WASHINGTON - During the mad scramble out of Saigon at the height of the Vietnam War, an American airline boss dispatched one of his cargo planes to evacuate infants and children from orphanages, fearing that they would be trapped in the fierce battles.
In the deep of night on April 2, 1975, pilots of World Airways filled a DC-8 cargo plane with 57 orphans and lifted off an unlit runway to avoid gunfire from invading communist North Vietnam troops.
Ed Daly, president of World Airways at that time, stoutly defied orders from the government to abort the mission.
But when the cargo of orphaned children reached California safely, public pressure forced President Gerald Ford to launch a mass evacuation of orphans from Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh city.
About 4,000 children were rescued under "Operation Babylift," all of them later adopted by foster parents across the United States.
Thirty years later, Atlanta-based World Airways is set to commemorate its historic airlift with a special flight on June 13 that will return 20 former orphans for a visit to their homeland.
"We expect this to be a very emotional and fulfilling voyage for the adoptees, their family members and our own employees," World Airways President Randy Martinez said of the upcoming flight.
Thanh Jeffery Gahr, 43, among the orphans on the maiden flight from Saigon, said he was excited about his return trip, which has jolted his memory of the events that led to his departure.
"We were taken by surprise one day when a lady who was looking after my two brothers and I told us to get ready to go to America," he said. "And today we are all here."
Gahr, now a Seattle-based electrical engineer with aviation giant Boeing, said the first thing he wished to do on his return to Vietnam is to visit orphanages and "offer hope to the children there.
"People gave me hope and a better future, and I want to do the same," he said.
Gahr's parents died when he was four years old.
The father of an eight year old son and three year old daughter, Gahr gave up his Vietnamese name when he arrived in the United States.
"But I still use my family name as my first name. It is the same for my children, to remind us about our heritage," he said. "In fact that is our only remaining link."
Thirty-seven-year old Timothy Bosworth, who was only seven when he took that daring flight in 1975 with his brother, said he was "excited but nervous" about the trip back.
Both of them were adopted by a single father, a teacher, in Denver, Colorado.
"We are very blessed and we had a chance to live a new life in America," said Bosworth, a draughtsman and father of two toddlers.
He said he caught up with his biological mother, now living in France, after 23 years of painstaking efforts. She had previously worked in a bar in Saigon and sought the help of an American soldier to put him and his brother on the World Airways flight.
For the commemmorative flight, the airline will use a modern WD-11 wide-body passenger aircraft specially painted with the company's former red and white design and logo, said World Airways spokesman Steve Forsyth.
Also on the flight would be Ken Healy and Bill Keating, the pilots of the unsanctioned journey in 1975, as well as other members of the original crew and several ground support employees who participated in Operation Babylift, he said.
"The plane looked like a big playpen," recollected Healy, now 89 years old and living in California. Although the plane had no seats, he said, the crew created a safe, comfortable cabin, with mattress-covered pallets on the floor wrapped with netting, and doctors and volunteers to take care of the children.
05/29/2005 12:56 GMT