Forgotten Ship: A Daring Rescue As Saigon Fell

[BridgeTheGap]

For Americans, the lasting image of the end of the Vietnam War came from the nightly news. On April 29, 1975, television showed the evacuation of Saigon as U.S. Marine helicopters swooped down to the U.S. Embassy and the roof of a nearby CIA safe house to rescue the last 1,000 Americans in the city and some 6,000 Vietnamese and their families who worked for them.

But there was another evacuation that didn't get as much attention. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese found other ways to escape in those frenzied few days. They left in boats and helicopters and headed to the South China Sea. They didn't know if North Vietnamese jets would sink their boats or shoot the helicopters out of the sky.
They did know that the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet was out there, somewhere, and they headed out to the ocean hoping to be rescued.
One of those U.S. Navy ships was a small destroyer escort, the USS Kirk. As the evacuation began, the Kirk's military mission was to shoot down any North Vietnamese jets that might try to stop the Marine helicopters. The North Vietnamese planes never came.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129484369

[jwirr]

1. Thank you for this story. For me the memories surround the orphans

who's mothers were handing them over the base fence so they could be put on one of the orphan planes. I was working in Ed Medvinski's office with immigrations getting the rules relaxed so the 2000 babies coming in could be allowed in.

The aftermath of a war can be hell to.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. And in a much quieter way we are doing that with Iraq

Special Need Visas the way they call them these days.

I heard that yesterday on the RM show.

[jwirr]

3. Good. The children are totally innocent of wrong in this damn war. nt