FOIAWEAR — OPERATION FREQUENT WIND / Evacuation of Saigon Tee

FOIAWEAR / ARCHIVE SERIES 058

OPERATION FREQUENT WIND — on 27 April 1975, North Vietnamese forces surrounded Saigon and shelled Tan Son Nhut Air Base, making any further departures by airplane impossible. That marked the start of Operation FREQUENT WIND: helicopters from the Marines and from Air America, ferrying out US personnel and as many South Vietnamese as could be carried, to the US Navy ships of the 7th Fleet waiting off the coast.

The signal was broadcast on the American Radio Service. Listeners heard that the temperature in Saigon was “105 degrees and rising” — and then Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas.” Those who knew went at once to one of the fourteen assembly points around the city. The most famous photograph of those days — the helicopter perched on a rooftop, a line of people climbing a steep ladder to reach it — is usually described as the US Embassy. It was taken at the Pittman Apartments, a few blocks away, one of the designated pick-up points.

Around 6,000 Americans were flown out, and around 65,000 South Vietnamese. In the early hours of 30 April the Chief of the CIA office in Saigon cabled headquarters: “…this will be the final message from Saigon … It has been a long and hard fight and we have lost.” Saigon fell before the day was through.

The QR code on the front opens the source: https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-last-days-in-saigon/ — the CIA's own account of those days.

Garment: Comfort Colors 1717, 6.1 oz garment-dyed cotton, S–4XL. Front print only; plain back. Artwork approximately 10 × 10 in, QR approximately 1.8 × 1.8 in.

Colours: the shirt is offered in both dark and light garment colours — a pale cream screen print on Black, Graphite, Espresso, Navy and Pepper, and the same photograph struck in black halftone ink on White, Ivory, Butter, Chalky Mint, Blossom, Light Green and Chambray.

Care: machine wash cold, inside out, tumble dry low. Do not iron the print directly.

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