The Ho Chi Minh Campaign began on 9 April 1975, with the shelling of Xuan Loc, sixty-five kilometers east of Saigon. After losing five thousand men, Gen. Van Tien Dun of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) finally captured Xuan Loc on 20 April, leaving the road to Saigon open. President Theiu resigned the next day, blaming the United States for abandoning South Vietnam. On 26 April, from five directions at once, Dung's 120,000 men attacked the 30,000 disorganized and dispirited ARVN troops under Gen. Nguyen Van Minh. PAVN artillery and captured South Vietnamese air force bombers destroyed the former U.S. bases at Bien Hoa, Tan Son Nhut, and Long Binh. Dung threatened to do the same to Saigon as Americans frantically evacuated the city by helicopter on 29 April.
Saigon's terrified populace watched in fear and fascination as PAVN tanks rolled into the city on the morning of 30 April 1975. ARVN soldiers shed their uniforms, dropped their weapons, and offered no resistance. In just three weeks, the Ho Chi Minh Campaign had ended a war that had lasted ten thousand days. The war in Vietnam was over. Dung celebrated his birthday the next day.
taken from Stanley I. Kutler, ed., Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996), 233.
