Page 6 - Aerotech News and Review, December 17, 2021

Meet a hero of America’s first embassy evacuation
by Larry Grooms
special to Aerotech News
SAN DIEGO, Calif.—On a flight deck crowded with U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard aircraft and he- licopters, 89-year-old Vern Jumper tells USS Midway visitors about the day the deck they’re standing on became the last and best hope for Vietnamese flee- ing life under Communist rule.
Wearing the bright yellow ballcap identifying Midway docents who lived the legends of America’s longest-serv- ing aircraft carrier, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Vern Jumper, retired after a 31-year career, vividly recalls one of the Mid- way’s great achievements — one that put his name in the history books.
In the calm, understated voice of a pilot who made just under 300 F-4 Phantom landings on the USS Mid- way, CVA 42, about 100 more on the Coral Sea CVA 43 and about a 100 F- 11F Tiger landings on the Shangri-La, CVA 38, Mr. Jumper adds, “While I was making all those landing, my wife Rebecca was home chasing four kids.”
He tells his listeners how the Midway crew saved thousands of lives by bold and decisive action when the planned orderly evacuation of America’s Saigon Embassy was unexpectedly followed by a panic-driven exodus from the coast.
Until the Taliban conquest of Kabul, Afghanistan, in the summer of 2021, Operation Frequent Wind’s evacua- tion of Saigon was among the largest military rescue missions in American history. In contrast, “Operation Allies Refuge” in Kabul lasted from July 14 to Aug. 15, evacuating a U.S.-estimated 123,000. The evacuation of Saigon en- tailed the rescue of more than 100,000, of which Midway took aboard 3,073.
Operation Frequent Wind’s first scheduled evacuation helicopters lifted
flight deck be cleared of people and machines, and that Buong be allowed to land. In rain and rising winds, and without a tail-hook, Buong made a good approach and completed his car- rier landing rollout with room to spare,
saving his family to the applause of the flight deck team.
Operation Frequent Wind was con- sidered by some to be the 30 most
See MIDWAY, Page 7
off from the Midway the afternoon of April 29, 1975, four days after South Vietnam’s president left the nation in panic by fleeing to Taiwan. Earlier, U.S. Air Force helicopters ferried up to 60 people at a time from Saigon to the Midway, even as nearby vessels in the Navy flotilla took aboard other American and Vietnamese civilians and officials to prevent overcrowding the Midway.
Air Boss Vern Jumper, undisputed frontline director of flight deck opera- tions, recalls Midway had dropped off her fixed-wing aircraft days earlier and brought aboard CH-47 Chinook and UH-1 Hueys to join 10 Air Force H-53 helicopters.
It was the collapse of South Viet- namese government authority inside the tightening noose around Saigon that triggered the unforeseen, uncon- trolled and potentially deadly flock of South Vietnamese military helicopters speeding blindly out to sea in hope of finding a friendly deck before running out of fuel.
An unknown number of Huey’s, some packed with as many as 50 peo- ple, crashed at sea. Others were able to land aboard. Jumper recalls that later ar-
rivals were eventually allowed to touch down just long enough to let passengers disembark. The pilots then had to lift off, ditch and wait for rescue by boat.
But on April 30 those problems be- gan to pale in comparison with arrival of a wild card: Descending rapidly to- ward the Midway’ s still packed flight deck was a small, single piston engine- powered South Vietnamese Air Force O-1 Birddog.
Jumper recalls the pilot, Maj. Bu- ong Le, making two low passes over the Midway’ s flight deck, both times dropping a paper message which was immediately blown over the side. On the third pass the note was folded into an empty handgun holster.
The pilot’s brief message said he, along with his wife and five children, flew seaward from an island base with no detailed charts or idea about where to find the U. S. fleet. Without radio communications, the note asked that the carrier’s “runway” be cleared quickly as he was running out of fuel.
Midway Capt. Lawrence Cham- bers conferred with Air Boss Jumper. They agreed a water landing would be a disaster. Notifying his task force commander, Chambers ordered the
Navy photograph Maj. Buang Le, flying his South Vietnamese O-1 Birddog, on final approach
to the USS Midway. Buang had his wife and five children onboard the aircraft.
Navy photograph
Maj. Buang Le taxies to a halt on the flight deck of the USS Midway. Buong made two low passes over the aircraft carrier, both times dropping a paper message which was immediately blown overboard. On the third pass, the note was folded into an empty handgun holster.
USS Midway Museum photograph
Sailors rushed to the deck to hold down Buang’s plane. His wife, youngest child, circled, climbed out. The other children followed.
Then-Navy Capt. Larry Chambers, skipper of the aircraft carrier Midway, ordered his crew to push helicopters off the flight deck to save a Vietnamese air force officer and his family fleeing Saigon.
USS Midway museum photograph
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