The Lucky Few – The Story of USS KIRK (FF-1087)

[Albany Rifles]

Paul you guys did God's work.

BRAVO ZULU.

Welcome aboard the WAB.

We do ask all our new members to go to the introduction thread andd tell us about yourself. A member of the Kirk's crew will be very welcome.

I remember this very well I can see it even now so many years later in my memories. I was on board the Kirk during this time even watch the Chinook crash into the water and later rode on one of the many ships we escorted to Subic Bay PI.

EW2 Paul Lawless USS Kirk

[astralis]

yeah, just never noticed. it's been a while; on the occasions i go back to irvine, there's enough good vietnamese restaurants around now where i don't need to schlep out there...

[gunnut]

only one day?

in Eden Center, Arlington's equivalent of Little Saigon, the flag is there 24/7. i heard some of the Vietnamese embassy folks eat there, wonder what they must think the first time they see that.

The streets and shops fly the South Vietnam flag on April 30th. There might be a city ordanance against excessive flags during any non-special days.

You've been there, haven't you? Bolsa and Magolia in Westminster? Little Saigon extends out a few blocks from there.

[astralis]

They are fiercely anti-communist and still fly the republic's flag on April 30th.

only one day?

in Eden Center, Arlington's equivalent of Little Saigon, the flag is there 24/7. i heard some of the Vietnamese embassy folks eat there, wonder what they must think the first time they see that.

[gunnut]

Thank you phoggy for sharing the story of USS Kirk.

There is a Little Saigon district near me, populated by Vietnamese Americans loyal to the republic. They are fiercely anti-communist and still fly the republic's flag on April 30th.

[tbm3fan]

Very moving. Met a few of refugees in the early 80's as they made their way to San Jose which today has a large "Little Saigon" district.

[zraver]

awesome!

[astralis]

phoggy,

thank you for putting these stories up. very compelling.

[S2]

Remarkable story displaying victory of the resilient human spirit in the midst of defeat.

[YellowFever]

I'm reminded of a quote I read somewhere which goes something like this, " For every soldier you see with a medal, there are at least ten more that did just as much. Their only reason for not having one is that no one was around to see them do the heroic acts."

[phoggy]

To all US Navy servicemen (ex & current) on this forum !

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To US army guys maybe : GO ARMY BEAT NAVY.
But to me : GO ARMY...LOVE NAVY !

Because 37 years before I was also one of tausend tausend refugees on this armada on the route to Philippines !

Thank you you guys, women and men of the US Navy !

[phoggy]

SOURCES :
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To write the above stories I have used the following sources :

USS Kirk: The Untold Story

USS Kirk FF1087

How to Steal a Navy and Save 30,000 Refugees

The USS Kirk: Valor At The Vietnam War's End : NPR

USS Kirk Saigon Evacuation Documentary Premiers at Smithsonian Institute

2010 June 13 « VQHN = Nh

Ng°ời con gi của di tản

Navy Ship And Lost Baby Reunited 30 Years Later - YouTube

[phoggy]

The baby named after the KIRK
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A young woman never fully understood the meaning of her middle name until she learned that people were looking for her. 35 years ago her mother escaped Vietnam on the USS KIRK Navy ship. Due to a string of lucky coincidences they've now been reunited and are figuring out what it all means.




KIRK Giang Tien (10 days) / in the background was the tent city of the refugees in Guam.


KIRK Giang Tien (4 months).


KIRK Giang Tien (2005).


KIRK Giang Tien (2010).


Paul Jacobs, captain of the KIRK, was first reunited with Lan Tran (left) and her daughter, KIRK Giang Tien (right), named after the KIRK, in 2005. Since then, the pair has formed close friendships with the crew members and other refugees. Here, they meet again at a reunion in July 2010 in Virginia.

When the USS KIRK received an order from the USS BLUE RIDGE, the flagship of the US Navy´s 7th fleet to sail to Con Don Island, the southernmost island roughly 30 miles off the coast of Vietnam, to join with other US Navy´s ships to evacuate the South Vietnamese Navy and their families, they found what remained of the South Vietnamese Navy´s. The fleet was made up of « scores of boats and ships of all sizes and descriptions, anchored, drifting, or slowly steaming in the vicinity of Con Son Island ». Only thirty-two of these boats were deemed worthy of making the 1000+ mile open-ocean journey to Subic Bay, Philippines. They were packed with sometimes 4 times over maximum capacity.

« They were rusty, ugly, beat up, some of them wouldn’t even get under way; they were towing each other. And some of them were actually taking on water and we took our guys over and got the ones under way that would run. » - Ken Chipman, Former USS KIRK crew member.


« We’re going to have to send you back to rescue the Vietnamese Navy. We forgot ‘em. And if we don’t get them or any part of them, they’re all probably going to be killed. » -
Directive from Rear Admiral Donald Whitmire, the commander of all of the U.S. amphibious forces in the Western Pacific, was placed in charge of all seaborne humanitarian efforts in the region to evacuate all Americans and « at risk » Vietnamese out of Vietnam (April 1975).


