39th Anniversary -Operation Babylift C-5A crash outside TSN
Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2014 1:36 am
A strange thing happened to me a few weeks ago. I had taken my son to the Frisco Gun Club as a way of keeping him busy before his afternoon birthday party. I was wearing my "Air Force Vietnam Vet" cap, something I rarely do for some reason, when I happened to meet a gent parusing the merchandise there who was looking at me kind of funny. Long story shortened, it turned out he was a retired Navy PIO/Broadcaster who was stationed with me for about a year at the AFRTS station at Clark Air Base, in Pampanga in the Phillipines during 1975-1976. I didn't recognize him - after all it was almost 40 years ago.
He had reported aboard for duty on April 3, 1975 -the day before the entire population of Clark Air Base was turned on its head by the news that a C-5A military jumbo jet out of Ton Son Nhut AB in Saigon (much larger than a 747) was going to be landing at Clark that early evening with up to 500 Vietnamese (and many of them Amero-Vietnamese) orphans and that the 35,000 of us at Clark were going to be babysitting them for a while as onward transportation to CONUS was arranged.
I was working the AM station, with a live DJ show that started about 2:00 pm and was scheduled to end at 5:00 Pm. With us making the base-wide announcements (and to the American and Filipino families off-base as well) it was decided that we would stay on the ait until the plane landed and the reception was well under way. I was offered relief on the board several times, but as pumped as I was, I volunteered to stay on the ait until our remote TV/radio van would come up on the ait about 1/2 hour prior to the estimated 6:00 pm arrival. The Navy guy was drafted to go out with the TV Van, since he had some experience doing remote bradcasts.
Everything was going well till shortly before the van was going to leave the station for the flight line. We had just finished the hourly newscast, and I thought I heard something in the newscaster's voice that was kind of strained, but since the AM studios were out on the street of the compund and the news room was buried back in the TV building, I didn't know what was going on.
I took control of the AM station again, ripped off a couple of announcements, then spun a record. I noticed a crowd gathering at the front door of our trailer, with several folks looking shocked and with what was often referred to as the thousand yard stare. My NCOIC (my boss) came into the control room and told me that there was a report that the C-5A had crashed shortly after takeoff with the loss of all souls aboard.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
The record had run and there was dead air going out, a mortal sin, so I hit the button for one the promos to play, then started another record. Jim told me that I couldn't say anything on the air yet, because it wasn't confirmed and that many of the crew and escorts on the plane were from our base at Clark. We got official confirmation in a short while and the news went out, but I didn't have the strength to continue on the mike, and one of the other guys slid into the console seat, and carried on till it was decided that we could tell the base to stand down. Luckily, word came after confirmation that there had been many survivors on the plane.
Oh, the Navy guy I mentioned at the first of this essay. He remembered my voice, he said, for the way it was cheerful, hopeful, full of good thought before the news of the crash occured, but when he saw me later that night in the compound before I was headed to my quarter, he said it was a different person than he had heard before.
I'm thinking that a lot of us who had spent time in Vietnam and who had been lucky enough to interact with the kids on MEDCAP (medical civil action patrols) or had accompanied the base Chaplains as the tried to help the orphanages around the base, which often had little reminders of America's presence in Vietnam running around since many were abandoned at birth by their mother who knew of the prejudices they would face as the mother of a half Viet-half Anglo baby.
One of my favorite souveniers from my time in Vietnam was from one such foray to an orphanage in Thop Cham, a hill and village outside of Phan Rang AB. It's a black and white photograph where I'm showing a two -or-three year old sweetheart what it looks like when you look down the top of one of those old twin-lens reflex cameras, and the look of awe in her face is so keenly captured by the photog, a friend of mine.
Anyway, the Navy guy and I chatted for about 10 minutes until his wife came looking for him, and he told her that he'd be right there. Before walking away after our handshake, he asked if I ever thought about that horrible day so many years ago. I told him truthfully that I hadn't thought of it for a while, but I would remember this year on the anniversary of that day... April 4, 1975.
And so, to the 179 men, women and children who died that day, including Air Force Captain (Nurse) Mary Therese Klinker, 27, a flight nurse based at the Clark AB Hospital... Rest In Peace, and Well Done.
An Epilogue: less than a month later, Vietnam had fallen, and many hundreds of children, women and men who had been evacuated by air from DaNang and Saigon were arriving on their first stop to new lives, and again, the military and dependents of Clark, and the Philipinos in Angeles City were being called on to help make their stay just a little more livable.
