among the crowd of faces, one familiar man began to laugh and clap his hands. Ninh’s eyes brightened seeing him, and she smiled too.

  The little girl had said nothing after crying for her mother when Tuan had found her, but now she found her voice.

  “Uncle, uncle,” she said and put out her hands toward the familiar man.

  “Sir, sir,” the man stepped forward, bowing to his battalion commander, Nguyen Thien Luong. “This baby is my sister’s child. Her family were farmers who lived north of Pleiku.”

  “We cannot take children this young with us,” Luong reminded the soldier. “She will be safe in the compound with the other peasants.”

  “My wife is nearby, sir,” Ninh’s uncle then offered. “I need only one day to take her there.”

  Luong thought for a moment and then looked at Ninh. Her dark eyes and innocent face weighed heavy on his heart, and he smiled at her.

  “Take her, then,” he said. “Move to the rear, and depart when you can safely do so. Report to me personally tomorrow morning that she is safely with your wife.”

  Tuan smiled at Ninh and kissed her cheek as he passed the little girl to her uncle. He looked at the half dozen other orphans and then at Luong.

  “We will care for these children, Lieutenant Colonel,” Luong said. “Do not concern yourself for them any longer. I hope that you will now concern yourself with your own prospects. Cooperate, and we will treat you appropriately well. Refuse, and we will shoot you. Quite a simple proposition, I think.”

  That day Nguyen Manh Tuan began what would be eight years of imprisonment and “re-education.” He would not see his wife nor his two sons until after those eight years in prison had ended and he found himself living as a homeless man, begging on the streets of Saigon, fixing bicycles for pennies a day, with no tools except his fingers and what he could borrow from his clients. While he was in prison, his wife had renounced him and had remarried. His sons later emigrated to America.

  For twenty years Nguyen Manh Tuan struggled, yet he again rose to greatness, founding a scissors-manufacturing firm, building it from scraps he scavenged in Saigon’s garbage dumps.

  Ninh Ca grew up in her uncle’s and aunt’s care and became a secretary in the Communist government office in Pleiku.

  Forces from the 10th and the 320th NVA Divisions killed unknown thousands in the three days of artillery bombardment of the retreating ARVN II Army Corps and the civilians who fled Pleiku and Kontum with them. Estimates of the retreat range from 160,000 to 250,000 people. Of that exodus, only a handful of civilians ever reached the coast. More than 90 percent of the strength of the II Army Corps and the Fourth, Twenty-fifth, and Twenty-third Ranger Groups fell or were taken prisoner. Fewer than 900 of the ARVN rangers ever made it to Nha Trang, and less than 5,000 other soldiers of the II Army Corps escaped death or capture. None of those nearly 6,000 survivors of the massacre at Cheo Reo were in any condition to fight.

  The loss at Cheo Reo ended any hope that President Nguyen Van Thieu held for retaking the Central Highlands and Ban Me Thuot.

  In less than ten days the Communists succeeded in capturing all six provinces that comprised the Central Highlands. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong divisions then turned their strength to the remaining ARVN forces protecting the coastal provinces and quickly captured them with little resistance. Only the Twenty-second ARVN Division in Binh Dinh Province, defending their stronghold at Qui Nhon, and the ARVN Third Airborne Brigade at Khanh Hoa stood and fought against the overwhelming Communist forces. However, those units fell quickly, and in a matter of days following the annihilation of the ARVN II Army at Cheo Reo, the entire central region of South Vietnamhad fallen, now dividing the nation and cutting off the northern provinces.

  Cities such as Hue, Da Nang, Dong Ha, Phu Bai, and Chu Lai now stood on their own and could hope for no help of reinforcement from units remaining south of Nha Trang.

