Operation Baby Lift 1975: When 3,300 children were flown out of Vietnam at the last minute

At the end of the Vietnam War
Operation Baby Lift 1975: When 3,300 children were flown out of Vietnam at the last minute

After the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang fell in March 1975 and Saigon was attacked by North Vietnamese troops, the defeat of South Vietnam and the end of the Vietnam War were only a matter of time.

On April 3, at the request of various aid agencies, US President Gerald R. Ford announced Operation Babylift – a mass evacuation of children (most of them orphans) from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries (including Australia, West Germany, France and Canada ). Transport aircraft of the Lockheed C-5A Galaxy and Lockheed C-141 Starlifter of the US Air Force were to be used.

When American businessman Robert Macauley learned that the children’s evacuation would take longer than planned due to the lack of military cargo planes – especially after the first flight of a C-5A Galaxy crashed with 138 fatalities – he decided to buy a Boeing 747 from Pan Am to charter. With this he arranged the departure of 300 orphans at the beginning of April 1975.

He paid for the flight with a mortgage on his own house. The children were collected in Saigon, flown across the Pacific to Los Angeles and then to Long Beach, California.

Play about the baby lift operation

Lana Noone, co-writer of Children of the April Rain, the first play about Operation Baby Lift, had adopted one of the Vietnamese orphans to be evacuated and longed for it to arrive safely in the United States: “When the operation began, we waited my husband Byron and I upon the arrival of ours [adoptierten] Daughter Heather Constance Noone from Vietnam. We were overjoyed to hear that President Ford had signed a decree allowing orphans to enter the United States without waiting for an individual visa.

Then when the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, which was evacuating the orphans, crashed, that tragedy led us to believe our daughter had perished.

That night, President Ford said on television that Operation Baby Lift would continue and that he would personally greet the next aircraft to arrive. This was a Boeing 747 that he and the First Lady welcomed to San Francisco. I suspect our daughter Heather was on board this plane as we knew she was leaving Vietnam on the same day the 747 was deployed.

Due to her critical health condition, however, she was disembarked during the stopover at Clark Air Force Base (Philippines). Since Heather was then admitted to Long Beach Naval Hospital in California, we don’t know for sure whether she made the rest of the flight to San Francisco aboard the 747.

I am deeply grateful to the crew of the 747. These children were in a dangerous situation and everyone who went through so much to move them to a new home deserves my greatest appreciation. “

The last rescue flight

The US Air Force flights continued until the artillery fire by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong on Tan Son Nhut Airport (Saigon) made flight operations impossible. By the last American flight on April 26, more than 3,300 infants and children had been evacuated (the actual number varies depending on the source).

Escape from Afghanistan

Baby born on evacuation flight from Kabul – the name couldn’t be more appropriate

Video01:46

08/30/2021

The jumbo jet contributed to this achievement. Together with Operation New Life, more than 110,000 refugees were flown out of South Vietnam by the end of the Vietnam War.

Also read:

– New Interflug book: This is what aviation looked like under socialism

– Boeing 747-8 transfer flight: In an empty jumbo jet across the Atlantic

– Problem pilots of the Air Force: The Airbus A400M flies – more or less

This article contains so-called affiliate links. Further information are available here.