India Four Two

This post is really a piece of thread drift concerning a post by Noyade on the What Aerodrome thread. He posted the famous "US Embassy Helicopter" picture on 12th March. I was not able to see the picture due to an issue with Imageshack not liking my Vietnamese IP address, but after an exchange of PMs, I confirmed that he had posted this picture, which was taken 37 years ago today, the day before the fall of Saigon:



The location of the picture is often described as the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon whereas it is in fact the lift/elevator shaft on the top of an apartment building, used by the CIA, at what was 22 Gia Long Street and is now 22 Ly Tu Trong Street (most streets in Saigon were renamed by the new management). The helicopter is an Air America Huey. The reason for the common mis-attribution of the location is told by the photographer here:

Thirty Years at 300 Millimeters by Hubert Van Es- The Digital Journalist

There was a roof-top helipad at the US Embassy, but it looked completely different:





The street view above was taken in the aftermath of the Viet Cong sapper attack on the Embassy at the beginning of the Tet Offensive in 1968.

The old embassy building is long gone. It was demolished by the US government as soon as diplomatic relations were established in 1995. Here is what the site looks like today:



The new consulate is on the left of the compound. Some of the circular flower beds shown in the earlier picture can still be seen.

Unlike the embassy, the apartment building is still standing. If you are visiting Saigon, the helipad can best be viewed from the corner of Dong Khoi and Le Thanh Ton streets. Here is a picture I took recently from this location:



Thread-drifting even further, while searching for information relevant to this post, I stumbled on a YouTube video of CBS colour news report, compiled shortly after the start of the Tet offensive. Fascinating viewing. Note the circular flower beds at the beginning:

Rory57

Thanks for posting this. Really interesting bit of history

sandiego89

Yes, thank you for sharing this. Nice bit of history lesson.

Noyade

Looks like it will continue. Here's another...



From a 2007 book by Paul Ham.

KeMac

Very interesting - strange how things can be taken as fact even for such an iconic picture.

wiggy

Fascinating stuff, thanks for posting it (especially the modern shot of the helipad - complete with a Versace shop in the foreground.........wonder what the old style communists would think of that???)

Robert Cooper

Very, very interesting. Thanks for posting that.

Bob C

Barksdale Boy

I was sitting next to Hu van Es's widow, Annie, at dinner in Hong Kong yesterday evening. She was fascinated to hear of the interest in Hu's work on a website of which she was unaware. Hu was paid next to nothing for the photograph and took greater satisfaction in his other work on the Vietnam war, particularly at Hamburger Hill. It was especially poignant talking to Annie yesterday as in a week or so it will be the third anniversary of Hu's untimely death.

India Four Two

BB,

What an amazing coincidence. If it was a movie script, you wouldn't believe it.

When I first looked into the history of this picture, I tracked down the location it was taken from with a view to taking a present-day picture. Unfortunately that particular line-of-sight has been obscured by new tall buildings for at least 12 years.

wiggy,

Yes, the irony of a Versace store in the shot (plus all the other usual suspects in that particular mall) had not escaped me.

It is a shame I didn't think to take a better located photo before the mall was built.

India Four Two

I showed this thread to a friend of mine who works in the office tower above the shopping mall across the street from the apartment building. He told me that there is a good view of the roof from the 20th floor so I went along the other day to have a look and here's the picture:


I then went down a few floors and fortuitously, there is a view of the elevator shaft through a glass-walled office on the 9th floor:

The building in the background is Saigon Cathedral.

The ladder is not the one shown in Hubert Van Es' famous picture, but interestingly, the diagonal steel I-beam on the roof seems to have been present in the original photo, by the Huey's right skid.