WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- The fall of Saigon April 30, 1975, signaled the official end of the Vietnam War. By that time, U.S. military efforts in the region had been significantly reduced from its height of involvement in 1968.
However, even before the South Vietnamese government’s capitulation to the communist forces, the U.S. Air Force Military Airlift Command was tasked to begin evacuating South Vietnamese who had been loyal to U.S. agencies. It was critical to move those refugees out of danger and to the safety of U.S. bases in the Pacific.
The vast humanitarian disaster of 1975, brought on by the rapid collapse of South Vietnam to the enemy, prompted an unprecedented airlift relief effort, known as Operation New Life.
Seven Air Force organizations employed C-141, C-130, CH-53, HH-53 and C-9 aircraft in an effort to complete one of the largest aerial evacuations in history. In the span of six months, more than 130,000 Vietnamese refugees accounted for were from East Asia.
The massive undertaking to evacuate tens of thousands of souls was conducted through a series of overlapping operations.
Saigon’s rapid collapse within a matter of weeks at the end of a decades long war had occurred with unanticipated ease. As a result, it triggered a massive exodus.
Initially, commercial cargo planes attempted to fulfill the demand to transport hundreds of orphaned Vietnamese and Cambodian orphans. It was not enough.
Within days Saigon’s collapse, Air Force cargo planes were flying non-stop missions to take refugees from Indo-China to U.S. bases in the Philippines and on Guam. Each airlift mission was exposed to great risks and dangers. The Airmen tasked with the missions recognized they were making history.
In the June 1975 unit history document, the 445th Operations Division report underscored the significance of the unit’s contributions to Operation New Life. The operation originated at 445th Military Airlift Wing’s home station at the time, Norton Air Force Base, California, where they were a tenant unit of the 63rd MAW.
Thirteen aircrew of the 445th MAW flew 83 sorties directly in support, and 43 sorties that indirectly supported the operation. This service, along with 13 flight nurses of the 68th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, part of the 445 MAW, flew 23 sorties, while 16 medical technicians flew more than 20 sorties.
Each of these members of the 445th MAW were vital to the Herculean airlift effort to safely evacuate those desperate to escape communism and for a chance to live in freedom.