Word: saigon
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...large majority of the withdrawing troops were not bothered by Communist forces. In Quang Tri province, Communist tanks even lit the way at night for both soldiers and civilians. The evacuation of some areas went so smoothly that there were rumors of a deal between the Communists and the Saigon government. Thieu, it was said, had given up the territory in exchange for the safety of the population-a story emphatically denied by Saigon. In any case, there were some reports of Communist efforts to harass the flow of refugees. One 1,200-truck convoy of defeated troops and fleeing...
...refugees fled for a variety of reasons. Some may have feared that government bombing attacks would follow Communist absorption of their lands; indeed, in the months just after the Paris Peace Agreement, Saigon subjected Viet Cong-held areas to frequent air raids. Others, especially merchants or landowners, may have feared that the Communists would confiscate their property or worse, arrest them as "exploiters of the people." Residents of Hue in particular have not forgotten the mass executions that took place when the Communists controlled the city during the 1968 Tet offensive. Most of the refugees simply seemed to be afraid...
...Saigon, the nightly curfew was advanced by two hours to 10 p.m.; even the most brazen street boys, prostitutes and soup vendors were prudently getting off the streets an hour before deadline. The capital was in no immediate danger. Yet as scare stories of Communist advances reached the city, many people began talking of leaving the country altogether. "Where do we go now?" asked Nguyen Thi Luong, an office worker who fled Hanoi in 1954. "Twenty years ago we came south. Now we're at the bottom and can't go any farther...
Apart from the stray attacks on the refugees, there was little fighting in the regions evacuated by Saigon last week...
...decimation of the 23rd Division robbed Pleiku of its defenses. At the same time, the Saigon government realized that it was badly outgunned in Kontum as well. There are now four North Vietnamese divisions in the Central Highlands. Thieu met secretly in the coastal city of Nha Trang on March 14 with Lieut. General Pham Van Phu, commander of Military Region II. The President decided to take the most drastic of steps-strategic retreat. The four ranger groups defending Kontum were shifted southeast to the coastal province of Phu Yen, to be followed a few days later...