HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) -- Singing folk songs and prayers, four survivors of a plane crash that killed 76 orphaned infants during the last days of the Vietnam War joined hands in a tear-filled memorial service at the accident site Tuesday.
The sounds of "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" and the Roman Catholic prayer "Our Father" drifted across a field on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City during the hourlong ceremony just before dusk -- the same time and place that a giant C-5A cargo jet went down while trying to make it back to the airport it had just left on April 4, 1975.A group of 38 people -- 15 Operation Babylift orphans and their adoptive families -- arrived Monday to see Vietnam for the first time since the war ended. They included three survivors of the crash, who were joined Tuesday by another survivor and his American father.
Operation Babylift was an effort to add some hope to the imminent loss of U.S.-backed South Vietnam to communist forces. By the time it was over, some 2,000 children would be airlifted out of the former Saigon as communist forces advanced on the capital of U.S.-backed South Vietnam.
The operation was just getting started when the crash occurred.
Shortly after takeoff, an explosion blew out the rear doors of the plane. The pilots were able to turn the aircraft around and crash-land two miles from the airport.
Skidding 1,000 feet, the aircraft bounced up again before hitting a dike and shattering on impact. Virtually everyone in the bottom cargo compartment was killed -- the majority children younger than 2 years old.
For weeks, David Shakow thought his adopted son Jeffery, then on his way to his new family, had been among the fatalities. But today, father and son are among the group that has returned to Vietnam for the first time since the end of the war.
"We kept hearing that he was dead, then alive, then dead again," Shakow recalled. "That was a tough time."
A month later, 13-month-old Jeffery arrived in the United States, his eyelashes burned off, his bangs singed and his cheek and back scarred.
For Shakow, 57, of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., the trip brought back memories of the painful days following the crash when Jeffery's very existence was in doubt.
"He just disappeared for a while. There were rumors that he was in the hospital badly burned," Shakow said. "Then others swore that he was on the manifest of those killed. The world was falling apart there, and we couldn't get any information."
Jeffery Shakow, born Luu Khiet Minh and now 26, survived. His twin sister did not.
It's a thought that haunts his father today.
David Shakow served in Vietnam from 1965-66. When he and his wife decided to adopt, Vietnam was a natural choice. After trying for two years, they finally got word that an infant from Danang's Sacred Heart orphanage would be theirs.
By the time their son arrived in New York, the Shakows saw an emaciated, undernourished toddler who couldn't walk.
"He had these little, little legs and arms and a big stomach from the parasites," Shakow recalled.
"He had night terrors for a while, and got up screaming and shaking. He had been so malnourished he had diarrhea for a month, but he never complained."
For both father and son, the return to Vietnam has been worthwhile.
"He needed to come back to see this," the elder Shakow said. "You can see pictures of Vietnam all you like, but until you walk around the streets here, there would be pieces you'd miss."
His son, now a composed young man, agreed: "It's good that I came back. It means a lot to me to be here now."