Setting the Stage (The Vietnam Experience) Hardcover

Setting the Stage (The Vietnam Experience) Hardcover April 1, 1982

On April 27, 1975, the confused, leaderless city of Saigon awaited the inevitable. It was two years since the United States had quit the war, leaving the South Vietnamese to continue the struggle against the advancing North Vietnamese Army. Now fourteen North Vietnamese Army divisions with one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand combat-ready troops stood poised for attack, their artillery trained upon the city. The tense stillness of the early morning was shattered by North Vietnam rockets exploding in downtown Saigon-the first attack since the cease-fire dictated by the Paris agreements in 1973. The explosions killed at least ten people and ignited an enormous fire which destroyed five hundred houses and left five thousand people homeless. John Pilger, a British reporter, recalled the suffering caused by a rocket that completely razed a half acre of tightly packed houses: