wake island vietnamese refugees wake island vietnamese refugees

Your courage, vulnerability, and determination remain as constant memories with me. All the pictures on this site, except as noted, were scanned on Nikon Cool Scan film scanner, set to achieve an output definition of 300 dpi, with an output size of approximately 810 inches. . While she is a charming and sensitive person, it dawned on me that she was the substitute for all those people I knew on Wake Island that I'm hoping this site will reach. The lenses I used were: 20 mm f:4 Auto-Nikkor, 24 mm f:2.8 Auto-Nikkor, 35 mm f:2 Auto-Nikkor, 50 mm f:1.4 Auto-Nikkor, 55 mm f:3.5 Micro-Nikkor, 85 mm f:1.8 Auto-Nikkor, 105 mm f: 2.5 Auto-Nikkor, 200 mm f:4 Auto-Nikkor, and 500 mm f:8 Reflex-Nikkor. It's like trying to work out Fermat's Last Theorem on an abacus. After more than 25 years of inactivity, my own printmaking chops have totally deteriorated, so I was fortunate to have found someone as talented and personable as Luke to take care of this project. In addition, this Web site was on display at the Kansas City Museum, 3218 Gladstone Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri, through a dedicated computer through August 7 of 2005, in conjunction with the Smithsonian exhibition entitled: Vietnam: Journey of the Heart. The Wake Island black and white pictures were shot on Ilford HP4 (ASA 400) film, bulk-loaded from 100 foot rolls, Kodak Tri-X (ASA 400) in 20 or 36 exposure rolls, and an occasional roll of Agfa or Ansco film that I found lying around. After 2 nights rest there, we hopped on a TWA DC-10 bound for Fort Chaffee (actually landing in Ft Smith Municipal Airport just as described above!) You'll see him in roll #400-27. But on April 30, 2000, the Kansas City Star had run a full-page spread commemorating the 25th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam, and a separate story about these pictures ran well below the fold. The bar never ran out of ice for scotch on the rocks, but none of those rocks could dare be used to cool down photographic processes. Kathleen Henrickson, my colleague at Blue River Community College, was extremely helpful and patient with the disruption to her life my scanning caused. When I arrived, in September 1973, there were 250 people employed or stationed there. They include the book I wrote concerning my trips to China beginning in 2003, Love is in the air, along with some other Pollutants. It is honorable soldiers like you and your departed friend Donny along with so many kind and compassionate American people here in the States who took us in with open arms that make this country so great because of its generosity. Thai pirates. He is also the person who sicced the Ford Library on me, trying, as they do, to grub freebees for the National Archives. Airlift could not transport all of the refugees who sought to escape as communist forces took over South Vietnam in the desperate spring of 1975. Tam, Hanh, Dung, Ti, Xuan Mai: every Christmas I imagine you under my tree. All the negatives were processed in the same manner and stored under the same conditions, so any observed variation consistent across film type is most likely the quality of the original film stock. Socrates is one, but he had nothing to do with this site. Lost at sea for two months, the last five. Smith Air Port. Once in the United States, the Vietnamese boat people faced the same obstacles as other immigrants, struggling to learn the language and gain an economic foothold. After that, it served as a refugee camp for Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon. When the proposal to send Afghan refugees fleeing Taliban violence to Guam was floated earlier this year, it brought up memories for many during a similar situation on island 46 years ago. The first to leave were several thousand South Vietnamese military and government officials who departed with US forces in 1975. From there, many of the refugees stopped in Hawaii as their aircraft transited the Pacific. Like the roughly 800,000 Vietnamese who fled via various routes in the years after, Huynh had found himself on the losing side of the war. Out of 120 people, only 15 men survived. Still others were wives or children of U.S. citizens who had served in South Vietnam, either in the military or as civilians. The pirates took the remaining men including Hien to another Vietnamese boat they had looted. Some Vietnamese riding on Boeing 747s landed at Little Rock AFB and transferred to smaller military aircraft that could land at Fort Smith. Thousands fled by sea, riding in small boats to Navy ships in the South China Sea or in ships to the Philippines and beyond. Until this time, I have never been paid a cent for the use of any of these pictures, but that policy ends with the institution of this site. I took the time to tell this story for two reasons, First America as a country has a wonderful heart and second I wanted to tell the story of 8 Air Force Blue Ribbon Maintenance Technician and the reinforcements that did everything from parking the planes to turning the refugees over to the local ANG. Since, without a greater influx of funds into my coffers I am likely to end my life living under a bridge, I would appreciate your understanding and respecting my need for momentary solvency. The door is unlocked, the light is on, the teapot is ready to boil. Most all of the civilian workers who did support duties (i.e.