At that time, the island was supervised by the U.S. Air Force. By 1996 the Galang Refugee Camp, one of the largest camps in Indonesia, closed and people returned to Vietnam, both voluntarily and by force. First help I gave was to a baby. In August 2006, Chunying and I motored up to Chicago for a post-honeymoon and to visit the National Vietnam Veteran's Art Museum and donated two prints to them. A new study looks at links with wartime trauma. My own picaresque life can be pieced together, at least partially, from journals I kept from 1995-2005 and which can be viewed on this site under the link Books, on the left. There is no good impulse in my life that did not originate with the inspiration and example of my father, W. Gordon Lowden. From there, many of the refugees stopped in Hawaii as their aircraft transited the Pacific. I was an aircraft mechanic, E-4 Sgt at the time all hell broke lose in 1975. Wake Island. Mr. Spade, I was just shy of 4 years old when I arrived in Ft Chaffee, Arkansas as a Vietnamese refugee along with my parents and 3 siblings. I expect to complete the donation to that museum by the end of 2007. I long to hear from you, long to hear of you, long to know that life in this country has been good to you, long to see pictures of your children and grandchildren, long to grow old with you as my dearest friends. Made me tear up. Other than Nikon equipment, a few rolls were shot using the spiffy Rollei 35 pocket camera with a collapsible f:3.5 lens. hanks to the generosity and photographic skills of Luke LeTourneau, 50 custom prints from this site now exist, matted and framed for exhibition. Out of 120 people, only 15 men survived. : Australia has refused a demand from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to return the Song be 12 beat, and what it described as all the ''pirates'' aboard, Many small boats with Vietnamese refugees have sailed into Darwin since the Saigon regime fall 2 1/2 years ago, the number so far is 742. When I finally write the book about these two years, Julian Catalano will receive more thanks than he deserves; it's only fair that he receives less than he deserves in this venue. The position of Bidong Island is located 45 km off the coast of Terengganu in the South China Sea. The island sheltered as many as 50,430 at a time. The U.S. helicopters airlifted more than 6,000 passengers out of Saigon on April 29 and 30, including over 5,000 Vietnamese. They scaled the compound's fencing, pushing back against US. Former refugees retrace their path to freedom This is a Vietnamese fishing boat that was founded in 1985 by Indonesia fishermen, in Pulau Galang. At 3 a.m. on December 11, a Japanese invasion task force commanded by Rear Adm. Sadamichi Kajioka, consisting of a light cruiser, six destroyers, two troop carriers and two armed merchantmen, confidently approached Wake's beaches. wake island vietnamese refugees750 watt step through electric bike. I made free prints and distributed them at the time because I knew they might be meaningful to you, personally, in the future. Even went down town and bought a basket of BALUT and other foods that were simliar to what the vietnameese ate. According to my father, we flew on an Air America C-47 transport to U Tapao, Thailand, spending 2 nights there and then boarding an Air America C-141 Starlifter (or a C-130) to Anderson Air Force Base in Guam. cfb halifax dockyard clothing stores. Prior to April 26, 1975, life on Wake Island was one of tropical boredom. It consists of three separate islands: Wake, the center one, Wilkes, the westernmost, and Peale, the northernmost. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Aloha I was a Sgt assigned to 15th ABWg, Hickam AFB during Operation Babylift On April 27th I received the call that our PERSCO (Personnel In Spt of Contingency Opns) team was being deployed we didnt know where we were headed and thought wed be headed to Nam to assist with Operation Frequent Wind but instead we landed on Wake Atoll (aka Island). After years of thinking this interview was lost, I discovered it in a long-neglected hard drive. Her knowledge of the Mac was quite useful and she was unstinting in her sharing of it. But on April 30, 2000, the Kansas City Star had run a full-page spread commemorating the 25th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam, and a separate story about these pictures ran well below the fold. ll the photographs on this site were taken between 1974 and 1982, using predominantly Nikon cameras and lenses. On April 4, a C-5 Galaxy from the 60th Military Airlift Wing, which had just delivered howitzers to Tan Son Nhut AB in Saigon, loaded more than 300 passengersincluding at least 230 orphansfor a flight to the Philippines. The pirates took the remaining men including Hien to another Vietnamese boat they had looted. Vietnamese refugees or locally known as "Orang Hanyut Vietnam" or "boat people . Operation Babylift began with tragedy. Like the roughly 800,000 Vietnamese who fled via various routes