Whatever became of this little girl?

It looked like a shoe box.   When I opened it I found a stack of old photos. After flipping through some I stopped and pulled a black and white 5x7 out of the pile.   I recognized it immediately – all but forgotten over time.

She was a small girl in diapers, perhaps two years old, laying on her back playing with the shoe lace of her knit bootie.
 
The memories began to come back to me.

It was April 2, 1975. I was 25 years old.  I was driving on the freeway in Oakland California. Suddenly a radio report described an incredible event that had taken place in Vietnam just a few hours before.

A World Airways cargo jet had taken off from Saigon, Vietnam under chaotic circumstances. The crew had hastily boarded several dozen Vietnamese orphans to be brought over to the U.S. There was understandable resistance from the Vietnamese government about such an endeavor as questions swirled about whether or not it was appropriate or conducted with enough oversight.  But chaos and panic reigned in Saigon during that month of April as the northern soldiers advanced into the south and the southern government began to crumble.

As the flight taxied away toward the runway there was a change of heart by authorities and they denied a takeoff clearance to the aircraft. Undeterred, the World Airways crew continued to the runway. The controllers in the tower turned off the runway lights to prevent the aircraft from departing, leaving Tân Sơn Nhất Airport in darkness. But the crew taxied onto the runway anyway and, using the aircraft’s landing lights to illuminate the runway, took off without a clearance and climbed northeastward into the night sky toward their planned fuel stop in Japan.

The radio announcer reported that the aircraft was now somewhere over the Pacific and due to land in Oakland that night. He kept referring to it as “Operation Babylift.”

I was intrigued.  That night I drove to Oakland airport and parked along a chain link fence next to the World Airways hangar.  I climbed up on the top of my car and, camera in hand, waited for the arriving aircraft.

Crowds began to appear. TV crews and throngs of reporters and dignitaries assembled near the anticipated parking spot. Soon the high pitched whine of the jet's engines could be heard as the red, white and gold colored DC-8 emerged from the darkness at the far side of the hangar, turned toward us and then inched slowly into its parking spot. The bright lights lit up the side of the airplane revealing the faces of small children crowded together peering through the windows.  Then the engines slowly became silent, as did the crowd.

When the stairs were rolled up to the front door, officials climbed up, opened the door and stepped inside.  Later we would be told they were astonished to see a plane load of children from babies to 12 year olds sitting and laying on mats and flattened cardboard boxes. There were no seats.

Finally the children were taken down the stairs one by one, and last the crew came down to a welcome of applause.

I had heard that volunteers were needed to care for the children in the hangar during the night.  Somehow I ended up working in a four hour shift from midnight until 4AM. I was asked to care for the little girl in the photo. She spent the night playing on one of many mattresses spread out across the hangar.

I don’t remember her name. But I do remember that with the multiple time zone changes, she was wide awake after her long flight from Vietnam and full of curiosity and energy. She played with my keys, my camera, and I remember feeding her a bottle and changing her.

As I stared at the photo in my hand – and a second one showing the arrival of the aircraft – I wondered whatever became of this little girl.   She must be 37 years old now, I realized.   Where is she?  What is she doing?  What is her name?  What kind of life did she choose for herself?   Does she have any children of her own?  What does she know about that night long ago?

I wonder if I’ll ever find out.

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Two days later, April 4, 1975, a U.S. Air Force C-5 cargo jet departed Saigon's Tân Sơn Nhất Airport carrying 149 orphaned children.  30 minutes after takeoff while making an emergency return to the airfield, it crashed into a rice paddy killing 141 of the children.

The World Airways flight was the first of what became known as Operation Babylift.  That month over 3,300 orphaned children were flown out of Vietnam to the U.S. and other countries.

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