Okla-homey
4/4/2008, 07:30 AM
April 4, 1975: Operation BABYLIFT begins with a tragedy
http://aycu01.webshots.com/image/48280/2006326003194509377_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006326003194509377)
The operation was flown out of Tan Son Nhut Air Base just northwest of Saigon (renamed Ho Chi Minh City by Charles)
http://aycu25.webshots.com/image/51064/2001902850164898461_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001902850164898461)
33 years ago today, a tragic footnote occurred at the end of the over twenty year US involvment in SEA. The children born from relationships between American servicemen and Vietnamese women may be the largest group of war children in the world. Unfortunately for these mixed-race children, they were not generally accepted in polite Vietnamese society and faced prejudice and discrimination even among South Vietnamese.
http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/48989/2006360622639526035_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006360622639526035)
Moreover, there was extensive documented evidence North Vietnamese extremists were prone to kill on sight obviously mixed race children because they were deemed a legacy of a Vietnamese woman's traitorous liaison with an enemy GI.
Thus, with North Vietnamese victory imminent, unlike most "war children" throughout our nation's history, orphaned Amerasian children were given the right to migrate to the United States.
By April 1975, "The Friends of Children of Viet Nam" (FCVN) saw that the country of Vietnam was collapsing and milk and medicine for children were impossible to find. Moreover, orphanage staffs simply could not protect their charges from the VC and NVA threat barrelling towards the South Vietnamese capital.
FCVN and other humanitarian groups, with the agreement of President Gerald Ford, announced Operation BABYLIFT would fly an estimated 70,000 orphans out of Vietnam with the 2 million dollars that a special foreign aid children’s fund had provided.
http://aycu03.webshots.com/image/49442/2006384048309492494_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006384048309492494)
Children enroute to aircraft
Ultimately, the operation involved both pureblood Vietnamese and Amerasian babies and young children. Thirty flights were planned to evacuate the orphans. On April 3, planes began to fly the orphans out.
http://aycu36.webshots.com/image/47915/2006337103893872897_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006337103893872897)
Tan Son Nhut Air Base
The operation began with disaster on this day in 1975 when an Air Force
C-5A crashes shortly after departing from Tan Son Nhut Air Base at Saigon. The aircraft had been airborne for less than 15 minutes when disaster struck.
The rear clamshell doors on the huge airlifter (then the world's largest aircraft) blew open and the rapid depressurization sucked many aboard out into the air.
http://aycu16.webshots.com/image/49015/2006364129968432925_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006364129968432925)
Rear view of a C-5A showing the aft clamshell doors that blew open on the doomed flight
The flight crew were quite skilled and nevertheless managed to keep the stricken giant under control while desperately attempting to return to Tan Son Nhut AB and an emergency landing. It crashed about two miles from the airport in a rice paddy, breaking into several parts. The crash killed 144 adults and children (including 76 babies) of the 305 aboard (243 children, 44 escorts, 16 crewmen and 2 flight nurses). The crew's heroic action saved over half the tiny passengers.
http://aycu12.webshots.com/image/49771/2006332978733338933_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006332978733338933)
Infants placed in rows along the cargo deck
Rescue helicopters arriving quickly from Saigon were unable to land in the water of the surrounding rice paddies. The crew members, nurses, and volunteers (some of them wounded themselves) waded through the mud carrying the children to the helicopters hovering nearby. They had to shield the wounded with their bodies as winds from the helicopter rotors tossed the aircraft debris and smoke though the air.
