April 8, 1975: Leaving Saigon, Vietnam

That Sunday when we arrived home – Easter Sunday, March 30, 1975 – family from Indiana called: they were concerned about the stories they were hearing and wanted us to leave right away. As usual, my parents soothed their parents’ concerns saying the stories are always worse than the reality.

But Monday we found out that the North Vietnamese soldiers had crossed the border and were marching toward Saigon. We went to school and to work, as usual, for the next week, waiting to see what would happen.

But the soldiers kept marching and we made plans to leave.

My mom sorted our belongings into three piles: the most important in the pile of what we take with us, the next most important in the air freight pile. The rest would be sent by sea; we had no idea if we would ever see our things again. The air freight pile was limited by weight and included my sister’s Legos: if only the airfreight made it out of Saigon, the Legos would be shared between all three children: me, my sister who was 9 and my brother who was 3. If the sea freight made it out as well, then the Legos would go back to my sister.

At school, my class of 15 5th graders hung out and talked while our teacher, Mrs. Thorsen, filled out our education records, so we would have something to take with us if we had to leave. Recess was cancelled. And eventually, the school was closed on Thursday and we took home whatever texts and books we wanted.

On the morning we were scheduled to leave – Tuesday, April 8 – a South Vietnamese fighter jet flew right over our house and rattled the windows. We hid under the dining room table until it was quiet. Then ducked back under when he made a second pass and dropped two more bombs.

We had no idea what it was about when it happened, and wondered if the North Vietnamese were already in Saigon. But it turned out it was a South Vietnamese Air Force defector on his way to bomb their president, who lived a short distance from us. That’s when I knew this was real.

Saigon always had a night curfew from either 10 p.m. or midnight to morning. But now they enforced a 24 hour curfew. How were we going to get to Ton Son Nhut Airport if we couldn’t leave the house? Finally, we heard the curfew was going to be lifted for 2 hours in the middle of the day. We loaded up our luggage, carry-ons, and a small family heirloom grandfather clock, which I carried, and headed to the airport. I remember the streets being empty.

At the airport, I saw many friends from school. Some of us had tickets for the Air France flight and others, like us, had tickets for the Pan American flight. But the pilots of these planes were reluctant to fly to Saigon: too dangerous. Finally, the Air France 747 arrived in the early afternoon and was quickly boarded and pushed back for take off.

Then it sat on the tarmac in the tropical sun for another 3 hours.

Finally, we heard that the Pan Am flight was coming in at dusk, when the 747 would be more difficult to see in the sky, thereby more difficult to shoot down. It arrived, we said good bye to my dad who was staying in Saigon, and boarded quickly.

As the plane took off at dusk, dark below us and purplish pink sky above, I looked out the port side windows to see bombs consistently bursting on the dark horizon. The lights of their bursts faded as we safely rose into the growing night, on our way home to America.

Mauree Donahue Revier has lived in Hood River for eight years. Revier teaches ESL at Mid-Valley and has three children who attend Westside Elementary.