Episode 146: The Mayaguez Incident - The Last American Casualties of Vietnam, Part VI

 

The crew of the SS Mayaguez is released by the Khmer Rouge, but it is too late to stop the US rescue attempt. Now President Ford wants to pull out the troops, but since information flowed a lot slower in 1975 than it does in 2025, the second wave of US Marines was already on site. Will they follow presidential orders or will they disregard their commander-in-chief and extricate their comrades under siege in enemy territory?

While those decisions were being made, the destroyer USS Henry B. Wilson came across the survivors of the Knife-31 crash that happened in the opening minutes of the attempted invasion of Koh Tang and was able to rescue them after they had survived more than two hours treading water in the ocean