HQ-06 TRAN QUOC TOAN & HQ-402 LAM GIANG of South Vietnamese Navy (Con Son, 1975).


Crew from the USS KIRK reach a South Vietnamese navy ship, HQ-402 LAM GIANG, overflowing with refugees near Con Son Island on May 1st, 1975.


HQ-03 TRAN NHAT DUAT of SVN Navy (Con Son, 1975).


The armada on the route to Philippines (1975).

Assistance teams from the U.S. Navy ships conducted systematic daily visits to each refugee ship, tending to the many serious engineering problems of the Vietnamese ships, and also ministering to the health and nutritional needs of tens of thousands of refugees. A number of pregnant women were eventually discovered in the teeming crowds, and the decision was made to consolidate these at-risk women – along with their extended families – aboard KIRK, where a compartment was quickly converted into a makeshift maternity ward.
Volunteers from KIRK’s crew were assigned to tend to the needs of these women and their families around the clock. These young sailors, such as Don Cox from the Air department, and Todd Thedell of the Operations Department, performed their unusual « non-military » duties in a truly outstanding fashion.


The picture with name and address of his then girl friend in USA on the back which then sergeant Donald Cox of USS KIRK gave Lan Tran as starting help for the beginning of a new life of her family in America. Lan Tran still keeps this picture as her talisman and shows it at each reunion with USS KIRK´s crew every year.

Eventually, over a period of two days, a total of five expectant mothers – two nearing full term – were resettled aboard KIRK. The first of these young mothers-to-be was Nguyen Thi Tuong-Lan Tran who was brought on board on 3rd May 1975. Her husband, a pilot in the South Vietnamese Air Force, had been left behind in Vietnam.

Lan Tran was in the final month of her pregnancy, and had endured weeks of turmoil and privation prior to her escape aboard the HQ-16 LY THUONG KIET of the South Vietnamese Navy. She was in poor physical shape when she and her elderly mother were transferred to KIRK, but once aboard she improved markedly. As the armada reached Philippines, Lan Tran was transported into the hospital in Subic Bay and gave birth to a beautiful little girl three weeks later on 22nd May 1975 in the refugee camp in Guam. On the birth certificate of the baby « Tent City, Guam » was written as addresse of the mother.
Lan Tran was so appreciative of the care provided by the crew of KIRK, that she wanted to name her baby after the US Navy ship which saved her and oher refugees. But there was a little problem : KIRK is a boy´s name, and her baby is a girl ! After long consideration she decided to use KIRK as the middle name for her baby. That means : Tran-Nguyen KIRK Giang-Tien.
And USS KIRK has endly got a baby.


Tran Nguyen KIRK Giang Tien, the Vietnamese girl named after the USS KIRK.

NOTES :

● Donald Cox left US Navy 1978, worked then as senior engineer for Raytheon in Tucson, Arizona.
● The husband of Lan Tran could escape out of Vietnam to Thailand in the last minute and moved afterwards to Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. The International Red Cross helped him to go to Camp Pendleton in California for reunion with his family living there. Then, afterwards, the whole familie moved to Baltimore. But after 9 months, they came back to California, because « the weather in Baltimore is too cold for me…», recalled Lan Tran. The husband of Lan Tran, ex-pilot AC-119 gunship of SVNAF, passed away in 1995.
● KIRK Giang Tien had graduated MBA at the California State University, Long Beach. Her job is to organize conferences, trading fairs,…

[phoggy]

The dead baby
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Members of the Le family were excited, and nervous. They were moments away from being reunited — after 35 years — with sailors and officers from the USS KIRK. They'd always wanted to thank the ship's crew for its kindness when they were refugees fleeing South Vietnam.
This past summer, the Le family heard an NPR story about the KIRK, a small escort destroyer. The KIRK´s crew spoke about how they'd been haunted by the death of an infant they'd tried to save. That child was their son, Bao Le.

The Le family now knew how to contact the crew that had helped them. There were telephone calls and e-mails and then a chance to meet face to face.
So in late October, the family and the crew gathered in Pensacola, Fla. The parents, Loan and Pierre Le, and their children — daughters Kimsa Hoang, Kimmy Le, and Kim Penridge and her husband, Andrew, and the youngest of the Le children, son Alex — flew in from Texas.


After 35 years, the Le family reunited with the captain and crew of the USS KIRK.
From left: Kim Penridge and her husband, Andrew Penridge; youngest son Alex Le, Kimsa Hoang (front center), Kimmy Le, and parents Loan and Pierre Le.


Paul Jacobs, retired captain of the USS KIRK, reunites with the Le family, who were helped by the men on his ship 35 years ago when he led a rescue mission that saved 20,000 to 30,000 Vietnamese refugees.


