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As the operation continued, many helicopters came under fire. Most evacuees sat in cold panic as their choppers took off. "For the next three minutes as we gained altitude," reported TIME Correspondent William Stewart, "we held our breaths. We knew the Communists had been using heat-seeking missiles, and we were prepared to be shot out of the sky. As I turned around to see who was aboard, Buu Vien, the South Vietnamese Interior Minister, smiled and gave a thumbs-up signal. Forty minutes later we were aboard the U.S.S. Denver, a landing-platform dock, and safe."
By nightfall, the mission had been completed at Tan Son Nhut, but the evacuation of the embassy was still to be accomplished. Sheets of rain were pelting the city, and visibility had dropped to barely a mile. Some choppers had to rely on flares fired by Marines within the embassy compound to find landing zones; others homed in on flashlights.
Through Tuesday night, the Vietnamese crowd grew uglier; hundreds tried to scale the ten-foot wall, despite the barbed wire strung atop it. Marines had to use tear gas and rifle butts to hold back the surging mob. Some screamed, some pleaded to be taken along. Floor by floor, the Marines withdrew toward the roof of the embassy with looters right behind them. Abandoned offices were transformed into junkyards of smashed typewriters and ransacked file cabinets. Even the bronze plaque with the names of the five American servicemen who died in the embassy during the 1968 Tet offensive was torn from the lobby wall. Marines hurled tear-gas grenades into the elevator shaft; at tunes the air was so thick with tear gas that the helicopter pilots on the roof were affected.
By that tune, tempers were frayed in Washington as well as Saigon. Martin had drawn up a list of 500 Vietnamese to be evacuated; he refused to leave until all were safely gone. His delay prompted one Administration official to quip, "Martin got all 600 of his 500 Vietnamese out." Finally, at 5 p.m. Washington tune—it was then 5 a.m. in Saigon—Kissinger told the President that Martin was closing down the embassy and destroying its communications equipment. Minutes later, a helicopter broadcast the message: "Lady Ace Zero Nine, Code Two is aboard." Lady Ace 09 was the chopper's own call signal; Code Two designates an ambassador.
As many as 130 South Vietnamese planes and helicopters, including F-5 fighter-bombers, transports and attack planes, were reported meanwhile to have reached the U.S.-run Utapao air-base in Thailand with about 2,000 soldiers and civilians; already some 1,000 Cambodian refugees were crowded into tents there. Alarmed, the Thai government announced that the refugees had to leave within 30 days and that it would return the planes to "the next government in South Viet Nam." Defense Secretary James Schlesinger firmly advised Bangkok that it should do no such thing; under aid agreements, the equipment cannot be transferred to a new government but must revert to U.S. possession.