Humanitarian· Vietnam War
Op EAGLE PULL
Operation Eagle Pull was the helicopter evacuation of Phnom Penh as Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge, a Marine-supported lift that removed American personnel, allied Cambodians, and others from the doomed capital in the final days before its collapse.
Marines secured a landing zone in the city and provided the ground security force while helicopters carried the evacuees out to ships waiting offshore, a swift and orderly operation conducted as the Khmer Rouge closed in on the capital. The evacuation went off without significant combat, the Marines holding the perimeter and overseeing the departure before withdrawing themselves once the lift was complete. Eagle Pull marked the end of the American presence in Cambodia and served as a rehearsal, only weeks before the far larger and more chaotic evacuation of Saigon. It was a textbook execution of a noncombatant evacuation from a collapsing capital, accomplished cleanly under the shadow of impending disaster.
Record no. 715