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Over the next several weeks, Operation Babylift brought more than 3,000 children out of Vietnam.
Upon hearing this, American businessman Robert Macauley chartered a Boeing 747 from Pan American World Airways and arranged for 300 orphaned children to leave the country.
President Ford was on hand at San Francisco International Airport to personally greet one of the Operation Babylift planes that transported approximately 325 South Vietnamese orphans from Saigon to the United States on April 5, 1975.
The children were relocated and adopted out to American, Canadian, European, and Australian families.
Harmon Hall at the Presidio of San Francisco (then a US Army post) was packed with mattresses, volunteers, and Vietnamese orphans as the children waited to be processed for future adoption.
Several minutes after departing Tan Son Nhut Airport, the locks on the rear loading ramp failed, causing the cargo door to open explosively. The pilots managed to regain control of the crippled plane and turned back towards Saigon.
As the airlift gathered momentum, events on the ground were worsening. It soon became apparent that a lack of military transport planes could bring the operation to a premature end.
In April 1975, during the final few weeks of the Vietnam War, a remarkable endeavor was initiated to evacuate Vietnamese orphans to the US as communist forces advanced on Saigon. Called Operation Babylift, the plan saw over 3,000 infants and children transported to safety, the idea being that once on American soil the orphans would be relocated and adopted out to American, Canadian, European, and Australian families. But Operation Babylift was very nearly grounded after a tragic accident took place during the inaugural flight.
So, who ordered the airlift, and why was it imperative to get the children out of the war-torn country as soon as possible? Click on for these answers and more.
As communist forces advanced further into South Vietnam, rumors about what they would do were widespread. Women and children were especially vulnerable.
Care workers feared the worst, that parentless children would be singled out by the enemy for punishment or perhaps even killed.
However, the plane's descent rate suddenly began to increase rapidly. The C-5A Galaxy eventually crashed, killing 138 people, including 78 children.
It was chaotic. The central Vietnamese city of Da Nang had fallen in March 1975, overrun by the advancing North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN).
Thousands of refugees had left the city, crammed into landing craft operated by the South Vietnamese navy to be taken to the relative safety of the vast Mekong Delta with the help of foreign navy vessels.
Soon, Saigon itself was under attack. Hundreds of desperate South Vietnamese citizens were gathering around the US Embassy in the hopes of getting on a bus to the airport, the main staging area for the emergency evacuation operation.
With capitulation inventible, President Gerald Ford convened a meeting at the White House on April 28, 1975, with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft to discuss the evacuation of Saigon.
The PAVN's relentless drive forward saw more refugees taking to the roads. Highways became clogged with a fleeing mass of humanity.
President Ford therefore authorized the evacuation of thousands of Vietnamese orphans (many fathered by American military personnel) to the United States. In fact, children fathered by American soldiers were rumored to be in particular danger.
A series of 30 planned flights aboard Military Airlift Command (MAC) C-5A Galaxy and the C-141 Starlifter cargo aircraft operated by the 62nd Airlift Wing of the United States Air Force was swiftly arranged. This evacuation became known as Operation Babylift.
On April 4, a Lockheed C-5A was prepared at Tan Son Nhut Airport to transport the first group of orphans out of the war-torn country.
On board were 285 passengers, 250 of whom were small children. The flight crew numbered 29. The first flight of Operation Babylift was cleared for takeoff.
Operation Babylift continued until artillery attacks by the PAVN rendered flights in and out of Tan Son Nhut Airport impossible.
In the final days of the Vietnam War, numerous orphans were being cared for in Saigon schools.
About 250 Vietnamese war orphans ended up in Australia. Four are pictured here being cared for at Sydney's Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children (today known as Camperdown).
Robert Macauley would go on to found Americares in 1979. Today a global non-profit organization focused on health and development, Americares assists people and communities around the world access health in times of disaster and crisis.
By the end of April, Operation Frequent Wind, the final phase in the evacuation of American civilians and "at-risk" Vietnamese from Saigon, had airlifted to safety more than 7,000 people from various points in Saigon.
Realizing the severity of the situation, President Gerald Ford announced on April 3, 1975, that the US government would begin airlifting orphaned children out of Saigon.
It was a tragic start to what was supposed to be a chance to send a child to America. As a safety precaution, all subsequent evacuations were undertaken using C-141 aircraft.
On April 30, victorious communist forces entered the city. Saigon had fallen.
The Vietnam War was officially declared over on April 30, 1975. The death toll is estimated to be around 3.8 million casualties in total, nearly half of whom were civilians caught in the fighting.
Sources: (American Experience) (Gerald Ford Museum) (National Archives of Australia) (History.com)
See also: The greatest mass evacuations in history
Fifty years on: remembering Operation Babylift
The incredible story of the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States
LIFESTYLE History
In April 1975, during the final few weeks of the Vietnam War, a remarkable endeavor was initiated to evacuate Vietnamese orphans to the US as communist forces advanced on Saigon. Called Operation Babylift, the plan saw over 3,000 infants and children transported to safety, the idea being that once on American soil the orphans would be relocated and adopted out to American, Canadian, European, and Australian families. But Operation Babylift was very nearly grounded after a tragic accident took place during the inaugural flight.
So, who ordered the airlift, and why was it imperative to get the children out of the war-torn country as soon as possible? Click on for these answers and more.