in the years after, Huynh had found himself on the losing side of the war. For eight. Others sought to escape because they did not want to live under a communist system. Vietnam War Refugees and Operation New Life: In the spring of 1975, the population of Wake Island consisted of 251 military, government and civilian contract personnel, whose primary . The second, Operation New Life, ran from April 23- November 1, 1975, airlifting over 100,000 evacuees and refugees from South Vietnam. The most common activities were going to the outdoor movies and drinking, sailing on the lagoon and drinking, going to the bowling alley and drinking, visiting the American Legion hall and drinking, sitting outside under palm trees in the fading light of evening and drinking. It was a 10,000-mile journey to freedom as my father put it. Starting on April 23, 1975, the Air Force flew missions around the clock bringing refugees to Clark Air Base, Andersen, and Naval Air Station Agana. For the month they were on Wake, my life revolved them, was kept afloat by their love and good spirits. Our school scanner is hooked up to a computer in her office and I invaded that sanctuary regularly in the summer of 2001 without even a complaint. Their current "professional" SLR costs 20 times what the Pentax SLR I bought in Japan 10 years ago did. Given the perilous status of Vietnamese and Montagnard refugees in Thailand, timely action is needed to resettle the remaining refugees and close this chapter in the long-standing refugee crisis. Posted On 7, 2022. When it became possible for long-distance aircraft to fly nonstop from Hawaii, and eventually the mainland of the U.S., to destinations in Asia, Wake's importance decreased precipitously. Air Force refugee airlift flights to Guam, at times suspended because of overcrowding, concluded on May 17. I was employed as a weather observer by the National Weather Service, which maintained a meteorological observatory on the island. However, as a pediatrician at Tachikawa AFB, we received the second plane load of children following that first crash. After years of searching, a chief mate sailor who saved 51 Vietnamese refugees in 1978 was reunited with a group of them 44 years later. Image courtesy of Gaylord Barr. In general, it seems as if the Ilford film I used has done poorest, with Kodak's Tri-X holding up much better. Other volumes include The Nail That Sticks Out, my two years teaching in Japan (1995-97), and Nodding Off in the Unemployment Line, the experience of being un- and under-employed in the three years following my return from Japan, 1997-2000. The outcome the AWESOME MASH personnel not only saved this boys life as well as that of the baby, but SAVED HIS LEG! A small number of individuals were also sent to Wake Island. It began in the 1920s and continued through the next 25-30 years. In addition to the remaining prints not earmarked for Chicago, I would also like to donate all the original negatives from this site to the archives of The Vietnam Project. My baby sister also called Whin was only 1 month old. On April 26, 1975, all that changed dramatically. The temporary refugee camps in the Philippines, Guam, and Wake demanded tremendous quantities of relief supplies to feed and shelter the thousands of Vietnamese who fled to them, not only by Air Force airlift but also by U.S. Navy vessels and commercial airliners under MAC contract. He had discovered this site and quickly called his sisters and brother. Though a flood in my basement in 1979 destroyed nearly all the color slides and negatives from that time, I luckily had the black and white negatives upstairs at the time for the purpose of classifying and cataloguing, and they were spared. PRAISE GOD! In particular, I believe a community without children is warped, without a sense of innocence, possibility, or optimism. The most bizarre and improbable story leading to this site concerns Clinton Blount. It is awash in bodily fluids as the previous book is barren of them. English: Vietnamese refugees on Wake Island await processing by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service personnel in May 1975. In a few minutes the A/C commander came down into the cargo bay and told us that we had been diverted to Fort Smith Arkansas and nothing else. Pictures and kind words flowed back and forth across the aether. Though there was no TV on the island at the time and with only the sanitized AFRTS broadcasts to substitute for news, we were aware that the war in Vietnam was winding down and Americans were evacuating. Long story short I wanted to take her home with me back to Hawaii and I think our SMSgt knew it, because he had me go for chow and leave the girl with them. Dont know the whole story but am familiar with the baby lift at the beginning. We could smell something rotten without details, he had shrapnel in his legs and the wounds were infected. Albion had been contracted by the Air Force to write a history of Wake Island post-1945, and the 1975 refugee operation