Quick questions on Fall of Saigon 1975: HSC Modern History Indochina

The 27 January 1973 Paris Peace Accords broke down almost immediately. The ceasefire was violated by both sides; the ICCS commission was paralysed (Canada withdrew in July 1973). The Council of National Reconciliation never functioned.

In December 1974 PAVN attacked Phuoc Long Province, about 110 kilometres north of Saigon. The provincial capital, Phuoc Binh, fell on 6 January 1975. It was the first whole province lost since 1965.

General Van Tien Dung, PAVN Chief of Staff, took command of Campaign 275. The plan: attack Ban Me Thuot, the population centre of the Central Highlands, to lure ARVN reinforcements south, then defeat them in detail.

PAVN exploited the disintegration immediately. I Corps, holding the north, was outflanked. Hue, with no defensible perimeter, fell on 25 March 1975. Civilian refugees flooded into Da Nang.

The Politburo renamed Campaign 275 the "Ho Chi Minh Campaign" on 1 April 1975. The objective was Saigon by 19 May, Ho's birthday. General Van Tien Dung commanded; Le Duc Tho served as the Politburo's political commissar.

Operation Frequent Wind, the helicopter evacuation of the last Americans and selected Vietnamese, was triggered on 29 April 1975 when Tan Son Nhut airbase was hit by PAVN rockets. Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" on the American Radio Service was the signal. From the embassy compound at 4 Thong Nhut Boulevard and the Defence Attache Office at Tan Son Nhut, around 7,000 people were lifted to ships of Task Force 76 offshore. Hubert Van Es's photograph of a CIA Air America helicopter on the roof at 22 Gia Long Street became iconic.

South Vietnam was briefly governed as the Provisional Revolutionary Government (1975 to 1976). The reunification elections held on 25 April 1976 produced a single national assembly. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed on 2 July 1976 with Hanoi as the capital and Saigon renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

George Veith (Black April, 2012) is the standard military history of the 1975 campaign from the southern side.

The collapse ran from 10 March (Ban Me Thuot) through 30 April (Saigon).

Congressional reductions of $1.5 billion across 1974 to 1975 broke ARVN's logistics.

2 July 1976, not 30 April 1975.