Colorado nun remembers Operation Babylift 50 years after evacuation of Vietnamese orphans from war zone

by: Jeremy Hubbard

Posted: Apr 28, 2025 / 04:49 PM MDT

Updated: Apr 28, 2025 / 06:16 PM MDT

DENVER (KDVR) —

Nuns and nurses, pilots and volunteers.

They’re the heroes who pulled off a massive evacuation effort 50 years ago, airlifting thousands of Vietnamese orphans out of the war zone in the final days of the Vietnam War. And a Colorado woman played a critical role in the mission.

“We did everything we could,” Sister Mary Nelle Gage told FOX31.

Fifty years ago, in the desperate final days of the war, with Viet Cong forces closing in and Saigon about to fall, more than 3,000 Vietnamese children were evacuated by massive cargo planes. Gage helped arrange adoptions for thousands of Vietnamese orphans as one of the first organizers of what would eventually become known as Operation Babylift.

“We had children leaving every week,” she said.

Gage returned to the US to process orphans upon their arrival. But back in Vietnam, the unthinkable happened. On April 4, 1975, the very first cargo plane departing Saigon as part of Operation Babylift crashed in a rice paddy. The Air Force C-5 jet was loaded with young children. The death toll was 138 people, including 78 children.

Through heartbreak and grief, Gage and the other volunteers spent the rest of that month safely evacuating thousands of Vietnamese orphans as North Vietnamese troops closed in.

Gage has stayed in touch with many of the orphans she helped evacuate from Vietnam. And she just returned to Vietnam with many of the adoptees and volunteers from Operation Babylift. They held a memorial service at the site of the plane crash, just outside Ho Chi Minh City.

“I think the fact that they are a survivor of a horrendous event has given them an extra purpose. What a gift,” Gage said.

To learn more about Gage and the other volunteers, orphans and plane crash survivors from Operation Babylift, watch “The Vietnam War: Flight to a New Future,” Sunday, May 4 at 9 p.m. ET on NewsNation.

https://kdvr.com/news/local/colorado-nun-remembers-operation-babylift-50-years-after-evacuation-of-vietnamese-orphans-from-war-zone/