was a blank spot he was trying to fill. For me, the visitors meant two things: women and children. The Vietnamese refugee airlift, the largest aerial evacuation in history, encompassed a series of overlapping operations that are difficult to separate: Babylift, New Life, Frequent Wind, and New Arrivals. I and my family salute you for your honor, service, and courage in the Vietnam War. So, late this spring, we had a long-distance tape exchange and I was able to listen to myself as I was 26 years ago. In April 1975, communist forces took over South Vietnam and Cambodia (Kampuchea). Perhaps I could have added something to yours, as well. I stupidly volunteered (didnt realize the Air Force wouldnt allow me to do so). Wake Island is a tiny island in Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean, 2/3 of the way from Honolulu to Guam, best known for its role in World War II. We were taken to a building and were told that refugees were being evacuated and they would be coming, and coming fast. She ate some white fish and rice. Lost at sea for two months, the last five. Needless to say, I have never been to Laredo, Texas, all the DNA evidence and scurrilous writings on bathroom walls to the contrary. Other than making a few updates in the text, signified by [brackets], I have left it verbatim. But when I moved to Kansas City in June of 1978, I landed in a city that was reaching the end of its second great jazz period. Within just a couple hundred feet of the reef, depths are measured in thousands of feet. Instead, I've decided to donate all the remaining prints, other than the ones I have kept for personal reasons, to selected museums and non-profit organizations dedicated to preserving the history and artifacts of the era of the Vietnam War. In these operations, the Air Force, working with the Navy and private contractors, flew more than 50,000 refugees from southeast Asia to islands in the Pacific Ocean and eventually to new homes in the United States. Bus Tours. The island has never had an indigenous human population, though thousands of sea-going birds migrate through, nest there and raise their young. It was most prominently used in the 1930s as a landing site for the Pan American World Airways Clippers, which flew between North America and Asia, with frequent fueling and crew change stops. The 374th Tac Alft Wg flew most C130 missions, supported by a squadron rotating from the 314th Tac Alft Wg, based in Arkansas. Ronald, reading your comment lead me to document and experience that I had with my Blue Ribbon Aircraft recovery team in Apr of 75 at Fort Smith AR. The lenses I used were: 20 mm f:4 Auto-Nikkor, 24 mm f:2.8 Auto-Nikkor, 35 mm f:2 Auto-Nikkor, 50 mm f:1.4 Auto-Nikkor, 55 mm f:3.5 Micro-Nikkor, 85 mm f:1.8 Auto-Nikkor, 105 mm f: 2.5 Auto-Nikkor, 200 mm f:4 Auto-Nikkor, and 500 mm f:8 Reflex-Nikkor. When I arrived, in September 1973, there were 250 people employed or stationed there. A 514th Military Airlift Wing (Associate) C141 flown by Maj. Wayne DeLawter carried 189 orphans from Saigon to Clark AB in the Philippines. The airlift operations also exposed weaknesses in emergency airlift evacuation procedures, aircraft structures, and diplomatic relations. Water had to be shipped in (the only normal supply of fresh water on the island is rain water, captured in a catch basin and stored in tanks for the summer dry season), as well as raw ingredients for meals, clothing, plus personal items neglected in the dash to freedom. The variety in quality of the pictures you see here is mainly the result of film degradation. When the Midway became overcrowded, the squadron also moved 804 refugees from the carrier to other Navy ships in the flotilla. When a ship ran aground on Hong Kong's Lantau Island in 1979 with over 1.400 desperate Vietnamese refugees on board, marine policeman Les Bird led their rescue. After 2 nights rest there, we hopped on a TWA DC-10 bound for Fort Chaffee (actually landing in Ft Smith Municipal Airport just as described above!) Wake Island has never been known to have a set population. In the beginning, lots of military planes, but soon the load shifted to the larger commercial aircraft. He was a real nice guy. as our NCOIC SMSGt (Keim) rushed in as we were settling into these very plush rooms to let us know HEY GUYS WRONG BARRACKS!! Dennis Traynor tried to fly the disabled plane back to Saigon. Posted 2022610 by 2022610 by The arrival of 125,000 Vietnamese refugees to the United States in 1975 was among the most dramatic evacuations undertaken by the U.S. government, matched only recently by the chaotic flights from Afghanistan following the U.S. military's withdrawal. lease feel free to download any image on this site, remembering that you are restricted from using it for any other than personal uses. Adult survivors were frightened that wed remove survivors from the crashed plane on this second flight and hid them in various places on the plane when it landed at Yokota AFB. Director Tran Thanh's newest drama