Aude: a survivor tells us about the forgotten crash of the children of Vietnam
DOSSIER MIDI LIBRE - In 1975, an American airlift, bereaved by a fatal accident, exfiltrates 3,000 orphans from Vietnam. A survivor and a novelist, Audoises by adoption, recall this incredible episode.
Saigon, April 4, 1975, 5.30 pm Shortly after takeoff, an American military transport aircraft Galaxy C - 5A, aboard which nearly 300 Vietnamese orphans were crammed into the Mekong Delta. From the shattered carcass of the device, which shattered into several parts, only a few dozen children emerged alive. The others were ejected when the aircraft lost its rear door in flight, or drowned, in the shoe boxes slid under the seats where they were supposed to travel.
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Aude: a survivor tells us about the forgotten crash of the children of Vietnam
Just before the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975
This flight was the first of an astonishing massive operation, launched by the United States just a few weeks before the fall of Saigon at the hands of the Communist army of the North, the end point of the Vietnam war.
“ It was a real airlift which at the time was touted as a victory, because 3,000 babies arrive in the United States, while the war is lost. Ambassador Graham Martin thought that with a reaction strong emotional, the Congress would vote new credits to continue the war ", explains Marie Bardet, who lives since 2015 in Narbonne and publishes a fascinating novel inspired by this historical episode little known in France.
The children of GI's and Vietnamese?
The 3,000 little Vietnamese in Babylift were supposed to be the children of GI's and Vietnamese, who had to be saved from the clutches of the Communists. In reality, some were real orphans, sometimes in the process of being adopted by Western families. But others had relatives in Vietnam, who feared for their safety and hoped to bring them temporarily to safety.
"Most had no papers, no exit visa, sometimes just a name or a nickname, written on a cardboard label. There are rules for a child to be adoptable: that he does not have no more family, or that his parents have given informed consent, " says Marie Bardet. "These children were taken hostage: the political nature of Babylift was obvious. Many adoptions went wrong: there were mothers who then crossed the ocean to sue to recover their children, GI's who are still looking for their child. If there are so many groups linked to Babylift on the networks today, it is because these children were not all children without families ".
No visas, but "do not write it down"
"It was agreed that for humanitarian reasons we should close our eyes to the visas granted to all children in view of the emergency. But do not write it down", reports a telephone note from the Quai d'Orsay of April 11, 1975, quoted by Yves Denéchère in his article on Babylift in the review World Wars and Contemporary Conflicts, N ° 252 in which he notes the mixed eyes on the operation: "massive kidnapping" for some, "humanitarian battle won" for others. To the history of judging.
Through one of these incredible collisions whose history, large or small, has the secret, the first Babylift crash is at the heart of the life of another Audoise of heart… and of adoption.
"I am one of the children who were in this plane which crashed shortly after takeoff", explains Sandie Quercy, 46, who now lives in Saint-Marcel-sur-Aude, after having worked in the loan- to wear in Paris and Lyon. She was nine months old when she was taken on the Galaxy C-5 and was to be adopted by Andrée and Francis Quercy, a couple from Narbonne. For a few hours, the latter believed her dead, and their situation is then closely followed by Midi Libre. "They almost lost the child they adopted before they even saw her," our newspaper wrote on April 10, 1975.
France did not want to get involved in this story which smelled of sulfur, but accepted children under pressure from associations
Almost 45 years after the Galaxy crash, the adopted child Sandie and the novelist Marie ended up meeting, after discovering that they were almost neighbors. One was looking for its roots. The other of the testimonies, to nourish his novel. “I saw Marie's announcement on a Facebook group of American descendants of the Babylift,” Sandie recalls. "It so exceeded all my expectations," smiled Marie, who was then preparing for her trip to Vietnam.
Their exchanges nourished knowledge of the history of one and the fiction of the other. "France did not want to get involved in this story which smelled of sulfur, but accepted children under pressure from associations. They were then asked to destroy all documents so that biological mothers could not find their child" .
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