VIETNAM~AFTER THE PARIS PEACE ACCORDS~1973

The Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973 by the governments of North Vietnam (DRV), South Vietnam, and the United States, as well as the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) that represented South Vietnamese revolutionaries. The intent was to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War. The accords ended direct U.S. military involvement, but failed to end the war, which continued until 1975.

Within sixty days of the signing of this Agreement, there was a total withdrawal from South Vietnam of troops, military advisers, and military personnel, including technical military personnel and military personnel associated with the pacification program, armaments, munitions, and war material of the United States.

The "Pentagon East" was a large building built in the late 60's or 70's, looked like the Pentagon, housed MACV & was on Tan Son Nhut. After the peace accord was signed in 1973, most of the big wheels moved out of there, & we moved there. Remember this was 33 years ago, some CRS has set in.

I was in the 1131st Special Activities Squadron (SAS), but was assigned to MACV, LG/LGM, as a Helicopter/Acft Maint advisor to the VNAF. We were in the VNAF Headquarters building, one of many on the site. Our job was to help the VNAF build their Air Force, and get them trained through teams.

You have to remember when I got there in 1972, we were in a big draw down, and not many military left. In our office, we had helicopter, fixed wing, avionics, and coordinated with Lear Seigler. Other offices in our building had, supply, armament, plus our Vietnamese counterparts that we worked with.

When the peace accord was signed on a Sunday morning in Paris France, the VC was sending rockets into Tan Son Nhut by the dozens. Most of us were in our quarters, under beds covered with mattresses, just in case. Most of the rockets hit the flight line, in fact the HH-43 rescue Det got some serious hits, damaged the helicopters, wounded one maint guy pretty bad & I think killed one.

We, the United States Air Force MACV LG/LGM had 60 days to get all the aircraft, engines, supplies, armament, and avionics in country or in the pipeline transferred to the VNAF before all military left. We had aircraft in storage on several bases, aircraft that hadn't arrived yet, and engines in transit.

In those last 60 days, we transferred over 800 UH-1s, CH-46s, 47s, C-130s, C-123s, C-47s, F-5s, C-119s, and engines. We were scrambling to find pilots to get these aircraft in country, or the ones in country out of storage & flyable. All the UH-1s were transferred from the Army, some Marines.

I had to get tons of paper work signed, VNAF to pick them up, pilots/maint crews. Don't know if I got this right or not, but was told when we left there, the Vietnamese had the 5th largest Air Force.

During those 60 days, many of the military left except us in MACV/1131st. We were to be replaced by DOD civilians from depots, & even though they denied it, I think a lot of the civilians were CIA.

We were supposed to have left 2 weeks before we did, but the military found out that all the POWs hadn't been released, some in Laos and Cambodia, so about 150-200 of us military had to stay until all the POWs were released. We had to be gone 60 days after the peace accord was signed. The only Military that was left was the Marine guards at the Embassy, & it was a fight to keep them. Some of the MACV went to Thailand. I was supposed to go to the Philippines with the group, but that was canceled. (Ron Smitham)