Recently, I read an important book titled “Escape From Saigon, 1975.” It's a memoir written by retired Korean Navy commander Lee Moon-hak and Chung Ho-young, a former journalist at Kookbang Ilbo, or Defense Daily. Reading this mesmerizing book was like watching a riveting war movie about an adventurous military rescue operation.
“Escape From Saigon, 1975” is about the Korean Navy’s evacuation of Korean civilians residing in Vietnam just before Saigon fell to North Vietnamese forces. In the mission, called “Operation Cross Star,” the Korean Navy dispatched three landing ship tanks from Korea, loaded with relief supplies for the South Vietnamese government. On their return voyage, they planned to covertly evacuate Korean civilians from Saigon.
Commander Lee Moon-hak oversaw this difficult mission. Despite numerous hidden obstacles and dangers, the operation was accomplished successfully, without a single casualty, thanks to the admirable efforts of our naval officers and Ambassador Kim Yeong-gwan who possessed a strong sense of duty, honor and professionalism.
During the Vietnam War, at the request of the US government, Korea dispatched approximately 30,000 combat and non-combat troops to South Vietnam from 1965 to 1973. Among them, about 5,000 Korean soldiers were killed in action and could not return to their home country.
The Vietnamese government of the present day is admirable because it has the capacity to acknowledge the past and move on to the future. Indeed, Vietnam does not seem to harbor grudges against its former adversaries and is willing to cooperate with them to build a better future. Today, South Korea and Vietnam are good friends. In a 2023 survey, South Korea topped a list of Vietnamese people’s favorite countries. Many South Koreans, too, consider Vietnam to be a good friend and reliable business partner.
The arrival of the book, “Escape From Saigon, 1975,” was timely because it reminded us of the striking resemblance between Korea and Vietnam. For example, Vietnam was divided by the communist North and the capitalist South after liberation, and so was Korea. Inside South Vietnam, there were those who were called the Viet Cong, or Vietnamese communists. They thought that North Vietnam had legitimacy because its leader Ho Chi Minh fought in the independence war against the colonizer. Therefore, they supported North Vietnam. In South Korea, too, there were those who clandestinely supported North Korea in the past.
US troops fought both in the Korean War and in the Vietnam War to prevent the expansion of communism in Asia. In both wars, the US government pulled out its troops by signing a truce in 1953 and holding peace talks in 1973, respectively.
The book stated that few people anticipated the defeat of South Vietnam by the North. When leaving Vietnam, US troops handed over an abundant supply of advanced weapons to the South Vietnamese army. As a result, South Vietnam had the world’s 4th strongest Air Force, and more than 1 million soldiers armed with US weapons. But it was unable to turn that advantage into victory.
Today, South Korea boasts that its military power is the 5th in the world, but the ranking is based on numbers of soldiers and conventional weapons, economic power and other factors. Thus, the ranking may be a hollow decoration for a country without nuclear weapons.
The memoir also said that North Vietnamese politicians were confident that they could unify the country only if there were no US troops in the South. Indeed, two years after US troops left South Vietnam, the North invaded and occupied the South. The same thing could happen to South Korea, too.
Another reason for the fall of South Vietnam was its internal divisions and disruptions. People believed that their political leader was dictatorial, and their government was incompetent and corrupt. The protests were intense and fierce: Buddhist monks frequently died after setting themselves on fire in public places and college students’ rallies filled the streets.
In today’s South Korea, our society is also divided and polarized by two different ideologies. Foreigners are worried, watching the paralyzed administration, tyrannical legislature, and ideology-oriented judiciary. In “Escape From Saigon, 1975,” the authors wrote that watching the internal turmoil in the South, North Vietnamese politicians knew they could conquer South Vietnam easily.
The two authors of the book argue that the people in South Vietnam were so obtuse to the crisis that they did not prepare for the worst. Moreover, they observe that the South Vietnamese people wrongly believed that America would not abandon them easily.
For South Korea, as it faces its own times of crisis, this is a point worth noting
Kim Seong-kon
Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. -- Ed.