- cooks, groundskeepers, carpenters, etc.) We divided up and worked 12-hrs shifts. It crawls on its belly like a reptile! But some of you are as clear in my mind and my memory as yesterday's sunset. After years of searching, a chief mate sailor who saved 51 Vietnamese refugees in 1978 was reunited with a group of them 44 years later. Ronald, reading your comment lead me to document and experience that I had with my Blue Ribbon Aircraft recovery team in Apr of 75 at Fort Smith AR. English: Vietnamese refugees on Wake Island await processing by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service personnel in May 1975. By 1996 the Galang Refugee Camp, one of the largest camps in Indonesia, closed and people returned to Vietnam, both voluntarily and by force. More than 73,000 evacuees fled by boat from South Vietnam to the Philippines in April. I made free prints and distributed them at the time because I knew they might be meaningful to you, personally, in the future. That movement remains so strong today that many people have grown up thinking that it is an eternal verity, without serious rational rival. The U.S. helicopters airlifted more than 6,000 passengers out of Saigon on April 29 and 30, including over 5,000 Vietnamese. It would be impossible to do justice to how much he meant to me personally as well as the site. It was the most heart wrenching yet rewarding month Ive ever spent in my life. I can hardly remember some of you in these pictures, as I am sure the bearded, curly-headed man behind the camera is also a fading question mark. Img from PulauBidong. Greg was on Wake when I got there, and was still there when I left, but he didn't last much more than another year there. We have our own history, our own medal, and we are still proud. Capt. The closest land to Wake is the Marshall Island of Bikini, 500 nautical miles to the south. Others sought to escape because they did not want to live under a communist system. In addition to the remaining prints not earmarked for Chicago, I would also like to donate all the original negatives from this site to the archives of The Vietnam Project. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its highest in 1978 and 1979, but continued into the early 1990s. Vietnamese refugees in the U.S. are at ages where they're beginning to develop dementia. Many of you, like my pal Bill, keep tropical fish. per adult (price varies by group size) In. We live in Independence, Missouri, and I have recently retired from teaching Philosophy at the Blue River Campus of MCC -- the Metropolitan Community College of Kansas City. I may have been the only person ever to get Chris Woelk to don a tuxedo of his own free will. Not quick enough to spot mine, of course, but that's Major League material. Other volumes include The Nail That Sticks Out, my two years teaching in Japan (1995-97), and Nodding Off in the Unemployment Line, the experience of being un- and under-employed in the three years following my return from Japan, 1997-2000. On the last two days of the Saigon siege, April 29 and 30, helicopters offered the only air escape route from South Vietnam. We were assigned TDY to Det. We drank to forget; we drank to remember what we were forgetting; we drank to our wives; we drank to our sweethearts; we drank to each other's wives and sweethearts; we drank to the contusions and abrasions that resulted from the latter activity; we drank to get to sleep at night; we drank to quell the nightmares our drinking brought on; we drank because wine was less than $5 a gallon but the Air Force wouldn't bring fresh milk onto the island. Julian had been a pal/rival during college in Los Angeles, and when I exiled myself to Wake Island (as he saw it) we began a correspondence. Greg was a fellow weatherman and questioner of the world. Advertisement. After my first letter, he wrote back, pained and insulted that he could not read my sloppy penmanship. Because of the sudden death of my father, in June 1975, I left Wake Island to attend the funeral and on the way back, stopped at Ft. Chaffee for a surprise visit with the Hoangs, who had been sent there after leaving Wake. wake island vietnamese refugees. When communist artillery hit and set on fire a C130 on the ground at Tan Son Nhut on April 28, Hercules flights out of Saigon also ended. ake is located at 19 degrees, 17 minutes north latitude, and 166 degrees, 39 minutes east longitude in the Pacific Ocean. Others sought to escape because they did not want to live under a communist system. The arrival of 125,000 Vietnamese refugees to the United States in 1975 was among the most dramatic evacuations undertaken by the U.S. government, matched only recently by the chaotic flights from Afghanistan following the U.S. military's withdrawal. One was a little girl supposedly destined for France. It is truly extraordinary, especially for older film that has not received optimum care over the years. One of the KC Jazz photos shows Eddie Baker playing the piano in 1981. Another 884 orphans flew out of South Vietnam on private planes not under military contract. For me, the visitors meant two things: women and