Da Nang: 40 years since the Fall

DA NANG, VIET NAM:  It’s been 40 years since that Easter Sunday in 1975 when two Russian deuce and a half trucks filled with troops, men, and women of the Vietnamese National Liberation Front (VC), rolled into Da Nang city from the countryside of Central Viet Nam. 

This second largest city of that war-torn country had been abandoned by its leaders.  Soldiers from the Army of South Vietnam (ARVN) had shed their uniforms and melted into the remaining population.  Many from that population had fled by sea or air in the preceding days.  The few Americans who remained in Da Nang until the end were personnel from the U.S. Consulate located on the Han River.  They had flown out on helicopters the preceding day.  The U.S. Marines who administered Military Region I (I Corps), the area from Chu Lai to the DMZ for the duration of the war, had long gone.  The world’s largest military was heading towards its most ignominious military defeat.

Ho Thi Nhi, a former employee of the World Bank here in Da Nang, was ten years old at the time.  “My father was employed by the ARVN,” he recounted, “and we lived in a military area where most of the high ranking officers and their families lived.  They had all left for Saigon with their families.  There was no one left to lead the ARVN.  The streets were full of abandoned military uniforms and weapons.  I was so scared.”

Shortly after the arrival of the trucks came the tanks of the conquering army of North Viet Nam, the NVA.  Following them came columns of infantry, the ‘bo doi’, the foot soldiers from the North who had survived the grueling ten year war.  Eventually locals, refugees, and former ARVN alike lined the streets smiling and waving the flag of the National Liberation Front.  Da Nang had fallen into the hands of the NVA without a shot being fired.

Until 20 years ago, Da Nang had not changed a great deal from the days of the American War here.  Remnants of that conflict were evidenced all over the airport grounds and the large U.S. Marine base in the vicinity of China Beach and Marble Mountain.

Le Thi Tam operates a small pub, motorbike rental, military tours, and a surf board rental service a few blocks in from the old China Beach, one of the U.S. Military’s many R&R (rest and recuperation) centers during the war.  The surf boards were a gift from a customer a few years back, Jimmy Buffet.  There is a picture of the film director Oliver Stone, the local expats, and Tam on the wall from 1998.

Mark Conroy (left) and Le Thi Tam (right) at Tam's Pub, near the old Marine base on China Beach.

“I grew up with the Marines,” said Tam.  “They were my family from when I was a little girl selling them cokes, ‘til later on when I was a waitress in various military clubs here in Da Nang.  Then when I was 19 in 1975, all gone.  Word came that Hue had fallen.  Then the refugees streaming south over Hi Van Pass poured into Da Nang.  Utter Chaos.  The helicopters fly away, the last planes leave from the airports in Da Nang and Monkey Mountain.  All style of boats leaving from the Han River and My Khe Beach.  Bodies everywhere.  My family with myself leave for the mountains.”

Tam and her family eventually returned, and survived.  It has been a struggle for her though, over these past forty years.  Perhaps in part because of her affiliation with the U.S. Marines so many years ago.

American veterans today would never recognize the China Beach playground from their time in Viet Nam.  Much of it today looks more like Miami Beach.  The ten kilometer stretch from Monkey Mountain down past Marble Mountain is lined with high-end resorts.  There is one luxurious Casino.  At this point, most of the customers are from Hanoi, which has nothing like the beaches here, and other Asian nations led by Korea and Japan.

Present day My Khe Beach on the Da Nang shoreline, the location of the U.S. Marines China Beach R&R center on the then China Beach.

 

Monkey Mountain, the Son Tra peninsula, is the site of the "InterContinental Da Nang Sun Peninsula Resort," the most luxurious 5 star resort in this part of SE Asia.  Long gone are the days when U.S. Marines patrolled the steep, forested banks and cliffs of Monkey Mountain, where a headquarters of the National Liberation Front, the VC, remained throughout the war.  The world's rich and powerful now relax on the shores where sampans once delivered supplies to the native troops. 

The ramp at Da Nang International Airport was recently lined with corporate jets when many of the world’s elite arrived for a conference at the InterContinental, and replaced the U.S. Marines and the Viet Cong in the jungles of the Son Tra, on the shores of the South China Sea where so many from both sides had met their death.

Fishing boats of the shore of Monkey Mountain, Son Tra peninsula.

Ralph Conroy, Drew Brown, and Mark Conroy (L to R) at a Da Nang beach cafe.  Drew Brown is a former reporter for Stars and Stripes in Afghanistan and Iraq.  He is on an R&R of three years so far in Viet Nam.

Along present day My Khe Beach.