Adelaide’s Sisters of Mercy are commemorating the 50th anniversary of the deaths of two Catholic women who were on board an aircraft that crashed while evacuating babies and adults during the fall of Saigon. Source: The Southern Cross.
The tragic accident took place on April 4, 1975, five years after Margaret Moses had travelled to Vietnam to assist her friend from Adelaide, Rosemary Taylor, in her work caring for the many orphans who were victims of the war. Both were former Sisters of Mercy and attended St Aloysius College.
Gyoparka Makk (known as Lee), a young Adelaide nurse, had joined them just a few months before the crash.
Margaret, together with her mother, who was also helping in Saigon, was to have been on a plane bringing children to Australia as part of Operation Babylift, the name given to the transport of babies and children to the United States, Europe and Australia.
But a plane bound for America was short of escorts for the children so she and Lee volunteered. While Rosemary and others watched from the tarmac, the volunteers boarded a cargo plane with 230 babies or young children deemed to be strong enough to survive the long-haul flight.
Fifteen minutes into the flight the tailgate, missing a vital component, gave way and the plane decompressed. Skilful pilots managed to land the plane but 150 men, women and children died, including 78 children. Miraculously, 150 survived although many were badly injured.
Mercy Sister Mary-Anne Duigan remembers when the news came through to Adelaide that Margaret and Gyoparka were among the dead.
“In my community at Elizabeth was Sr Claudette Cusack whose sister Mary was in Saigon working with Rosemary,” she said.
“I think it was she who received the phone call. The news stunned us. We were numb with grief and fear – grief for all who had died and fear for the others still there and especially for our Sister Doreen Beckett, who had been working there since 1973. We could do nothing but hope and pray, and wait for more news.”
Operation Babylift continued in spite of the major setback and altogether about 2500 children were airlifted from Saigon and resettled in other countries.
On May 2, St Aloysius College will host a memorial service to commemorate the deaths of Margaret and Gyoparka.
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Sisters mark 50th anniversary of Operation Babylift tragedy (By Jenny Brinkworth, The Southern Cross)
