The reason Saigon fell was also the fact that the South Vietnamese Army had no arms with which to fight for their own country, courtesy of the US Congress controlled by Democrats reneging on treaty obligations.
I met a person, that I worked with, quite a while ago now, who worked with the South Vietnam soldiers. He said that in the beginning, no one wanted them around, their cowardice, led to their lines collapsing, leaving a lot of our people exposed which got quite a few of them killed.
After that, they put the South Vietnamese soldiers in the front and told them if they turned around, they would be killed.
He said, after a while they became good fighters and good assets.
I forget which push it was, but, just before the transfer for the South Vietnamese Army to take control of their own defences, Word came to the Americans that the North Viet Cong were on their way. The Americans were ordered to leave immediately and not tell the south Vietnamese soldiers about what was coming their way.
My friend said that the North Viet Cong surprise really hit the South Vietnamese hard. They took really big loses. But, then they started to recover and make a stand, but without American aid or support they collapsed which is not a surprising outcome considering the circumstances.
This is story from one person I knew. I have never heard it repeated by anyone. All I hear about is that the South Vietnamese were no good. Nothing else as to why they might have failed.
Has any Vietnam Vet, or anyone else, heard of any similar stories?