(NEXSTAR) — Nuns and nurses, pilots and volunteers. They’re the heroes who pulled off a massive evacuation effort 50 years ago — airlifting 3,000 Vietnamese orphans out of the war zone in the final days of the Vietnam War.
Many of the children were frail, weak, and malnourished little babies — some of them just barely alive.
“’De Profundus’ was the name that we gave him when he came into the nursery,” said Sister Mary Nelle Gage, referring to one of the babies. Which means, “Out of the depths.”
To Sister Mary, they were precious cargo — the littlest victims of the Vietnam War. She helped get four children out of the country on Pan Am’s last flight out.
“How can we do this? This is just an impossible task,” she recalled.
In the desperate final days of the war, with Viet Cong forces closing in and Saigon about to fall, Gage said they and others did everything they could. More than 3,000 Vietnamese children were evacuated by massive cargo planes.
“My father was absolutely opposed to my going,” Gage said. “He said, ‘I have prayed every night that your brother not be drafted. And you’re volunteering to go.’”
As one of the first organizers of what would become known as Operation Babylift, Sister Gage helped arrange adoptions for thousands of Vietnamese orphans.
“And those are two children who went to France,” she said, pointing to a photograph. “We had children leaving every week.”
She later returned to the U.S. to help process the orphans upon arrival. But back in Vietnam, tragedy struck. On April 4, 1975, a C-5 Air Force jet loaded with Vietnamese orphans being evacuated to the United States, crashed outside Saigon.
Amazingly, more than 170 people survived, including babies and children. Through heartbreak and grief, Gage and other volunteers spent the rest of that month continuing to evacuate Vietnamese orphans as North Vietnamese troops closed in.
Sister Gage still stays in touch with many of the children she helped get out of Vietnam.
“I think the fact that they are a survivor of an horrendous event has given them an extra purpose. What a gift.”