In April 1976, as the People’s Army of Vietnam prepared to take Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, an Air America helicopter crewman helps evacuees up the ladder on top of an apartment building, one of the many evacuation sites in the downtown area. Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut Air Base was no longer secure, and helicopters
were the only way out for more than 7,000 Americans, foreign nationals, and at-risk Vietnamese who were flown to waiting US Navy ships off the coast. It was a fitting end, some said, to a conflict known as the “Helicopter War.”