Yokota Air Base, Japan, Apr. 7, 1975: A group of Red Cross registered nurses and volunteers arrive at Yokota Air Base April 7, 1975 after assisting on a flight evacuating 327 Vietnamese orphans from Saigon, Vietnam.

The nurses and volunteers — all of them wives of Air Force men stationed in Japan — escorted the orphans from Saigon as part of Operation Babylift.

The plane — chartered by Friends of All Children in Boulder, Colorado — stopped at Yokota Air Base before heading to its final destination of San Francisco where the plane was met by President Gerald Ford and the First Lady. Two children had to be taken off the plane at Yokota and be hospitalized at Tachikawa Air Base.

Read the interview with the nurses and volunteers and see additional photos here.

Looking for Stars and Stripes’ coverage of Operation Babylift? Subscribe to Stars and Stripes’ historic newspaper archive! We have digitized our 1948-1999 European and Pacific editions, as well as several of our WWII editions and made them available online through https://starsandstripes.newspaperarchive.com/

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• Yokota Wives Volunteer. ‘Would Go on Babylift Anytime’