22 Gia Long Street (, ), now 22 Lý Tự Trọng Street (), is an

apartment building An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ...

Ho Chi Minh City , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...

(also known as Saigon), the largest city in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. In 1975, photojournalist

Hubert van Es Hubert van Es (6 July 1941 – 15 May 2009) was a Dutch photographer and photojournalist who took the well-known photo on 29 April 1975, which shows South Vietnamese civilians scrambling to board a CIA Air America helicopter during the U.S. e ...

, working for

UPI United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...

, captured an iconic photo of U.S government employees evacuating the city by helicopter during the

Fall of Saigon The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon by North Vietnamese or Liberation of the South by the Vietnamese government, and known as Black April by anti-communist overseas Vietnamese was the capture of Saigon, the capital of ...

, the last major battle of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. The evacuation was code named

Operation Frequent Wind Operation Frequent Wind was the final phase in the evacuation of American civilians and "at-risk" Vietnamese from Saigon, South Vietnam, before the takeover of the city by the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) in the Fall of Saig ...

. The image was widely misreported as showing Americans crowding on to the roof of the

United States Embassy The United States has the second most diplomatic missions of any country in the world after Mainland China, including 166 of the 193 member countries of the United Nations, as well as observer state Vatican City and non-member countries Kosovo a ...

to board a helicopter. In reality, the apartment complex, called the Pittman Apartments, housed employees of the

United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...

(USAID), with its top floor reserved for the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

's deputy chief of station; the embassy was located at 4 Thống Nhứt Boulevard (now

Lê Duẩn Lê Duẩn (; 7 April 1907 – 10 July 1986) was a Vietnamese communist politician. He rose in the party hierarchy in the late 1950s and became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (VCP) at the 3rd Nat ...

Boulevard), about to the north-northeast. The photo depicts an Air America

Huey helicopter The Bell Huey family of helicopters includes a wide range of civil and military aircraft produced since 1956 by Bell Helicopter. This H-1 family of aircraft includes the utility UH-1 Iroquois and the derivative AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter series ...

landing on the roof of the elevator shaft to evacuate employees of the

U.S. government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

North Vietnam North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...

ese

People's Army of Vietnam The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN; vi, Quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam, QĐNDVN), also recognized as the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) or the Vietnamese Army (), is the military force of the Vietnam, Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the ...

troops entered Saigon. The frequent misunderstanding of what the photograph shows stems from a change made to the photograph's caption at the Tokyo office of United Press International (UPI). Although the photographer van Es submitted the photo to UPI with an accurate caption, UPI's Tokyo office changed the caption so it falsely read: "A U.S. helicopter evacuating employees of the U.S. embassy." Although van Es repeatedly attempted to correct the error, his efforts were "futile" and he eventually "gave up." Thus, as van Es has explained, " e of the best known images of the Vietnam War shows something other than what almost everyone thinks it does." At the end of the war, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, and Gia Long Street (named for the emperor

Gia Long Gia Long ( (''North''), ('' South''); 8 February 1762 – 3 February 1820), born Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (阮福暎) or Nguyễn Ánh, was the founding emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, the last dynasty of Vietnam. His dynasty would rule the unif ...

, reigned 1802–1820) was renamed

Lý Tự Trọng Lý Tự Trọng (20 October 1914 in Thailand – 21 November 1931 in Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon; born Lê Hữu Trọng) was a Vietnamese revolutionary, executed by the French when he was only 17 years old. He is considered to be a revolutionar ...

Street, in honor of a 17-year-old communist executed by the French. Visitors are allowed access to the roof by taking the elevator to the 9th floor. As the

2021 Taliban offensive A military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and other allied militants led to the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan based in Kabul and marked the end of the nearly 20-year-old War in Afghanistan, that had begun following the ...

led to the Fall of Kabul, reporters drew comparisons between the evacuation at 22 Gia Long Street to images of helicopter evacuations from the U.S. embassy in Kabul. The

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

continued to misreport the photo as showing the US Embassy, later changed to the non-existent "CIA station".

References

External links

* {{coord, 10.778276, 106.70138, display=title Installations of the Central Intelligence Agency United States Agency for International Development Apartment buildings Residential buildings in Vietnam Buildings and structures in Ho Chi Minh City Saigon History of South Vietnam Tourism in Vietnam Vietnam War sites