article_snippet.sent: The tragic start to Operation Babylift – which eventually saw more than 3,000 vulnerable children evacuated to new lives overseas as Communist forces closed in on the southern capital – came as an explosion blew out the cargo doors as an explosion climbed to 23,000 feet.
article_snippet.sent: All the orphans' documents including details of the birth parents, dates and places of birth were destroyed on board the inaugural Operation Babylift, which had been due to be met when it landed in the U.S. by President Gerard Ford.
article_snippet.sent: My adoptive parents said "don't forget it's a Communist country and if you do something wrong you might be put in jail and never allowed to leave Vietnam". '
article_snippet.sent: South Vietnamese babies on a flight from Saigon to the United States during Operation Babylift, the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War from April 3 to April 26, 1975 .
article_snippet.sent: Operation Babylift continued despite the April 4 tragedy and before the Fall of Saigon on April 30, more than 3,000 babies, infants and young children – mostly orphans, disabled youngsters and the children of US servicemen – were evacuated by plane.
article_snippet.sent: Around 2,000 of the children of US servicemen went to U.S. while others went to Australia, Canada and Europe.
article_snippet.sent: The last planeload left South Vietnam on April 29, the day before Saigon surrendered to the North Vietnamese Communist forces.
highlights_snippet.sent: Vietnamese orphans and children were evacuated before the Fall of Saigon .
  