Operation Babylift

By the final American flight out of South Vietnam, over 3,300 infants and children had been airlifted, although the actual number has been variously reported.

[8] When American businessman Robert Macauley learned that it would take more than a week to evacuate the surviving orphans due to the lack of military transport planes, he chartered a Boeing 747 from Pan American World Airways and arranged for 300 orphaned children to leave the country, paying for the trip by mortgaging his house.

He gathered the orphans in Saigon, accompanied them to Clark AB (Air Base) in the Philippines, and continued to care for them on the Boeing 747 across the Pacific Ocean to Los Angeles and then Long Beach Naval Support Activity.

[10] A C-5A Galaxy, serial number 68-0218, flew the initial mission of Operation Babylift departing from Tan Son Nhut Airport shortly after 4 p.m. on 4 April 1975.

The crew descended to an altitude of 4,000 feet on a heading of 310 degrees in preparation for landing on Tan Son Nhut's runway 25L.

A Babylift flight arrives at San Francisco , 5 April 1975
A pair of well-worn baby shoes worn by an orphan evacuated from Vietnam during Operation Babylift