I retired from civil service as a GS-15 in August 2012. I worked from December 2012 to May 2013 for Booz Allen Hamilton as a strategic communications associate, working on a federal contract supporting TRICARE and the Defense Health Agency. I decided to take my final retirement in May 2013. Since that time, I have been playing drums in a classic rock band, riding and restoring motorcycles, taking photos, collecting and building scale model aircraft, shooting my guns, and enjoying life!
Description Operation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries (including Australia, France, and Canada) at the end of the Vietnam War (see also the Fall of Saigon), from April 3–26, 1975. By the final American flight out of South Vietnam, over 3,300 infants and children had been evacuated, although the actual number has been variously reported. Along with Operation New Life, over 110,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. Thousands of children were airlifted from Vietnam and adopted by families around the world.
Overview
A pair of well-worn baby shoes worn by an orphan evacuated from Vietnam during Operation Babylift
With the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang having fallen in March, and with Saigon under attack and being shelled, on April 3, 1975, U.S. President Gerald Ford announced that the U.S. government would begin evacuating orphans from Saigon on a series of 30 planned flights aboard C-5A Galaxy cargo aircraft.
Service organizations including Holt International Children's Services, Friends of Children of Viet Nam (FCVN), Friends For All Children (FFAC), Catholic Relief Service, International Social Services, International Orphans and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation petitioned the government to help evacuate the various orphans in their facilities in Vietnam. In their book, Silence Broken, Childhelp (International Orphans at the time) founders Sara O'Meara and Yvonne Fedderson chronicle their request from Lieutenant General Lewis William Walt to help with evacuations and finding homes for the Asian-American orphans.
Flights continued until artillery attacks by North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong military units on Tan Son Nhut Airport rendered airplane flights impossible.
The operation was controversial because there was question about whether the evacuation was in the children's best interest, and because not all the children were orphans.
Plane crash
Main article: Tan Son Nhut C-5 accident
A C-5A Galaxy 68-0218 flew the initial mission of Operation Babylift to bring Vietnamese orphans to the US in the few remaining days before the Republic of Vietnam fell. The C-5 departed Saigon-Tan Son Nhut Airport shortly after 4 p.m. on April 4, 1975. Twelve minutes after takeoff, there was what seemed to be an explosion as the lower rear fuselage was torn apart. The locks of the rear loading ramp had failed, causing the door to open and separate. A rapid decompression occurred. Control and trim cables to the rudder and elevators were severed, leaving only one aileron and wing spoilers operating. Two of the four hydraulic systems were out. The crew wrestled at the controls, managing to keep control of the plane with changes in power settings by using the one working aileron and wing spoilers. The crew descended to an altitude of 4,000 feet on a heading of 310 degrees in preparation for landing on Tan Son Nhut's runway 25L. About halfway through a turn to final approach, the rate of descent increased rapidly. Seeing they couldn't make the runway, full power was applied to bring the nose up. The C-5 touched down in a rice paddy. Skidding for a quarter of a mile, the aircraft again became airborne for a half mile before hitting a dike and breaking into four parts, some of which caught fire. According to DIA figures, 138 people were killed in the crash, including 78 children and 35 Defense Attaché Office Saigon personnel.
When American businessman Robert Macauley learned that it would take more than a week to evacuate the surviving orphans due to the lack of military transport planes, he chartered a Boeing 747 from Pan Am and arranged for 300 orphaned children to leave the country, paying for the trip by mortgaging his house.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
April / 1975
To Month/Year
April / 1975
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
People You Remember
Col. James I. Baginski, Commander, 374th Tactical Airlift Wing
US President Gerald R. Ford
U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam Graham Martin
Capt Dennis "Bud" Traynor, C-5A aircraft commander and pilot
Capt. Tilford Harp, C-5A copilot
Capt. Mary Thresa Klinker, flight nurse
1Lt. Regina Aune, flight nurse
Memories
I was assigned as the wing historian for the 374th Tactical Airlift Wing at Clark AB, Philippines, on April 4, 1975.