  Chapter 9

  A COUNTRY APART

  DA NANG, RVN—WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1975

  AN HOUR BEFORE dawn, Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong sat on the corner of his desk at MR 1 headquarters, at Da Nang Air Base, looking at the immense tactical map of South Vietnam that he had displayed on a pair of three-legged stands in his office. The general did not sleep much these days, usually no more than three to five hours after working until midnight most nights. His staff fared little better, just as the skeletonized army that he led. Despite the apparent blindness of his seniors, Truong clearly saw the tea leaves in the bottom of the cup, fearing the worst while fighting the Communist enemy on one front and the ineptitude of his own government’s leaders on the other. A good night’s sleep represented a luxury that today no one under his command could afford.

  Red grease-pencil lines and boxes and paper-flag pins marked positions of Communist forces and the suspected locations of their command posts. Clearly, even a schoolboy could conclude from the crimson swath on the acetate overlay, covering the Central Highlands, that the whole nation now stood in jeopardy.

  The Latin phrase, abscidi dissaeptum debello, “divide and conquer,” repeated itself again and again in his mind. He had first heard the words in secondary school, learning of the classical battle tactics employed by the Roman legions.

  “They have divided us; now they will strive to conquer,” he said between sips of warm tea.

  “Sir?” his senior aide, a major, said to him while standing in the general’s office doorway.

  “Oh, just talking to myself,” Truong said and smiled.

  “Sorry, sir,” the major said. “Understood. However, I have President Thieu’s secretary holding on the line for you. When you are ready, he will connect your call to the president, who will speak to you shortly.”

  General Truong walked behind his desk, sat, and opened a large note binder where he had written a short list of discussion topics that would efficiently guide his conversation and ensure that he did not overlook any important points. The first item addressed the disastrous events currently unfolding at Cheo Reo with the II Army Corps. The second posed the question as to which direction the Communists would attack once they had secured the Central Highlands.

  “Sir,” General Truong said as President Nguyen Van Thieu answered the telephone.

  “Do not lecture me, General,” Thieu snapped before the Military Region 1 commander had hardly spoken to him.

  “I do not lecture my commander. I advise him, sir,” General Truong answered. “What currently befalls our forces deploying from Pleiku and Kontum cannot now be undone. My duty this morning is to address what we can do today to defend against what surely descends upon us tomorrow.”

  “Well spoken, General, and I take your comments to heart,” President Thieu said in a voice softened with the humiliation he felt from his losses in the Central Highlands.

  “With three full North Vietnamese infantry divisions, supported by unknown legions of tanks and artillery, pressing upon our II Army Corps, I anticipate their demise at Cheo Reo in one or perhaps two more days,” Truong began.

  “Painfully, I agree with your assessment of that situation,” Thieu answered.

  “You have already deployed General Toan’s forces from An Loc to the Saigon defense area. From my command here, you have also deployed to emplacements south of Vung Tao all of the Airborne Division except for the remaining First Airborne Brigade, which will deploy to Vung Tao today, unless you reconsider your original order in light of what we may soon face of the enemy coming from the Central Highlands,” General Truong said.

  “That is correct, G
eneral,” Thieu said. “What do you propose?”

  “Sir, that you reconsider and allow the First Airborne Brigade to remain here,” General Truong said. “I also beg that you will redeploy the Airborne Division back to their posts here.

  “Please consider that once the Communists have finished their tasks in the Central Highlands, I anticipate that they will most probably turn their full attentions to our positions here in the north. At the very least, they will use a portion of those forces to block us here and to reinforce their operating divisions in my area. Once Military Region 1 has fallen, they can then most easily close their combined forces on Saigon from the north, west, and east.

  “Already we have suffered significant losses in and around Hue, and the attack tempo there increases by the hour. The buildup of tanks and logistics that we detected three months ago in the western mountains have now fully deployed toward our coastal enclaves.

  “I fear that the boost of morale and the additional strength of captured arms that the Communists gain in their victory in the Central Highlands will enable their army to overwhelm us in a matter of days, unless we receive immediate reinforcement.

  “Morale among my forces falters. Already, just this morning, I have received messages that our units all along the Demilitarized Zone, in Quang Tri City, and throughout Quang Tri Province have begun abandoning their posts with first sight of enemy forces massing in their presence. In instances, they have fled without firing a shot. Tonight, on your map, you can paint the entire Quang Tri Province red. It will surely fall to the Communists unopposed before the day ends.

  “Day and night, our forces at Quang Ngai and Tam Ky fiercely defend their strongholds against increasing numbers of enemy units. Likewise, our soldiers, rangers, and Marines defend Hue and Hoi An. This morning Chu Lai has begun receiving fire. Meanwhile, here at Da Nang, the attacks have steadily grown in numbers and frequency since January. The enemy currently prepares us as a softened piece of steel, lying on his anvil, awaiting his hammer.

  “Sir, Mr. President, please hear me. Unless you leave the forces here in place, and unless you reinforce these units before the enemy strikes with his main offensive, the northern provinces will join the Central Highlands in defeat before this month ends.”

  “Nonsense!” President Thieu fumed. “How can you speak of defeat? I order you to hold Da Nang to a man!”

  “Sir,” General Truong said, “to a man we will fight, and we will hold our ground, but once we are dead, we can fight no more. The enemy will hold our ground. Once we are dead here, you must ultimately face the whole of the enemy there.

  “It is urgent that you redeploy the Airborne Division to Da Nang and Hue. I further ask that you also draw for us reinforcements from among the ample reserve forces that you have currently garrisoned at posts surrounding Saigon.”

  Nguyen Van Thieu said nothing for several seconds, considering what he had just heard from one of the nation’s most revered frontline commanders.

  “General, I will grant you this,” President Thieu said angrily. “You may hold the First Airborne Brigade at Da Nang, but that is all that I will yield.

  “Furthermore, in light of your concerns, I suggest that you seriously consider redeploying to Da Nang and Hue the many Marine units that you currently have scattered over the four winds in MR 1. However, all reserves and standing forces now in MR 3, including the majority of your Airborne Division, must remain here to protect Saigon. Saigon shall not fall. No matter what the cost, Saigon must endure!

  “Unless you have something further to discuss with me, I have more pressing matters than your overly stated, dramatic tales to attend.”

  Before the general could even respond, President Thieu had hung up. The click of the suddenly broken connection and the hum of the dial tone that followed left Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong feeling hopeless, bewildered, and speechless.

  The small man sighed deeply and laid his telephone receiver back in its cradle. He stood and then walked slowly to the large map of South Vietnam. On the clear plastic overlay the general began to draw with red grease pencil a series of narrow, parallel lines, using them to shade the entire area that represented Quang Tri Province. He wrote a large, red X over the provincial capital, Quang Tri City. Then he artfullydrew three long, wide, arching red arrows, representing each of the three North Vietnamese Army divisions now operating in the Central Highlands and pointed them toward Hue, Chu Lai, and Da Nang.

  MAI THAO VILLA IN NORTHWEST SAIGON

  “COME INSIDE, MY beautiful flower, sit, and have a cocktail,” Mai Thao told Kieu Chinh as he pushed open the iron gate to his villa’s courtyard. “Tran Da Tu and Nha Ca will arrive momentarily. I look forward to a wonderful evening with three lovely friends.”

  Kieu blushed as she stepped past her longtime confidant, South Vietnam’s leading novelist who had authored forty books in little more than twenty years of writing professionally, during which time he had also served as publisher and editor in chief of several major newspapers. Flamboyant and outspoken, Thao, a staunch supporter of the American-allied government and a longtime friend of former Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, lived in a plush French-style home surrounded by high stone and stucco walls, located in the northwestern district of Saigon, near Tan Son Nhut Airport.

  Respected as a national treasure, Mai Thao often hosted elegant parties for small gatherings of his closest friends, such as that tonight, which included South Vietnam’s leading international actress, Kieu Chinh, and two of the nation’s most renowned authors, poet Tran Da Tu and his wife, novelist and poet Nha Ca. Most recently writing about the political executions, massacres, and other atrocities committed by the Communists when they overran Hue in the 1968 Tet Offensive, Nha Ca achieved national acclaim and received accolades for the work by the Saigon regime while leaders in Hanoi denounced her writings and labeled her an enemy of the people.