children. y name is Dennis Lowden. So this site is my love letter to you. wake island vietnamese refugees750 watt step through electric bike. These pictures, in part, offer testimony to that time. Air Force cargo planes carried 949 Vietnamese orphans from Saigon and Cambodian orphans from U Tapao, Thailand, to U.S. bases in the Philippines and Guam. Bring that noble doggie over to the keyboard and in a moment you will notice his drooling has stopped, his odor markedly more attractive, and he will have rid himself permanently of that lamentable habit of flatulence when the pastor visits. He also has a Nikon Cool Scan 2900 dpi scanner and an Epson printer, and what he was able to do with them amazed me. Gloria Vando Hickok, pal, poet, publisher of Helicon Nine, co-founder of The Writer's Place in Kansas City, began hearing my Wake Island stories 15 years ago and has always insisted I write a book about them. If the site is easy to navigate, comfortable on the eyes, and an enjoyable experience, thank Kevin. I was stationed at Little Rock AFB after the airlift operation, but the stories that were told made me proud to be an American and a sister to all people in the world. They arrive, predictably, and at the height of tension, Finch's children, who had been secretly hiding in the bushes and watching it all, came out and broke the menace and resolve of the mob with their touching directness. Every man was needed for the final battle, and forces were gathering offshore. However, there's something of a lesson in that scene, I believe, and it applied to Wake Island only in a less extreme version. God Bless, richard. The Military Airlift Command airlifted 1,794 Babylift passengers. We had never met, to my knowledge, but she had seen a Wake Island posting I had left at another Web site and decided to contact me. It gave the world Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and Count Basie. Initial flights transported the refugees to Guam, bases in the Philippines and later Wake Island for processing. As North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces closed in on Saigon and the South Vietnamese government began to collapse, tens of thousands of refugees sought to escape the country. On April 26, 1975, all that changed dramatically. lease feel free to download any image on this site, remembering that you are restricted from using it for any other than personal uses. Marine gunners let them close to 4,500 yards before their 5-inch naval guns opened fire. Linda Thong's story ends happily for her and her family, suggesting a new chapter to the American immigrant success story. [8] These children were perceived as unwanted consequences of war and were horrifically treated as such in postwar Vietnam. Bill, another peds , did a review of all children and removed 4 of them to be sent to me at Tachi hospital. One of the refugees, Lisa Dam, was 19 years old when she escaped from Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. ^Nghia M. Vo, The Vietnamese Boat People, 1954 and 1975-1992 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2005), 664-100. This boy was placed in charge of his group (mostly family) of 35 people because he spoke the best English of them all his father was killed while they were escaping the Cong chased them down with their gun boat and blasted the groups fishing boat with a couple of rockets dad was killed, a very small baby (@ 6-8 weeks old) had his face smashed in by shrapnel and what wed discovered after this brave young man had got his entire group through the processing line (taking names; billeting; medical assistance; etc.) Her knowledge of the Mac was quite useful and she was unstinting in her sharing of it. Even cold water on Wake is fairly warm and the darkroom had no refrigeration facilities, so the film was developed at about 78-80 degrees F in Kodak Microdol-X developer, diluted 1:3. No sooner had we settled into our quarters when SSMSgt rounded us all up and ordered us to the chow hall where we met some of the nicest group of civilian personnel. wake island vietnamese refugees. Welcome to Wake Island, rich in history and yet little known. Her name was Tet. If the CEO of, say, Harper/Collins happens to be surfing the Web in his abundant leisure time, keeping tabs on the state of expression in the English language, I feel I must note that I already have written three books of over 100,000 words each in urgent need of publishing. In it, I am asking you please to come back. The lowest temperature ever recorded was 64. At the time, I was single and unaware he was the uncle of Mata Baker, the woman who would become my second wife in 1984, and my second ex-wife in 2003. In particular, allowing the affected member to operate the mouse, if only for a few nanoseconds, will alleviate the lifelong heartbreak of herpes simplex, inexplicable hickeys, and will automatically erase all porno sites from your browser's bookmarks as well as munching on those cookies in your Temporary Internet Files. The innermost recesses of the lagoon, south of Flipper Point, could be most charitably described as a brackish marsh. Measuring only 1 square kilometer in area, the camp was designed to house 4,500 people, but. Naturally, many local greats were represented in other free concerts, such