The operation lasted for 10 days and was carried out during the final, desperate phase of the war, as North Vietnamese forces closed in on Saigon. Although this first flight ended in tragedy, all subsequent flights were completed safely, and BABYLIFT aircraft brought orphans across the Pacific until the mission's conclusion on April 14, only 16 days before the fall of Saigon and the end of the war.
http://aycu37.webshots.com/image/51276/2006358828752673391_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006358828752673391)
North Vietnamese Army troops overrunning Tan Son Nhut Air Base - South Vietnam - 30 April 1975
http://aycu12.webshots.com/image/51691/2001974177338382671_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001974177338382671)
Memorial plaque at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH.
http://aycu01.webshots.com/image/48280/2006326003194509377_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006326003194509377)
The operation was flown out of Tan Son Nhut Air Base just northwest of Saigon (renamed Ho Chi Minh City by Charles)
http://aycu25.webshots.com/image/51064/2001902850164898461_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001902850164898461)
33 years ago today, a tragic footnote occurred at the end of the over twenty year US involvment in SEA. The children born from relationships between American servicemen and Vietnamese women may be the largest group of war children in the world. Unfortunately for these mixed-race children, they were not generally accepted in polite Vietnamese society and faced prejudice and discrimination even among South Vietnamese.
http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/48989/2006360622639526035_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006360622639526035)
Moreover, there was extensive documented evidence North Vietnamese extremists were prone to kill on sight obviously mixed race children because they were deemed a legacy of a Vietnamese woman's traitorous liaison with an enemy GI.
Thus, with North Vietnamese victory imminent, unlike most "war children" throughout our nation's history, orphaned Amerasian children were given the right to migrate to the United States.
By April 1975, "The Friends of Children of Viet Nam" (FCVN) saw that the country of Vietnam was collapsing and milk and medicine for children were impossible to find. Moreover, orphanage staffs simply could not protect their charges from the VC and NVA threat barrelling towards the South Vietnamese capital.
FCVN and other humanitarian groups, with the agreement of President Gerald Ford, announced Operation BABYLIFT would fly an estimated 70,000 orphans out of Vietnam with the 2 million dollars that a special foreign aid children’s fund had provided.
http://aycu03.webshots.com/image/49442/2006384048309492494_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006384048309492494)
Children enroute to aircraft
Ultimately, the operation involved both pureblood Vietnamese and Amerasian babies and young children. Thirty flights were planned to evacuate the orphans. On April 3, planes began to fly the orphans out.
http://aycu36.webshots.com/image/47915/2006337103893872897_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006337103893872897)
Tan Son Nhut Air Base
The operation began with disaster on this day in 1975 when an Air Force
C-5A crashes shortly after departing from Tan Son Nhut Air Base at Saigon. The aircraft had been airborne for less than 15 minutes when disaster struck.
The rear clamshell doors on the huge airlifter (then the world's largest aircraft) blew open and the rapid depressurization sucked many aboard out into the air.
http://aycu16.webshots.com/image/49015/2006364129968432925_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006364129968432925)
Rear view of a C-5A showing the aft clamshell doors that blew open on the doomed flight
The flight crew were quite skilled and nevertheless managed to keep the stricken giant under control while desperately attempting to return to Tan Son Nhut AB and an emergency landing. It crashed about two miles from the airport in a rice paddy, breaking into several parts. The crash killed 144 adults and children (including 76 babies) of the 305 aboard (243 children, 44 escorts, 16 crewmen and 2 flight nurses). The crew's heroic action saved over half the tiny passengers.
http://aycu12.webshots.com/image/49771/2006332978733338933_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006332978733338933)
Infants placed in rows along the cargo deck
Rescue helicopters arriving quickly from Saigon were unable to land in the water of the surrounding rice paddies. The crew members, nurses, and volunteers (some of them wounded themselves) waded through the mud carrying the children to the helicopters hovering nearby. They had to shield the wounded with their bodies as winds from the helicopter rotors tossed the aircraft debris and smoke though the air.
The operation lasted for 10 days and was carried out during the final, desperate phase of the war, as North Vietnamese forces closed in on Saigon. Although this first flight ended in tragedy, all subsequent flights were completed safely, and BABYLIFT aircraft brought orphans across the Pacific until the mission's conclusion on April 14, only 16 days before the fall of Saigon and the end of the war.
http://aycu37.webshots.com/image/51276/2006358828752673391_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2006358828752673391)
North Vietnamese Army troops overrunning Tan Son Nhut Air Base - South Vietnam - 30 April 1975
http://aycu12.webshots.com/image/51691/2001974177338382671_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001974177338382671)
Memorial plaque at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH.