‘Victory of faith’, Vietnamese celebrate 50 years since end of Vietnam War

On Wednesday, thousands of Vietnamese commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War’s conclusion, which the nation’s communist leader referred to as a “victory of faith .”

Festivities peaked with a large parade in Ho Chi Minh City, where thousands of soldiers marched and an air display showcased Russian-made fighter aircraft and helicopters, while Vietnamese citizens waved red flags and sang patriotic anthems.

The significant anniversary marks the initial event of the nation’s reunification on April 30, 1975, when North Vietnam, led by communists, took control of Saigon, the U.S.-supported South’s capital, which was shortly renamed Ho Chi Minh City after the conflict to honor the North’s founding leader.

“It was a victory of faith,” and also of “justice over tyranny,” To Lam, Vietnam’s Communist party chief and the country’s top leader, said on Wednesday, citing one of Ho Chi Minh’s mottos: “Vietnam is one, the Vietnamese people are one. Rivers may dry up, mountains may erode, but that truth will never change.”

The fall of Saigon, about two years after Washington withdrew its last combat troops from the country, marked the end of a 20-year conflict that killed some 3 million Vietnamese and nearly 60,000 Americans, many of them young soldiers conscripted into the military.

“Communist troops rolled into the South Vietnamese capital virtually unopposed, to the great relief of the population which had feared a bloody last-minute battle,” said a cable from one of the Reuters reporters in the city on the day it fell.

The cable portrayed the triumphant army as consisting of “formidably armed” soldiers in jungle green uniforms and also included barefoot youths.

Those occurrences were etched into numerous memories through the visuals of U.S. helicopters airlifting around 7,000 individuals, many of them Vietnamese, as North Vietnamese tanks advanced. The last flight departed from the top of the U.S. embassy at 7:53 a.m. on April 30, transporting the final U.S. Marines from Saigon.

The official reunification of Vietnam was finalized a year later, 22 years after the nation was divided in two following the conclusion of French colonial governance.