Rooftop of 22 Gia Long Street in 2002
22 Gia Long Street, now 22 Lý Tự Trọng Street, is an apartment building in Ho Chi Minh City, then called Saigon, that became an icon of the Fall of Saigon when chosen as an assembly point for Operation Frequent Wind in 1975. A Dutch photographer, Hubert van Es, working for UPI, took a photograph that captured the last chaotic days of the Vietnam War, and most people believed that it showed desperate Americans crowding on to the roof of the United States Embassy to board a helicopter.[1] The building in fact was an apartment building that housed employees of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with its top floor reserved for the Central Intelligence Agency's deputy chief of station.
The photo depicts an Air America Huey helicopter landing on the roof of the elevator shaft to evacuate employees of the U. S. Government as North Vietnamese Army troops entered Saigon.[1]
The current address is 22 Lý Tự Trọng Street (named after Lý Tự Trọng, a 17-year old communist executed by the French) and visitors are not allowed access to the roof.
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The World; getting it wrong in a photo, New York Times Archive
External links[]
- Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2009
- Bangkok 2002 Reunion Photo Gallery (Van Es is pictured)
- "Thirty Years at 300 Millimeters" (Written by Van Es)
The original article can be found at 22 Gia Long Street and the edit history here.