war- australia keep out!!!!!!! , page-39

The Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam was signed in Paris on 27 January, 1973, between the USA, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the NLF's provisional revolutionary government.

On 21 April 1975, the South's President Thieu resigned and was replaced by Vice President Tran Van Huong. He was then replaced by Duong Van Minh on 28 April 1975.

Duong was thought, at the time, to be more acceptable to the communists, but they refused to negotiate.

15 PAVN (ie: the North's) battalions which, since 20 April 1975 had virtually encircled Saigon, then began to move toward Saigon.

On 30 April 1975, communist forces entered the capital, and President Duong ordered the ARVN (ie: the South's) troops to lay down their arms.

The last choppers out of Saigon, carrying American personnel and some of the collapsed South Vietnamese regime, left from the rooftops of the American embassy on the morning of 30 April 1975.

Just over 14 months later, Vietnam was formally reunified and Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

In the end, the Vietnam War had lasted from 1961 to 1972 (in terms of direct involvement) and through to 1975 (following the signing of the Peace Accords in january 1973).

American casualties in Vietnam during the era of direct involvement were more than 50,000 dead.

The South lost more than 400,000, and Viet Cong and the North (combined), more than 900,000.

A war completed by proxy against the latticed background of the Cold War with China and Russia on the one side, and the ANZUS forces (and some SEATO forces) aligned against them, on the other (particularly following the French surrender of its garrison forces in Vietnam on 7 May 1954, the lessons of Vietnam serve as a valuable reminder that most wars are proxy fights, and no war of the modern era has been fought solely on the basis of localised interests.