Vietnam War Orphans From Operation Babylift Reunite

7 HOURS AGO - BY NINA STROCHLIC

Participants in Gerald Ford's famous 1975 evacuation have found each other on Facebook and are set to reunite this summer.

It may have been 38 years ago, but Colonel Dennis “Bud” Traynor says April 4, 1975 is seared into his memory. Despite the traumatic details, he talks of the day matter-of-factly. He was 31 years old at the time, an army major stationed in the Philippines. The war in nearby Vietnam was growing more dire daily when President Gerald Ford ordered the evacuation of orphaned and surrendered babies from the besieged, divided country. And that morning when he was called to duty, Traynor was, as he says, “just the next pilot in the pinball machine.” His would be the first of 30 flights of Operation Babylift, as it came to be called, that were ordered between April 4-16. Two weeks later, North Vietnamese forces conquered Saigon. But C-5A didn’t have the smooth ride that Traynor had planned.

In Saigon, he packed his Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, the world’s biggest airplane at the time, with evacuees. The littlest ones were belted in upstairs, a few to a seat, with a pillow and milk or juice. But shortly after takeoff, the rear doors blew out, two hydraulic systems went down, and the captain was forced to crash-land the aircraft in a nearby rice paddy. Traynor crawled to the ground from the pilot window to help pull the injured from the wreckage. Within four minutes, emergency rescuers had arrived at the scene to gather the 176 survivors, but another 138 children and adults died in the crash. The younger ones, as it would turn out, comprised most of the survivors, as the older kids had unbuckled their seatbelts and gone to the lower level, which was mostly destroyed.

Lana Noone was one mother on the receiving end of Operation Babylift. After several miscarriages, Noone decided to adopt, and when her agency suggested a baby from Vietnam, she didn’t hesitate. At the time, adopting from abroad was almost unheard of. “We got caught up in history,” Noone remembers. “A friend says we changed the complexion of the United States.” But the program quickly stagnated as the war grew worse—no one wanted risk a flight over Vietcong airspace. That is, until World Airways President Ed Daly heard of the babies’ plight.

Colonel Traynor may have captained the first Operation Babylift, but Daly ordered the first trip, inspiring President Ford to allot $2 million to the program and make it a national priority. Daly, whom Noone describes as “the swashbuckling type,” sent in a cargo aircraft on his own accord (and without authorization), to transport 57 children from Saigon to Oakland. A few days later, Operation Babylift was born, and despite its tragic beginnings, the U.S. succeeded in evacuating more than 3,300 babies, 2,500 of whom went to American homes.

full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/05/11/vietnam-baby-lift-war-orphans-to-reunite-this-summer.html