as Jay McShann, Claude "Fiddler" Williams, Pete Eye, Milt Abel, among others. There were, at the most, three unmarried women living on the island (out of 175-250 people, let us remember) at any one time, and no children were permitted under any circumstances. It is an unorganized United States territory, with no permanent residents, just members of the U.S. military and civilian contractors who manage the facility. The U.S. ended up receiving well over a million refugees, who started new lives in communities across the country. Miraculously, more than half of the passengers survived, including 149 orphans. Wake Island is also thought to be within the outer engagement umbrella of the ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) interceptors based in Fort Greely, Alaska, which are designed to counter. Apparently, the U.S. was unprepared for the huge numbers of people who were leaving to come to America, and Wake Island was suddenly useful again as an overflow center. Any man that introduces my son to Diz is a friend for life. I expect to complete the donation to that museum by the end of 2007. 1. We miss you! It consists of three separate islands: Wake, the center one, Wilkes, the westernmost, and Peale, the northernmost. Vietnam War Refugees and Operation New Life: In the spring of 1975, the population of Wake Island consisted of 251 military, government and civilian contract personnel, whose primary . In a week destined for division and separation, I suddenly became strangely whole again. part of the reason for this Web site is for it to act as a continuation of the process of writing a book about my Wake Island experiences. That was to be very SHORT LIVED (lol!) The second exhibition, which included readings of Vietnamese poetry and extended narration by me was concerning the photos, held at The Writers Place, 3607 Pennsylvania Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri on Sunday afternoon, July 10, 2005 at 4:00 P.M. Only about 20 pictures were shown at The Writers Place, and they remained on its walls through September. When the Midway became overcrowded, the squadron also moved 804 refugees from the carrier to other Navy ships in the flotilla. My son Jake and I would go to nearly every concert, and heard such great players as Gary Burton and Chick Corea, Dave Brubeck, Toshiko Akiyoshi and her big band, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Nat Adderley, Big Joe Turner, the wonderful Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander, the Heath Brothers (at least three of them! Sorry, no sex in that one. I felt more human around children, and after I shot the first few obligatory rolls of cute girls lying at the beach, I concentrated mainly on children. It is an unorganized United States territory, with no permanent residents, just members of the U.S. military and civilian contractors who manage the facility. We spent the last four months of 2012 living together in my house in Independence before her tourist visa expired at the end of the year. For eight. ESPECIALLY OUR FREEDOMS These people lost EVERYTHING! Bless all that came through the camps and those that worked so hard so far away from home to help others. Adult survivors were frightened that wed remove survivors from the crashed plane on this second flight and hid them in various places on the plane when it landed at Yokota AFB. 4 15 AB Wg and little did we any of us realize what was awaiting us and at least for myself, personally, it was a life altering experience to say the least. After returning to the U.S. and abject unemployment in 1997, I began writing Nodding Off in the Unemployment Line. More than 130,000 Vietnamese refugees traveled from the Pacific island camps to the United States in the spring and summer of 1975. It is an unorganized United States territory, with no permanent residents, just members of the U.S. military and civilian contractors who manage the facility. 1999 - 2023 AMC Museum Foundation, Inc. The original plan was for all Vietnamese to go first to Subic Bay, in the Philippines, and then to a processing center on Guam. I was an aircraft mechanic, E-4 Sgt at the time all hell broke lose in 1975. This website is estimated worth of $ 8.95 and have a daily income . Photos of Vietnamese refugees who came to Wake Island in 1975 after the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War. Prior to World War II, Wake's status was a matter of controversy, and Japan landed there often in the 19th Century to kill, and eventually extinguish, an indigenous bird, the rail, for its decorative feathers. It was as if we all were brought together by a power higher than any one of us or our private agendas, and for the afternoon we would surrender ourselves to that power: the endorphins of music. PRAISE GOD! I Will Continue to Do My BEST to ENSURE THAT DOESNT HAPPEN TO MY CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN AND YES (I have 5 of them..) GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN. He was a real nice guy. He is truly the greatest man I have ever known. It dances! from. ecause of the advances in Internet technology and server-user interface permeation, I am happy to announce that merely accessing this site has been known to have miraculous effects on certain diseases.