Operation Babylift was a mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries (Australia, France, and Canada) at the end of the Vietnam War, on April 3–26, 1975. Roughley over 10,300 infants and children had been evacuated. Along with Operation New Lift, over 110,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. Thousands of children were airlifted from Vietnam and adopted by families around the world. *IMPORTANT SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT* “This just in, a plane crashed in a rice patty field after take off. Reported 130 dead, 78, were children.
Operation Babylift was an all hands on deck operation, with more than 10,000 vietnamese children being transported they out numbered
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workers ⅕. An April 6, 1975 San Francisco Chronicle article reported that there were “7,886 bottles of formula, at least 10,000 disposable diapers, 2,400 cotton tipped swabs and 750 cotton balls, 1,440 aspirin tablets, gallons of baby powder, ointment by the bushel, toothpaste and towels” on hand at the Presidio. The 2 same article described a plane bound for Seattle “crammed with bassinets, diapers, bottles, and food including hot dogs.” A nurse who accompanied a planeload of children to Seattle wrote “I was overwhelmed and taken away from the endless flow of little ones pouring i the plan, filling every space available.” she did not sleep that 30 hour flight. Babylift evAcuees began to arrive to the airport with their vietnamese names on a bracelet on one wrist and on the other their address of their new families. With the many children they had to fit on the plane, the couldn't fit any baby carriers, so children were loaded two to each seat in the troop compartment and for the ones that didn't fit. They were put in little groups and were secured them to the floor of the aircraft, with cargo tie-down straps and littler straps and blankets and pillows and whatever they could to secure them to the floor. If children got sick, the workers would get sick as well. A flight attendant was told if there were to be a crash that she would have to get off first and have the other flight attendant toss babies off the plane as quick as possible. *muffling and static radio call* “We need all fire and police responders to the Tan Son Nhut airfield.” A C-5A Galaxy flew the original mission of operation babylift departing from Tan Son Nhut airport a little after 4 p.m. on April 4, 1975. Minutes after takeoff, there was an explosion from the lower rear fuselage being torn apart. The locks to secure the loading ramp broke open and separated. A rapid decompression happened. Two of the four hydraulic systems went out. The crew managed to keep 3 control of the plane to drop the altitude of the plane in preparation of landing. Only a few of the adult passengers managed to make their way to the limited oxygen masks. The overcrowded transport plane should have been carrig no more than 100 children, rather than the 243 who had been loaded aboard. Suddenly the rate of descent increased rapidly. They applied full power to try and make it back to the runway they took off from. The C-5 had to crash land. Touching down in a rice field, skidding for a quarter of a mile, the aircraft became airborne again for a half mile before hitting a dike, breaking into four parts, some of which caught on fire. Nurses, volunteers aboard, many injured themselves, did aLL they could to save as many children as possible. *muffling and static radio call* “130 dead. 78 children.” In Vietnam poor families would sometimes place children in orphanages if they could not feed them.
Parents did not intend to give them up and would often visit their children. In some cases parents put their children on a Babylift plane and later left Vietnam themselves as refugees with the intention of finding their children later. Heidi Bub’s birth mother Mai Thi Kim, feared that her daughter would "be soaked with gasoline and be burnt." A chance to send the child to America was a ray of hope. Eventually only a handful of children were reunited with their Vietnamese parents but only after many years and lawsuits. Many children were caught in court battles between their birth parents and their adoptive parents. For a number of Babylift adoptees finding their birth parents is essentially impossible because no records exist.
Operation Babylift was a mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries at the end of the Vietnam War, on April 3–26, 1975. Roughley over 10,300 infants and children had been evacuated. Along with Operation New Lift, over 110,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. Thousands of children were airlifted from Vietnam and adopted by families around the world. *IMPORTANT SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT* “Operation Babylift was a succes with minor problems that
occured”
Evaluation of the Success of the Evacuation of Children from Major British Cities during World War II
During the 1960s and 70s, Laos became engulfed in the Vietnam War. The U.S. government also got involved by supporting the anti-Communist forces and getting the tribes in Laos to help them. The Iu Mein, as well as other minority tribes, provided the U.S. with armed manpower, intelligence, and surveillance. In 1975, the community forces rose in victory as the Iu Mein people began to escape to their homeland. My father said that the reason my family, as well as most of the Iu Mein in Laos, ran away was because they didn't want to be under the new Pathet Lao government. Escaping was not easy to accomplish. Many of my parents' friends who were caught trying to escape were taken to prisons, tortured, and most of them were killed. My parents were terrified of the Vietnamese soldiers and prayed that nothing would happen to them, their brothers, sisters, parents, and their son (my brother) who was 8 years old at the time. They had to flee during the night, pass through the jungles and onto boats traveling across the Mekong River.
