Operation Babylift
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Operation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries (including, for example, Australia, France, and Canada) at the end of the Vietnam War (see also the Fall of Saigon), during April 1975. By the final American flight out of South Vietnam, over 2,000 infants and children had been evacuated. Along with Operation New Life, over 110,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War.
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[edit] Overview
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 thirty planned flights aboard C-5A Galaxy cargo aircraft.
Flights continued until artillery attacks by North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong military units on Tan Son Nhut Airport rendered airplane flights impossible.
[edit] Plane crash
The first military evacuation flight, a C-5A Galaxy cargo plane loaded with over 300 crew, children and adult escorts, experienced an "explosive rapid decompression" about 40 miles (64 km) outside Saigon when the rear ramp and pressure door blew out through the rear of the aircraft (due to a lock failure) and was forced to return to Tan Son Nhut with no flight controls to the tail, and only limited roll control.
The plane could not reach the airport; but instead crash-landed, at about 270 knots (500 km/h), two miles (3 km) away into a field of flooded rice paddies, killing 138 people, including 127 of the orphans. However, over half of the passengers survived the crash. Most of the infants and adults in the upper deck areas survived. Those in the lower decks, including most of the adult "chaperones", "non-essential" members of the Defence Attache's Office (mainly administrative staff), did not.
News of the plane crash brought widespread attention and sympathy toward the operation and the evacuees in the U.S. and other nations.
[edit] External links
- A website including several articles about Operation Babylift
- Vietnam Babylift website
- Page 6 has article written by pilot of Babylift plane crash
- Adopted Vietnamese International (AVI), based in Australia, has info on Babylift, particularly on where are the Australian adopted Vietnamese children today. Site managed and maintained by adopted Vietnamese
- Vietnamese Adoptee Network (VAN), based in the USA also has info on Babylift, particularly where are the American adopted Vietnamese children today. Site managed and maintained by adopted Vietnamese
- Vietnam Adoption Blog article about President Ford receiving Babylift Award of Special Recognition
- [1] "Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam" documentary about the experiences of the adoptees raised in America.
[edit] Further reading
- Herrington, Stuart A. "Peace with Honor? An American Reports on Vietnam 1973-75" Presidio Press (1983). 31 Pamaron Way, Novato, CA 94947. [For an account of the day of the plane crash, see pp. 137-140.]
- Not Quite/Just The Same/Different: The Construction of Identity In Vietnamese War Orphans Adopted By White Parents INDIGO WILLING (nee Williams), Master of Arts by Thesis. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney. 2003 downloadable at http://hdl.handle.net/2100/316
