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Operation EAGLE PULL

April 12, 1975

1975-04-12_OpEaglePull_DSC_0808
1975-04-12_OpEaglePull_DSC_0808
Marines from the 9th Marine Regiment run to board CH-53 helicopters in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, after evacuees have been lifted out, April 12, 1975. (National Archives)

U.S. Marines and Airmen execute Operation EAGLE PULL, the evacuation of Americans and other foreign nationals from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, just before the country falls to Cambodian Communists, the Khmer Rouge. Operating from the decks of the amphibious assault ship USS Okinawa, the aircraft carrier USS Hancock, and other vessels, U.S. Marine and Air Force helicopters airlift 276 people, including U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia John Gunther Dean and acting Cambodian President Saukham Khoy. There are no casualties in the operation, which ends U.S. involvement in Cambodia.1

1Edward J. Marolda, By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1994), 358–61; George R. Dunham and David A. Quinlan, The Bitter End, 1973–1975, U.S. Marines in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: US Marine Corps History and Museums Division, 1990), 99–124. Spencer C. Tucker, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2nd edition; Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 323.