During the 1960s many people who could not have children turned to adoption. Some women were persuaded to give up their children even though they were capable of take care of the child. The social, economic and religious pressures help women make the decision for them. Sometimes they were pressured to give up their child because they were not married and adoption was better than abortion.
Initially, an Australian Army taskforce of 30 men was sent to train and assist South Vietnamese troops, but an unforeseen escalation in communist aggression eventually amounted in the
... of South Vietnam that resulted in the fall of Saigon on 30 April. In the previous month a RAAF detachment of 8 Hercules transports flew humanitarian missions to aid civilian refugees displaced by the fighting, and carried out the evacuation of Vietnamese orphans before finally taking out embassy staff on 25 April (Dudley 179).
Costello, Mary. "Vietnam Aftermath." Editional Research Reports 1974 1 (1974): 1. CQ Researcher Online. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.
If one had to choose a single event in history that had the greatest impact on airmobile assault, without question it would have to be Operation Chopper. On December 11, 1962, the United States aircraft carrier, USNS Card, docked in Saigon with 32 U.S. Army CH-21 helicopters and 400 men in support of Operation Chopper (Tolson, 1973). Approximately 12 days later, these same CH-21 helicopters airlifted over a 1,000 South Vietnamese paratroopers to a suspected Viet Cong
In May 1961, John F. Kennedy sent investigators to Vietnam, thus turning the tide in favor of the United States and South Vietnam. Unfortunately, with the flow of infiltrators and weapons from North Vietnam, the United States and South Vietnam lost their upper hand (Tucker). Conclusively, 2.5 million Americans served and about 58,000 lost their lives in Vietnam (Vietnam Veterans Memorial). On April 30, 1975 Vietnam was finally reunited under a communist government. Once the war ended, Vietnam was devastated. Both the South and North Vietnamese economies were in shambles and they suffered from the chemical pesticides. The Vietnamese also lost about 3 million soldiers and civilians during the war. The United States also suffered due to the fact that the military was completely shattered and had to be rebuilt. The inflation was at an ultimate high from the failure to fact the actual costs of war. These situations forced Washington D.C. to reevaluate the power of the United States
Birth is a normal, physiological process, in which a woman’s body naturally prepares to expel the fetus within. It has occurred since the beginning of time. Unfortunately, childbirth has gradually evolved into what it is today - a highly managed whirlwind of unwarranted interventions. Jennifer Block, a journalist with over twelve years experience, has devoted herself to raising awareness regarding the authenticity of the Americanized standard of care in obstetrics, while guiding others to discover the truth behind the medical approach to birth in this country. In her book, Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care, Jennifer Block brings forth startling truths concerning this country’s management of birth.
Many people grow up in loving families and cannot imagine not having their parents and siblings around, but each year, 18,000 or more American born babies are put up for adoption (Newlin Carney). That means at least 18,000 children face the harsh truth of maybe not having a family to grow up in. Childhood is a very important part of one’s life and helps shape who one is. These children that are eligible to be adopted just need loving parents, good homes, and stability. And who is to say the high price of adopting is not ho...
"11 Facts About Child Soldiers." Do Something. N.p., 26 Mar 2004. Web. 22 Nov 2013. .
Every day, 370,000 babies are born into this world- each having the potential to live a prosperous and productive life. Unfortunately, some of these tiny, fragile humans do not live until their first birthday. The death of infants within the first year of life is known as infant mortality. There are many contributing factors as to why infant mortality may be high or low in a specific area. In order to measure the amount of deaths that occur in a particular region, the number of newborns that die before the age of one year old per 1,000 live births are recorded and is known as the infant mortality rate in that society. Generally, the infant mortality rate of a country directly reflects on the health-care system provided. Unfortunately, in today’s world, a child dies every four seconds.
Taylor, Rupert. “The Plight of Child Soldiers.” Suite 101. Media Inc., 11 May 2009. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. .
“Photographs like the one that made the front page of the most newspapers in the world in 1972- a naked South Vietnamese child just sprayed by american napalm, running down a highway toward the cameras, her arms open, screaming with pain-- probably did more to increase the public revulsion against the war than a hundred hours of televised barbarities”(476)
As we got further and further into the Vietnam War, few lives were untouched by grief, anger and fear. The Vietnamese suffered the worst hardship; children lay dead in the street, villages remained nothing but charred ashes, and bombs destroyed thousands of innocent civilians. Soldiers were scarred emotionally as well as physically, as