film, "The House of No Man" ("Nha Ba Nu"), arrives in the U.S. this Friday across 60 theaters. Aloha! Between April 30 and May 14, C130s carried 21,570 refugees from the Philippines to Guam. Cpt. Things changed when the refugees and CIA folks came in from all over various places in indochina. Refugees. Its land mass is about 2.5 square miles, spread out along a nearly 15 mile coastline. I was stationed at Little Rock AFB after the airlift operation, but the stories that were told made me proud to be an American and a sister to all people in the world. The president of World Airways, Ed Daly, originated the idea, and the U.S. ambassador in Saigon, Graham Martin, advocated the use of Air Force aircraft in addition to commercial contract airliners. He is truly the greatest man I have ever known. If only the world were like that. Initial flights transported the refugees to Guam, bases in the Philippines and later Wake Island for processing. It may have been a measure of how much I missed my own two children, Kim and Jake, as they stayed in Oklahoma with their mother after our divorce in Los Angeles. It was, and through that concert I began to see what a remarkable city I had unwittingly adopted as my own. Img from PulauBidong. We would direct them to a hangar where the ANG would watch them until the Army would come and transfer them to Camp Chaffee. Advertisement. God Bless. Read between the lines there, pal. He was a dear, and is a dearly missed, friend. Immediately after unloading the passengers, the Starlifter boarded 250 other Vietnamese refugees for a flight from Clark to Guam. No sooner had we settled into our quarters when SSMSgt rounded us all up and ordered us to the chow hall where we met some of the nicest group of civilian personnel. To pull off those very complex MULTIPLE airlift operations spread out through the pacific is beyond impressive. We settled into what we believed were going to be our quarters they were air conditioned barracks and very comfortable. With these pictures, I want to pay tribute both to the musicians who played in Kansas City during that time and the idea, still alive somewhere, that a community is better off, and its citizens are better off, when our municipal institutions enrich our lives, not merely butt out. 4 15 AB Wg and little did we any of us realize what was awaiting us and at least for myself, personally, it was a life altering experience to say the least. I can never repay the debt for your service in fighting for our freedom in Vietnam 40 plus years ago. Between April 4 and 28, C141 Starlifters from the 60th, 62d, 63d, 437th, and 438th Military Airlift Wings airlifted refugees out by day, while C130s from the 374th and 314th Tactical Airlift Wings evacuated Vietnamese by night. And it only cost me a stack of CD-ROMs, a meal I prepared in a strange kitchen, and a bottle of 1982 Chateau Gruaud-Larose, most of which I drank, anyway. My friend Kiemhue, who, with her husband and sister, came through Wake in June and July of 1975, has done that for her daughters and it will provide an important link between her past and their future. The refugees were attacked by pirates and were trafficked and sold into slavery and prostitution. One was a little girl supposedly destined for France. That brought to 84,389 the number of refugees who have passed through here since the airlift from South Vietnam began 19 days ago. Naval ships. Top 10 Facts about Living Conditions on Wake Island. Vietnamese boat people ( Vietnamese: Thuyn nhn Vit Nam ), also known simply as boat people, refers to the refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. I can hardly remember some of you in these pictures, as I am sure the bearded, curly-headed man behind the camera is also a fading question mark. Naturally, many local greats were represented in other free concerts, such as Jay McShann, Claude "Fiddler" Williams, Pete Eye, Milt Abel, among others. The closest land to Wake is the Marshall Island of Bikini, 500 nautical miles to the south. from. Socrates is one, but he had nothing to do with this site. Her father worked for the Diem administration, occasionally serving in the South . Kathleen Henrickson, my colleague at Blue River Community College, was extremely helpful and patient with the disruption to her life my scanning caused. In the process of scanning these pictures, mainly the ones from Wake Island, I have noticed that some of the film emulsion has deteriorated alarmingly. In our private hells that emerged once everyone else had staggered off to their rooms, we were a forlorn and morose lot, living there because the money was good and the world was at bay. I also encourage you to write down what you remember of your experiences throughout your lives, both in Vietnam and America. Vietnamese refugees arrive at Galang by boat c 1980. After a week or so our Norton MAW sent about a dozen reinforcements, which was a blessing. The entire island is protected by a coral reef that secures the calmness of the lagoon's surface.