Gen. Taylor will report to President Kennedy in a few days on the results of his visit to South Viet Nam and, judging from some of his remarks to reporters in the Far East, he is likely to urge a more efficient mobilization of Vietnamese military, economic, political and other resources.

The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh.

* 1970 – Vietnam War: United States and South Vietnamese forces invade Cambodia to hunt Viet Cong.

* 1975 – General Cao Van Vien, chief of the South Vietnamese military, departs for the US as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on victory.

* 1958 – A parcel bomb sent by Ngo Dinh Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, fails to kill King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.

* 1975 – Vietnam War: President of South Vietnam Nguyen Van Thieu flees Saigon, as Xuan Loc, the last South Vietnamese outpost blocking a direct North Vietnamese assault on Saigon, falls.

In the 1970s, high levels of dioxin were found in the breast milk of South Vietnamese women, and in the blood of U. S. soldiers who had served in Vietnam.

* 1972 – Vietnam War: Nguyen Hue Offensive – The North Vietnamese 320th Division forces 5, 000 South Vietnamese troops to retreat and traps about 2, 500 others northwest of Kontum.

* 1975 – As North Vietnamese forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.

By the mid-1960s, parts of Cambodia's eastern provinces were serving as bases for North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong ( NVA / VC ) forces operating against South Vietnam, and the port of Sihanoukville was being used to supply them.

However Prince Sihanouk wanted Cambodia to stay out of the North Vietnam-South Vietnam conflict and was very critical of the United States government and its allies ( the South Vietnamese government ).

On April 1970, US President Nixon announced to the American public that US and South Vietnamese ground forces had entered Cambodia in a campaign aimed at destroying NVA base areas in Cambodia ( see Cambodian Incursion ).

Although a considerable quantity of equipment was seized or destroyed by US and South Vietnamese forces, containment of North Vietnamese forces proved elusive.

The North Vietnamese moved deeper into Cambodia to avoid US and South Vietnamese raids.

" When Congress, in the summer of 1973, legislated an end to U. S. military action in, over, or off the shores of Indochina, the only U. S. military activity then going on was air support of a friendly Cambodian government and army desperately defending their country against a North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge onslaught ... What destabilized Cambodia was North Vietnam's occupation of chunks of Cambodian territory from 1965 onwards for use as military bases from which to launch attacks on U. S. and South Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam.

VNAF a / c details sourced from " Flying Dragon – The South Vietnamese Air Force " Robert C. Milikesh, Schiffer Military History, 2005

This included limited flight training operations in the T-28 Trojan for South Vietnamese Air Force ( VNAF ) student pilots.

This aircraft served as a US trainer, and also served in the VNAF South Vietnam Air Force, reflecting immigrants in the Commonwealth who had served in the Vietnamese armed forces.

* VNAF The South Vietnamese Air Force-Không Quân Việt Nam Cộng Hòa

Units from the South Vietnamese Air Force ( VNAF ) took on more and more combat to defend their nation and USAF tactical air strength was being reduced as several air bases were turned over to the VNAF.

American and South Vietnamese Air Force ( VNAF ) aircraft had been supporting the defense ( weather permitting ) since the inception of the offensive.

With the collapse of South Vietnam, an unknown number of VNAF helicopters and some fixed-wing aircraft flew out to the evacuation fleet.

During the course of the operation an unknown number of VNAF helicopters flew out of what remained of South Vietnam to the fleet.

Cutting short a holiday at Hong Kong, the aircraft carriers Lexington and Bennington steamed off into the South China Sea, accompanied by a swarm of destroyers, plus troopships loaded with marines.

* In 1931, Bert Hinkler made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight across the South Atlantic in an aircraft.

* Atlas Aircraft Corporation, a South African military aircraft manufacturer, formerly known as Atlas Aviation

** Atlas Cheetah, a fighter aircraft of the South African Air Force

* 1993 – South Dakota governor George Mickelson and seven others are killed when a state-owned aircraft crashes in Iowa.

In a letter dated August 1, 1969, and addressed to the President of the Security Council, the Permanent Representative of Cambodia alleged to the United Nations Security Council that aircraft from the United States and South Vietnam scattered ‘ poisonous yellow powder ’ along its frontiers with South Vietnam in May and June.

It is also a heavily flown route for commercial and private aircraft heading towards Florida, the Caribbean, and South America from points north.

Both were Avro Tudor IV passenger aircraft operated by British South American Airways.

* 1964 – Melbourne-Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier collides with the destroyer off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia.

During the Korean War, Soviet pilots flew Soviet aircraft from Chinese bases against United Nations aircraft defending South Korea.

* 1969 – Melbourne-Evans collision: Off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier cuts the U. S. Navy destroyer in half.

He supported the Commonwealth in campaigning to abolish apartheid in South Africa, and refused permission for the aircraft carrying the Springbok rugby team to refuel on Australian territory en route to their controversial 1981 tour of New Zealand.

** South Dakota governor George Mickelson and seven others are killed when a state-owned aircraft crashes near Dubuque, Iowa.

* June 3 – While operating at sea on SEATO maneuvers, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne accidentally rammed and sliced in two the American destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in the South China Sea, killing 74 American seamen.

* December 10 – WWII: The British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse are sunk by Japanese aircraft in the South China Sea north of Singapore.

Work there resulted in the design and installation of aircraft detection and tracking stations called Chain Home along the East and South coasts of England in time for the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

On 1 August 2011, US drones and reportedly Yemeni aircraft attacked three targets with bombs and missiles in South Yemen, killing 15 suspected al Qaeda militants and wounding 17 others.

Unmanned ( UAV ) surveillance aircraft have been deployed or are under development in many countries, including Israel, the UK, the United States, Canada, China, South Africa, Pakistan and India.

African harbours were closed to the South African government, and South African aircraft were prohibited from flying over the rest of the continent.

C-130 aircraft in South Vietnam also bounded on runways to the extent that a tight seat belt improved the pilot's ability to control the aircraft.

Two of the latter were new aircraft that had been ordered by British South American Airways ( BSAA ).