Free Escape from Saigon by Andrea Warren

Vietnamese men, women, and children who were waiting for evacuation.
    â€œWe received assurance from American officials that our staff would get out,” John says. “Bob, Glen, and I were told that we must leave immediately or risk losing American protection, so we boarded another flight. That was on April 27.”
    The men flew to Singapore, where they planned to catch a flight to America. But when they arrived in Singapore, a heartbreaking message awaited them. “For reasons we’ve never understood, someone from the U.S. embassy had showed up at the warehouse and made all our staff people get on buses. Unbelievably, they were taken back to the Holt Center. One of our staff members somehow managed to call our Oregon office, begging for help. But there was nothing anyone could do. Nothing.”
    Lan was with the staff members trapped in Saigon. Though she had lost her daughter, Tai, who had gone on the Babylift flight with Long, she hoped she could escape to safety and live somewhere in freedom. When she realized that the Holt group could not leave, she decided to try one last possibility. She knew an American living in Saigon who worked for an international firm. He had once told her to contact him if she ever needed help. She did not know if he was still in the city, but she put through a call to his office. Both electricity and phone service had become so undependable, she could hardly believe it when the call went through and the operator put the man on the line.
    â€œI’ll try to help,” he said when she explained her plight. “My company has a private plane leaving tonight. Maybe I can pull some strings and get you on it, provided you can get into the airport. Go to my apartment immediately and wait for instructions.”
    It took Lan two hours to make her way through the mobbed streets. She found a note on the American’s apartment door addressed to her, stating that she was to go to a nearby school, where a car would meet her. Only half believing this, she hurried to the school. Within minutes, a car pulled up. The driver verified her identity and told her to get in. Traffic on the main streets was at a standstill, but the driver knew the side streets and got to the airport. At the gate, the car was waved through without stopping. The driver told her to go inside the terminal and wait until she heard her name called. She had only one small suitcase and her travel documents with her. She had no food or water and did not know any of the people who packed the terminal waiting room. She found a place against a wall and stayed there. Everyone looked nervous and upset. Some paced around and some cried, especially when they heard explosions outside. Lan could see smoke and fires on the runways from the Communist shelling, which increased every hour.
    At three A.M. , after nearly nine hours of waiting, she heard her name called. She was rushed aboard a small plane. She collapsed into a seat, and moments later, the plane lifted into the air. Once the plane was out of range of the rockets bursting around them, she looked out a window. She could see fires burning all around the city.
    â€œI did not even know where we were flying to,” she says. “I had no family left in Vietnam, but I had no one anywhere else, either. When I realized I had escaped, I was overcome with both joy and sorrow. I was all alone. I no longer had my daughter or my country, and I did not know if I could stand to live in the world without them.”
    *   *   *
    On April 29, the American embassy finally began Operation Frequent Wind, the official evacuation of Americans still in Saigon. When the American radio station played “White Christmas,” followed by the announcement that “the temperature in Saigon is 105 degrees and rising,” Americans knew to hurry to their assigned evacuation sites.
    The streets of downtown Saigon were cluttered with abandoned cars, clothing, and