50: Babylift

 

50 years ago today (April 3, 1975) Operation Babylift started.

Operation Babylift was the Mass Evacuation of Children from South Vietnam to the United States, Australia, France, West Germany and Canada at the end of the Vietnam War.

On April 4, 1975 a plane carrying Children flying from Saigon, South Vietnam to the Philippines crashed during an Emergency Landing shortly after takeoff.

Of the 314 People on-board the death toll included 78 Children, 35 Defense Attaché Office Employees and 11 U.S. Air Force Personnel; there were 176 Survivors.

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 American World Airways and arranged for 300 Children to leave the country, paying for the trip by mortgaging his house.

When it ended on April 26, 1975 3,300 Vietnamese Babies and Children had been airlifted to safety from the Communist North Vietnamese.