This is how reporters on the spot saw the fall of Saigon:Saigon, 29 April – Saigon was in its death throes today. The Americans were leaving and the city that has been the centre of non-Communist Vietnam since 1954 was confused, frightened and relieved at the same time …Martin Woollacott of ‘The Guardian’Saigon, South Vietnam, Wednesday 30 April – With American fighter planes flying cover and marines standing guard on the ground, Americans left Saigon yesterday by helicopter after fighting off throngs of Vietnamese civilians who tried to go along.Eighty-one helicopters from carriers in the South China Sea landed at Tan Son Nhut airport and on roofs at the United States embassy compound to pick up most of the approximately 1,000 remaining Americans and several thousand Vietnamese. Nowhere have the changes been more visible than in the motorbikes and construction that now cover Ho Chi Minh City. And Vietnam’s biggest single trading partner today is the US.Dateline Saigon: when the end cameThirty years ago the Vietnam War ended in scenes of chaos and humiliation for the Americans, and victory for their North Vietnamese enemies. While the numbers of US dead are relatively slight – fewer than 1,600 – thousands of troops are returning maimed and wounded, as they did from Vietnam.Bobby White, director of the Fort Lauderdale Veterans Centre in Florida, was an infantryman in 1969 and 1970 and then went to college in Miami, where he watched the footage of the US withdrawal. Diplomatic relations were restored 10 years ago.Despite Vietnam’s remarkable recovery from war, most of its largely agrarian population of 82 million remains poor, with per capita income at about $550 (£288) a year. But in relative terms the country is on the crest of an economic wave.

“Knowing you were there, feeling all the pain from the whole Vietnam War and also remembering all your friends who didn’t make it.”After years of mistrust, relations between the US and Vietnam have steadily improved despite the refusal of Washington to pay compensation to the millions of Vietnamese who have suffered severe health problems from Agent Orange, the toxic defoliant used by US forces. “It’s not something you forget,” he told the Sun Sentinel newspaper. If ever an example was required of this, look no further than last year’s presidential campaign, when Democratic candidate John Kerry was utterly knocked off course by false allegations about his service record in Vietnam.For many veterans in the US, the current situation in Iraq – with the US engaged in another war against an insurgent enemy that was initially underestimated – is a source of constant reminders. “My father and grandfather fought in the war but I was too young,” said Nguyen Thanh Tung, an 18-year-old student. “I think my future will be good because they created opportunities for my generation.”In the US, however, the war in Vietnam remains a national sore – an event that, at a psychological level, the country wants to move on from but appears unable to. Memories of the war are little more than anecdotes in history books for most Vietnamese who were born after it ended.

The fall of the city marked the official end of the Vietnam War, and a more than decade-long American attempt to halt the spread of Communism in the region. The vast majority of US troops had left two years earlier but Washington continued to support the government of South Vietnam.”I was listening to the radio with my family and heard that Saigon had been liberated. Meanwhile, in Washington, the capital of their once deadliest foe, any commemorations were entirely private affairs. In the city once known to the West as Saigon, thousands of cheering Vietnamese took to the streets yesterday to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their victory over the US. Watched by government officials and war heroes such as General Vo Nguyen Giap, soldiers, workers and performers marched with red flags.Hundreds of ageing veterans, their chests decked with medals, watched from the sidelines.

Giant billboards of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam’s revolutionary leader, dominated the parade ground and adjoining streets.In the US too this week, there have been gatherings of veterans to honour the friends that never returned. Survivors were left without food or shelter for more than a week while Mr Kapse’s administration refused to allow foreign aid or relief workers to reach them.At one point, survivors who had trekked for days without food or clean water found an official eating alongside crates of undelivered aid. But in Washington – where the Vietnam memorial on the Mall remains a constant magnet for visitors – there has been little official recognition of the war that cost the lives of 58,000 US troops and more than three million Vietnamese.It was on 30 April 1975 that Communist tanks barrelled through the gates of the presidential palace, the heart of the US-backed Saigon government. But in the aftermath of the tsunami, those immigrants have been returning to the mainland.It is mostly the ethnic Nicobarese who remain on the islands. Now, after decades of their indigenous culture coming under attack from a flood of mainland immigrants, they feel they are being abandoned. Enraged, they kidnapped him and demanded that the relief be distributed..

Many of those who made a livelihood from agriculture have lost their entire crop, as well as their homes, and will struggle to survive until they can replant.”This is the biggest joke the administration is playing on these devastated people,” said Rashid Yusuf, chief of the Tribal Youth Association in the Nicobars.Trying to limit the damage from the bad publicity, Mr Kapse, the Lieutenant-Governor, said more compensation was on its way.Many Indian commentators thought Mr Kapse was lucky to keep his job after the woeful relief effort on the islands. “Even judging by the government’s assessment of damage, I should have received at least 5,000 to 6,000 rupees,” she told the BBC. “You don’t pay two rupees even for a broken window pane.”Ms Champion says she cannot even cash the cheque because she has no bank account. Daniel Yunus from Malacca on Car Nicobar, the worst-hit island, received a cheque for 41 rupees, which the Indian government said was to cover the loss of 200 areca nut trees and 300 banana trees.This comes after the central government in Delhi said it would provide 8.2bn rupees for the relief and rehabilitation of tsunami victims in the Andamans. For survivors, the sums the government is giving out could be economically disastrous.Before the tsunami hit, the Andamans were seen as a paradise by many Indians Thousands of immigrants moved in from the mainland. She lost 300 coconut and areca trees in the tsunami, damage she estimates at 20,000 rupees.