  “Terrible business today, news of what has happened in the Central Highlands,” Thao said, following Kieu across his home’s richly polished mahogany floors to a long, jade green and golden silk embroidered couch where she sat.

  “Martini?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Kieu said, taking a cocktail from an assortment of a half dozen freshly made drinks joggling in elegant crystal stemware on a silver tray held by Thao’s white-jacketed houseboy.

  “We will eat dinner as soon as our two wayward poets arrive,” Thao said, taking a glass from the servant and sitting on a white-on-white silk brocaded armchair across from Kieu. “Meanwhile, thanks to their tardiness, we can have a quiet, intimate chat, and you can tell me all about your stardom and this new motion picture that you are making in Singapore.”

  “As a matter of fact, I fly back to Singapore on Sunday,” Kieu said. “We resume shooting on Monday, and I doubt that I can come home again until mid-May at the very earliest. The producers have just now fully funded the budget, and because of it, they put us on a very ambitious schedule. We will film day and night with hardly a moment allowed for relaxation.”

  “Oh, so much work, it will make you old before your time, my flower,” Thao said. “Perhaps I should fly to Singapore with you, to manage your daily affairs?”

  “Or to have an affair? You would only serve to corrupt me, dear,” Kieu said and laughed. “Your reputation precedes you, I am afraid.”

  “Lies, all lies,” Thao said, gulping the last of his cocktail and then popping the olive into his mouth. “I drink too much, that is all. Otherwise, I behave myself quite respectably. You would not be here tonight if I did not, would you?”

  Kieu Chinh laughed while her old friend gracefully swept up her hand and kissed it as he stepped to a black lacquer side table, where the houseboy had left the silver tray, and took another martini from it.

  “What is this news that you spoke of earlier, this thing that has happened in the Central Highlands?” Kieu asked innocently.

  “Perhaps I overly concern myself with the current events because they seem so terrible to my Amer
ican journalist friends,” Thao said. They have gone quite abuzz about this latest situation.

  “According to their reports, it seems that our army has suffered a massive loss on an obscure roadway near a Montagnard village somewhere east of Pleiku. A large number of military units moving to the coast, along with a multitude of civilians fleeing with them, attacked and annihilated.”

  “Oh, yes, I saw a news report on Saigon television this afternoon, but they hardly mentioned any detail about it,” Kieu said. “Besides, that place is quite a long way from Saigon. I do not understand the panic. This is not such an unusual thing, is it? It seems these sorts of things happen all the time.”

  “Oh, yes, tragically, they do, and to both sides,” Thao said. “However,we should not fret. The armies all apparently weather the storms, as do we. Another cocktail, my dear?”

  UNITED STATES CONSULATE, DA NANG

  STAFF SERGEANT WALTER Sparks whistled happily as he jogged down the stairs from the second-deck balcony at the rear of the consulate’s courtyard. While he liked and respected Deputy Consul General Terry Tull, the comfort of now having Consul General Al Francis again at the helm in Da Nang boosted the Marine’s confidence.

  Still whistling, Sparks joined an invitation-only gaggle of a half dozen members of the consulate staff, both senior and junior in rank, loitering outside the conference room doorway, coffee mugs and arm-loads of files and binders in hand. They waited on the outdoor walkway, mingling and talking nervously prior to the unusual early morning meeting.

  The consul general had handpicked each of these people, not as a matter of political propriety or by their status in the hierarchy, but as a matter of potential life or death, liberty or incarceration. Each person possessed special qualifications that Al Francis regarded as vital to the successful evacuation of Da Nang. In light of the circumstances, it did not matter to him what rank or billet any of them held. To prevent confusion, miscommunication, and inefficiency from the normal bureaucratic layers of staff clearing other staff, he had pared the number of individuals he chose as key players down to this crew of six.