Jan K. Herman, The Lucky Few: The Fall of Saigon and the Rescue Mission of the USS Kirk, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2013, 134pp.
Review by CDRE Jack McCaffrie of the Seapower Centre, Australia.
THE Lucky Few is a slim easily read account of the chaotic evacuation from South Vietnam in April and May 1975, as the North Vietnamese Army approached Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). It focuses on the convoy of mostly South Vietnamese Navy vessels carrying about 30,000 refugees from Saigon to Subic Bay, before their onward passage to the USA. But it is also the story of the USS Kirk, a Knox class frigate commanded by Commander Paul Jacobs, which played a key role in the successful operation.
