The Fine Print
Vietnam Fine Print

The ship that went back for South Vietnam's navy

On the night Saigon fell, an American admiral sent one small warship back toward Vietnam. As her captain remembered it, he gave the reason in three words: "We forgot 'em."

Subscribe to Vietnam Fine PrintWatch on YouTube

In this story

  1. 0:00The picture everyone knows
  2. 0:56One helicopter at a time
  3. 1:51The admiral's job
  4. 2:19The stranger with no papers
  5. 4:00Nothing on paper
  6. 4:41Con Son at dawn
  7. 6:26Water, rice and 30,000 patients
  8. 7:13Bao Le
  9. 7:44The note from Manila
  10. 8:40The fine print
  11. 9:38Plenty of ensigns
  12. 10:25Noon on the seventh of May
  13. 11:25Gray paint
  14. 11:53Where they went
  15. 12:51Found again
  16. 13:24The last piece of paper

Sources

Sources

  • The Lucky Few: The Story of USS Kirk, U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery documentary, 2010: archive.org/details/THELUCKYFEWWMV91280x72016x9
  • U.S. Navy oral histories recorded by Jan K. Herman, 2006-2009 (Paul Jacobs, Richard Armitage, Kiem Do, Pete Roane, Hugh Doyle, Stephen Burwinkel, Robert Lemke, Bruce Davidson, Craig Compiano, Thanh Pham, Lan Tran, Thuy Hugo): archive.org
  • Jan K. Herman, "After the Fall of South Vietnam: Humanitarian Assistance in the South China Sea", Navies and Soft Power, Newport Paper 42 (Naval War College, 2015): archive.org/details/DTIC_AD1007539
  • Jan K. Herman, Navy Medicine, Fall 2010: archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA533783
  • U.S. Embassy Manila telegrams of 5 to 8 May 1975 (MANILA 5843, 5870, 5901, 5983, 6050, 6136), State Department Central Foreign Policy Files, National Archives: aad.archives.gov
  • USS Kirk Association, "Frequent Wind": kirk1087.org/frequent-wind
  • NPR, Joseph Shapiro and Sandra Bartlett, "At War's End, U.S. Ship Rescued South Vietnam's Navy" (2010): npr.org
  • Kiem Do and Julie Kane, Counterpart: A South Vietnamese Naval Officer's War (Naval Institute Press, 1998)
  • Malcolm Muir Jr., End of the Saga: The Maritime Evacuation of South Vietnam and Cambodia (Naval History and Heritage Command, 2017)
  • Edward J. Marolda, By Sea, Air, and Land (Naval Historical Center, 1994)

Credits

  • Each picture's source is on screen with it.
  • Film: The Lucky Few (U.S. Navy BUMED, 2010), with the voices of Richard Armitage, Kiem Do, Robert Lemke and Kent Chipman.
  • Photographs: U.S. Navy; U.S. Coast Guard; National Archives; U.S. Department of State; U.S. Department of Defense; White House (Robert Knudsen); Lucky Bag 1947, U.S. Naval Academy (Internet Archive); Wikimedia Commons.
  • Quoted for commentary: the USS Kirk Association's 1975 crew photographs; Thanh Pham's portrait, from his family via Donaldson Funeral Home; Thuy Hugo's portrait, PBS American Experience, First Days Story Project.
  • The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.
  • Music: instrumental score generated with Google's Lyria.
  • Narrated by me, in my own voice