Have a question, why didn’t the South Vietnamese just evacuate to Con Son Island and establish South Vietnam there? Maybe wrong about this but did North Vietnam really have much of a Navy and it would seem a challenge logistically for them to try and take it being 50 miles off the coast. Even if they weren’t going to stay permanently it would have seemed like a better option for evacuation and staging area and bought them more time.
Command and control mechanisms within Saigon's military forces were disintegrating by early April, a month before the end and there was disagreement even within the US mission over how best to redeploy stragglers from the northern provinces - whether to fold them into new units or existing ones. Moreover Martin was opposed to any move - like an exodus of civilians or stragglers to possible evacuation sites along the coast - that might destabilize the calm needed for negotiations. CIA operatives had trouble organizing a modest airlift of some Vietnanese employees to Phu Quoc island because Martin and even the station chief were dead set on maintaining non-provocative conditions for peace talks, even though all our intelligence sources indicated the enemy wasnt interested in a last minute settlement.
Have a question, why didn’t the South Vietnamese just evacuate to Con Son Island and establish South Vietnam there? Maybe wrong about this but did North Vietnam really have much of a Navy and it would seem a challenge logistically for them to try and take it being 50 miles off the coast. Even if they weren’t going to stay permanently it would have seemed like a better option for evacuation and staging area and bought them more time.
Command and control mechanisms within Saigon's military forces were disintegrating by early April, a month before the end and there was disagreement even within the US mission over how best to redeploy stragglers from the northern provinces - whether to fold them into new units or existing ones. Moreover Martin was opposed to any move - like an exodus of civilians or stragglers to possible evacuation sites along the coast - that might destabilize the calm needed for negotiations. CIA operatives had trouble organizing a modest airlift of some Vietnanese employees to Phu Quoc island because Martin and even the station chief were dead set on maintaining non-provocative conditions for peace talks, even though all our intelligence sources indicated the enemy wasnt interested in a last minute settlement.