…..Certainly, this gleaming modern metropolis now known as Ho Chi Minh City offered plenty to see, with its grand Independence Palace, French colonial architecture, statue of Ho Chi Minh, the harrowing War Remnants Museum and the intriguing wartime Chu Chi Tunnels. All worthwhile, but the impact left me, to be blunt, underwhelmed.
And then that all changed in one brief moment. It was a forgotten and faded part of the city that gave me an insight into its past, and connected me with the defining image of 1975’s fall of Saigon that had been burned into my memory from news stories of long ago.
Four days into my visit, it was late one afternoon that I found myself standing on the rooftop of 22 Ly Tu Trong Street in Saigon’s District 1. A scene captured by Dutch photojournalist Hubert van Es in one of the most iconic and dramatic photographs from the Vietnam War unfolded on this very spot.
The famous photo showed a desperate line of South Vietnamese people clambering up a ladder to reach a US helicopter perched atop an apartment-building elevator shaft. It was taken on April 29, 1975 and showed the last chance of escape for these people before the Communist forces claimed the city one day later.
Despite being only a small helicopter, the pilot managed to evacuate 15 people away to a new life.
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