April 4, 1975 was also the last day I worked the AM station (and was manager of the automated FM station to boot). After a few days off, I reported to the newsroom, where I finished out my tour at the American Forces Philippines Network, then becoming part of the Far East Network, headquartered in Misawa, Japan, until I left the Air Force in September of 1976.
He had reported aboard for duty on April 3, 1975 -the day before the entire population of Clark Air Base was turned on its head by the news that a C-5A military jumbo jet out of Ton Son Nhut AB in Saigon (much larger than a 747) was going to be landing at Clark that early evening with up to 500 Vietnamese (and many of them Amero-Vietnamese) orphans and that the 35,000 of us at Clark were going to be babysitting them for a while as onward transportation to CONUS was arranged.
I was working the AM station, with a live DJ show that started about 2:00 pm and was scheduled to end at 5:00 Pm. With us making the base-wide announcements (and to the American and Filipino families off-base as well) it was decided that we would stay on the ait until the plane landed and the reception was well under way. I was offered relief on the board several times, but as pumped as I was, I volunteered to stay on the ait until our remote TV/radio van would come up on the ait about 1/2 hour prior to the estimated 6:00 pm arrival. The Navy guy was drafted to go out with the TV Van, since he had some experience doing remote bradcasts.
Everything was going well till shortly before the van was going to leave the station for the flight line. We had just finished the hourly newscast, and I thought I heard something in the newscaster's voice that was kind of strained, but since the AM studios were out on the street of the compund and the news room was buried back in the TV building, I didn't know what was going on.
I took control of the AM station again, ripped off a couple of announcements, then spun a record. I noticed a crowd gathering at the front door of our trailer, with several folks looking shocked and with what was often referred to as the thousand yard stare. My NCOIC (my boss) came into the control room and told me that there was a report that the C-5A had crashed shortly after takeoff with the loss of all souls aboard.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
The record had run and there was dead air going out, a mortal sin, so I hit the button for one the promos to play, then started another record. Jim told me that I couldn't say anything on the air yet, because it wasn't confirmed and that many of the crew and escorts on the plane were from our base at Clark. We got official confirmation in a short while and the news went out, but I didn't have the strength to continue on the mike, and one of the other guys slid into the console seat, and carried on till it was decided that we could tell the base to stand down. Luckily, word came after confirmation that there had been many survivors on the plane.
Oh, the Navy guy I mentioned at the first of this essay. He remembered my voice, he said, for the way it was cheerful, hopeful, full of good thought before the news of the crash occured, but when he saw me later that night in the compound before I was headed to my quarter, he said it was a different person than he had heard before.
I'm thinking that a lot of us who had spent time in Vietnam and who had been lucky enough to interact with the kids on MEDCAP (medical civil action patrols) or had accompanied the base Chaplains as the tried to help the orphanages around the base, which often had little reminders of America's presence in Vietnam running around since many were abandoned at birth by their mother who knew of the prejudices they would face as the mother of a half Viet-half Anglo baby.
One of my favorite souveniers from my time in Vietnam was from one such foray to an orphanage in Thop Cham, a hill and village outside of Phan Rang AB. It's a black and white photograph where I'm showing a two -or-three year old sweetheart what it looks like when you look down the top of one of those old twin-lens reflex cameras, and the look of awe in her face is so keenly captured by the photog, a friend of mine.
Anyway, the Navy guy and I chatted for about 10 minutes until his wife came looking for him, and he told her that he'd be right there. Before walking away after our handshake, he asked if I ever thought about that horrible day so many years ago. I told him truthfully that I hadn't thought of it for a while, but I would remember this year on the anniversary of that day... April 4, 1975.
And so, to the 179 men, women and children who died that day, including Air Force Captain (Nurse) Mary Therese Klinker, 27, a flight nurse based at the Clark AB Hospital... Rest In Peace, and Well Done.
An Epilogue: less than a month later, Vietnam had fallen, and many hundreds of children, women and men who had been evacuated by air from DaNang and Saigon were arriving on their first stop to new lives, and again, the military and dependents of Clark, and the Philipinos in Angeles City were being called on to help make their stay just a little more livable.
April 4, 1975 was also the last day I worked the AM station (and was manager of the automated FM station to boot). After a few days off, I reported to the newsroom, where I finished out my tour at the American Forces Philippines Network, then becoming part of the Far East Network, headquartered in Misawa, Japan, until I left the Air Force in September of 1976.