Introduction Operation Frequent Wind was the largest helicopter evacuation in history. This was a continuous operation from 2pm on 29 April 1975 lasting through the night and morning of 30 April 1975 until approximately 8am. About 7,000 people were saved and the operation was an overwhelming success (summer 1995). Operation Frequent Wind was the last mission conducted before the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese.HistoryThe Vietnam War lasted from 1959 to 1975. It was also known as the American War in Vietnam, the Vietnam War, and the Second Vietnam War. Indochina, war against the Americans to save the nation (Rosenberg n.d.). Operation Frequent Wind was conducted at the end of the war in 1975. Once the decision to leave Saigon was made, South Vietnamese evacuation plans were put into action. All embassies have evacuation plans. The evacuation plan for Saigon included four phases. Phase one included commercial air transport, phase two military air transport, phase three marine transport, and phase four helicopter transport to Navy ships (Tobin 1978). The evacuations took place days earlier with fixed wing units. Fixed-wing evacuations were conducted from 1 April 1975 to 29 April 1975. Between the C-130 and C-141 airframes, 376 flights took place to evacuate over 45,000 people from Saigon (Hualman 1975). The Air Force also employed its helicopters and several other fixed-wing aircraft in support of Operation Frequent Wind. However, on 28 April, Tan Son Nhut Air Base was attacked destroying several aircraft and damaging the airport (Tobin 1978). Attempts were made to continue fixed wing operations. At about 14.00 on April 29, 1975 helicopters of the US Air Force, US Navy, US Marines, Air Force ...... halfway through the document ...... the Vietnamese crashed against the gates of the American embassy; hence the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War (Dunham 1973–1975). Evacuees aboard U.S. Navy ships went to reception centers set up in the Philippines and Guam (Hualman 1975). Operation Frequent Wind (History.com nd) took 19 hours and 81 helicopters to execute. The event that went down in history was the largest helicopter evacuation ever seen. Lessons Learned Fragmented command and control always seems to be a problem in military operations. Operation Frequent Wind was no different. A single military commander should have been established in place of the embassy's civilian ambassador (Hualman 1975). Only four American servicemen were killed during the operation; Marine Corporals McMahon and Judge while at the Defense Attaché's office and Pilots Nystul and Shea (Dunham 1973–1975 ).