How can more civilians be evacuated from SVN before 30/4/75?

As per the title above, how can many more civilians from South Vietnam can be evacuated from the country by civilian or military flights, including helicopter and boat during Operation Frequent Wind, before the PAVN entered Saigon and the Republic of Vietnam finally collapsed?

Doing a RP idea here for another forum.
 
I remember a article in the Marine Corps Gazette, published circa 1987, by one of the officers aboard the cargo ship Pioneer Contender which helped evacuate DaNang. No count of the people taken aboard was taken, tho the officer estimated 15,000 men women and children may have been aboard for 30 hours. The ship was disembarked at a pier in the vicinity of Saigon. No food was loaded for the passengers & only two ordinary 18mm hose spigots were available for water. No toilet facilities outside the crew quarters. A platoon of approx thirty Marines were provided to keep order. They were assisted by a few dozen cooperative stray ARVN soldiers aboard.

I suspect the experience of the Pioneer Contender represented the degree of unpreparedness, confusion, and panic surrounding the collapse. Perhaps had the US DoD been better prepared a more organized evacuation could have been had. My own role in this was on a working party at a receiving camp at Marine Corps Base Pendelton. I spent 12-14 hour shifts for five days at mundane maintenance tasks in the camp. The refugees were flown in from the collection/screening center on Guam or Luzon & spent a few days at US military camps being 'processed' before sent on to the case of assorted social service organizations across the US. At that point the refugee stream was well organized & I saw few problems.
 
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Gerald R. Ford: The American Presidents Series: The 38th President, 1974-1977, Douglas Brinkley (Tulane University professor, not the reporter guy), Times Books, 2007, pages 95-96:

https://books.google.com/books?id=6...States had a moral and humanitarian "&f=false

' . . . [April 17, 1975] Kissinger cabled Ambassador Martin [South Vietnam]: " . . . The sentiment of our military, DOD and CIA colleagues was to get out fast and now." But the declassified record also shows that the commander in chief insisted that the United States had a moral and humanitarian obligation to airlift out as many South Vietnamese as possible and bring them to America. At Fords' behest, Kissinger cabled Martin on April 24. "We are amazed at the small number of Vietnamese being evacuated, considering the substantial amount of aircraft available," he wrote. "I know you feel, as we do, a heavy moral obligation to evacuate as many deserving Vietnamese as possible, and I urge you to redouble your efforts in that regard. The President expects these instructions to be carried out fully and within the time schedule he has set out. For his part, he plans to call the NSC together this afternoon to lay down the law." . . . '
Good for President Ford!! :)

If anything, maybe he could have insisted that the machinery of State Dept. and the military services move even quicker and more energetically.

As far as the DOD and CIA wanting to "get out fast and now," that could be an example of how sorry the national security mindset is. It could also be an example of group think. And it could well be both, plus more as well.
 
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Ambassador Martin refused to admit it was time to evacuate until the 29th, and refused Marine guards requests to cut down a large Tamarind tree on embassy grounds to allow more Helicopters to land till late.

Have that cut down when the Marines first request that be done, and many more flights could be done.

He could have given that evac order itself days earlier, say anytime after DaNang fell on April 1st, before the airfields around Saigon were closed by mortar attacks on the 20th, IIRC after Xuan Loc fell and it was obvious to all but the Ambassador that South Vietnam was done.
 
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