Operation Babylift Affects Wagner Students

By Nina Pierce Baker ('77)

2015 marked the 40th anniversary of Operation Babylift. Many Wagnerites were involved in the care of the children that came through Clark on their way to the states to be adopted. Several Wagnerites paid a heavy price during the operation to rescue these children. 

Lt. Col. William Willis, Commander of Flight Operations (father of Bill, Barry ’75, Mark ’78 and Karen) and Med Tech T/Sgt Denning Johnson (father of Sandra '76), along with many others, lost their lives in the crash of the C-5A during Operation Babylift. 

Lt. Col. William Willis and TSgt. Denning are memorialized on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. (Panel 1W Rows 122 and 121) Those that went to the D.C. reunion were able to pay their respects in person. 

Operation Babylift took place two years after the ending of America's ground combat role in Southeast Asia and the return of our POWs from North Vietnamese concentration camps. After Communist forces in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia began push closer to Saigon, a massive evacuation of Vietnamese orphan children, many offspring of American soldiers, took place. 

This humanitarian effort suffered a major setback on April 4, 1975, when the initial C-5A Galaxy carrying evacuees crashed shortly after taking off from Saigon's Tan Son Nhut Air Base, killing 98 children, 46 escorts, and 11 USAF crewmembers. 

The "Babylift" continued despite this incident, however, and as the Communist forces continued their string of successes, it expanded to cover the evacuation of adult refugees from Saigon, Phnom Penh, and Vientiane, as well. 

By this time, the operation's name had changed to "New Life", from April 21 to 28 1975, more than 30,000 refugees, including over 1,500 orphans transited through Clark AFB. 2,000 people were housed in a massive tent city, adjacent to the Bamboo Bowl stadium. The first planeload of Vietnamese orphans arrived at Clark on April 5, 1975. 

Many in the Wagner community were involved in this operation. Mrs. Folts, mother of Pat ’75, Mike ’76 and Kelly ’78, was in charge of determining the number, medical condition and location of the babies. Sue Wragg’s (’76) father was the base chaplain and her parents were very involved in coordinating many of the Clark wives who volunteered to care for the infants. Mrs. Marvin Goodwin, one of the WHS secretaries was the youth volunteer coordinator. 

Cong Potter ’78, who had formerly lived in Vietnam, served as an interpreter.
The WHOA site has an issue of the Falcon Crier that details some of the student’s experiences along with pictures of Sindi Avalos ’75, Tracey Herrington, Danny Reid and Dake Vahovich ’78. Judy Seals has a class page with further accounts from the Falcon Crier. And David Rosmer submitted pictures and some history of Operations Babylift and New Life. 

 Today, the children of Operation Babylift are adults and many appreciate the sacrifice that was made on their behalf. Those that perished in the C5 crash are memorialized on the website VietnamBabylift.org and many Wagnerites left messages of their memories of that time on The BabyLift.com – a movie by Tammy Nguyen Lee on Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam (scroll down to the bottom of the page). 

Joyce Wertz Harrington, an RN on the flights, provides her memories of that time in this article. The website Touch The Wall has a page devoted to the Airmen who lost their lives during Operation Babylift 

Many of us carry vivid memories of those days and to our classmates, the children of T/Sgt Denning Johnson and Lt. Col. William Willis, we honor your fathers’ sacrifice. I, for one, will be remember my friend, Mark Willis, and his dad.