With much of South Vietnam overrun by North Vietnamese forces in early April 1975, the administration of US President Gerald R. Ford began instituting the evacuation of American citizens. To avoid alarming the host country, U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam Graham Martin authorized Americans to be flown out under several pretexts, one of which was Operation Babylift, in which American caregivers were paired with South Vietnamese orphans, most fathered by American servicemembers. On the afternoon of Friday, 4 April 1975, C-5A, serial number 68-0218, making the first flight of Operation Babylift, departed Tan Son Nhat Air Base for Clark Air Base in the Philippines. There, the 374th Tactical Airlift Wing was waiting to transfer the first group of orphans to charter flights and be welcomed by President Ford upon arriving in the United States at San Diego, California. (Our job in the 374th was to facilitate the offloading of the passengers and their boarding of the charter aircraft for the trip to the CONUS. Further, our Air Lift Control Element (ALCE) had made the charter arrangements for the civilian aircraft making the trip from Clark to CONUS with the orphans aboard.)
At 4:15 p.m. the C-5A was over the South China Sea about 13 nautical miles off Vũng Tàu, South Vietnam, flying a heading of 136 degrees and climbing to an altitude of 23,000 feet. At that moment the locks on the rear loading ramp failed, causing the cargo door to open explosively. This caused explosive decompression, temporarily filling the cabin with a whirlwind of fog and debris. The blowout severed control cables to the tail, causing two of four hydraulic systems to fail, including those for the rudder and elevator, and leaving the flight control with only the use of one aileron, spoilers, and power.
The pilot, Capt Dennis "Bud" Traynor, and copilot, Capt. Tilford Harp, attempted to regain control of the airplane, and to perform a 180 degree turn in order to return to Tan Son Nhut. The aircraft began to exhibit phugoid oscillations, but the crew countered them and maintained a controlled descent of about 250 to 260 knots. They were able to bring the plane to 4,000 ft and begin the approach to Tan Son Nhut's runway 25L. While turning on final approach, the plane's descent rate suddenly began to increase rapidly. The crew increased power to the engines in an attempt to arrest the descent, but despite their efforts, the plane touched down at 4:45 p.m. in a rice paddy, and skidded for a quarter of a mile, became airborne again for another half-mile, crossing the Saigon River, then hit a dike and broke up into four pieces. The fuel caught fire and some of the wreckage was set ablaze.
Survivors struggled to extricate themselves from the wreckage. The crash site was in a muddy rice paddy near the Saigon River, one mile from the nearest road. Fire engines could not reach the site, and helicopters had to set down some distance from the wreckage. About 100 South Vietnamese soldiers deployed around the site, which was near the site of an engagement with the Viet Cong the previous night. Out of 313 people on board, the death toll included 78 children, 35 Defense Attaché Office employees and 11 U.S. Air Force personnel, many of them nurses and medical personnel assigned to the Clark AB Hospital, including Capt. Mary Theresa Klinker; there were 175 survivors. All of the surviving orphans were eventually flown to the United States. The dead orphans were cremated and were interred at the cemetery of the St. Nikolaus Catholic Church in Pattaya, Thailand.
Some members of the United States Congress called for a grounding of C-5s. In the end, the fleet was put under severe operational restrictions for several months while the cause was established. The U.S. Air Force Accident Investigation Board attributed the survival of any on board to Captain Traynor's unorthodox use of power and his decision to crash-land while the aircraft allowed some control. Captains Traynor and Harp were awarded the Air Force Cross for extraordinary valor. Thirty-seven medals were awarded to crew members or their next of kin. Flight nurse 1Lt. Regina Aune received the Cheney Award for 1975.
I wrote a significant history of the event as part of my 374th Tactical Airlift Wing quarterly history, along with covering the wing's subsequent participation in Operations EAGLE PULL and FREQUENT WIND, and the recovery of the S.S. Mayaguez. That history resulted in my nomination for and selection to participate in the Airman Scholarship and Commissioning Program.