Pierre Le shows off the patch that a crew member of the USS Kirk gave him 35 years ago. He has kept it ever since.

Members of the KIRK´s crew had come from around the country for a showing at the Naval Air Station, Pensacola of a new documentary about the Kirk's Vietnam mission.

Before the two groups reunited, the Le family sat down with NPR to talk about their story. Pierre Le unfolded a pink piece of paper. It is his son's death certificate, issued by the U.S. Navy. The cause of death: « cardiopulmonary arrest » due to « gastroenteritis » and « pneumonia ». At the bottom it gives the precise location where Bao Le's body was buried at sea. Not the South China Sea, off the coast of the Philippines, but: « At 14 degrees, 34 minutes North Latitude and 119 degrees and 26 Minutes E Longitude. »
Loan Le had also brought a photo of Bao Le, the only photo that exists.


Bao Le was just 1 year and 9 days old when he died onboard the USS KIRK.

« I was very proud of him because as you look in the picture, he was very handsome », she said. The photo, in browns and whites, is about the size of an index card. And the boy in the white shirt is in mid-movement, as if he's ready to jump into someone's arms. There's an impish smile forming on his lips.
Just weeks after that photo was taken, Saigon fell. It was the spring of 1975. The Le family, desperate to get out, squeezed onto a South Vietnamese ship.



In the spring of 1975, as Saigon fell and the Vietnam War ended, the USS KIRK was chosen to go back to Vietnam, by itself, on a mission to rescue the remnants of the South Vietnamese Navy, to prevent those ships from falling into the possession of the North Vietnamese.
Those 30 South Vietnamese ships, trailed by scores of fishing boats, were packed with more than 20,000 refugees, including the Le family, desperate to leave Vietnam.

The KIRK started the rescue and was then joined by other Navy ships. The flotilla escorted the South Vietnamese ships to the Philippines.
During the crossing people soon became sick in the cramped ships. Stephen Burwinkel, the KIRK´s medic — in the Navy he's called a hospital corpsman — went from ship to ship attending to those with dysentery, dehydration, diarrhea and other illnesses.

Bao Le had gotten violently sick with cramps and fever, so Loan Le and her infant were moved from a South Vietnamese ship to the KIRK. The captain gave up his stateroom to the mother and son. At first Burwinkel was able to revive Bao Le, giving the child a massive dose of penicillin.
But the boy's fever returned. « I have a very bad feeling that he, he wouldn't survive », said Loan Le. She recalled holding him, massaging him, telling the boy she loved him and praying for him. « I pray, I say, 'Please, God help him. He's my only son.' ».

But on May 6, the boy died. He would be one of only three people to die during the weeklong evacuation. Bao Le was also the youngest. The ship's logs said he was 9 days old. But that was wrong. He was 1 year and 9 days old.

Loan Le recalled her desperation when the KIRK´s crew told her what she most feared, that her son had died. « I was hysterical. And I say, 'Let me see my husband and my children, first. Because I don't want to be here by myself. I want to tell them, I have to tell them,' » recalled Le, wiping away her tears.

Chief Engineer Hugh Doyle was sent over to the Vietnamese ship to get the father and the three Le daughters and bring them to the KIRK. He was moved to find that the Les' three children were about the same ages as his own back home in the U.S. Daughter Kimsa, the oldest, was 7; the next, Kimmy, was 5, and Kim was 4. Doyle recorded cassette tapes and sent them home to his wife. In one he described telling the father his son had died.
« He asked me does his wife know. So I told him, I said, 'Yes, your wife knows. She knows and she's very sad.' And all the way back in the boat, he was saying, he says, 'When we left Saigon we were six,' there were six people in his family. And he kept shaking his head and he said, 'And now we are five. It is very sad, very sad.' ».

Pierre Le has vivid memories of the respectful funeral the sailors held for his son on the fantail of the USS Kirk.
« I remember that was at night. A chilly night, even as it's in summertime. And I still remember there's a moon, too. And I see that there are many soldiers in a line up there. I don't know if I can call it a coffin or not. But, you know, it's the body of my son was wrapped under two flags: the Vietnamese flag and the American flag. »
Pierre Le recalls that someone played taps. His son's body was on a board and, as the board tipped, the body slid into the dark South China Sea.

For middle daughter Kimmy, her brother’s burial at sea is her first memory — stamped and stark in her mind.
« I'm sure my parents told us that my brother died », she said. « But I don't think I grasped that. And I remember the funeral. And I remember when he went over. I remember running towards the edge of the boat. And I remember standing there looking down. And I remember [thinking]: 'How come no one is going to get him?' », she recalled.

She remembers, too, how one of the sailors scooped her up and took her to another part of the ship and gave her candy.
A few days later the flotilla of ships arrived in the Philippines and the Le family was taken to a refugee camp in Guam.
The KIRK´s crew would visit the Le family, bringing food and candy and once, even a projector and showed the film The Towering Inferno. Later, the Les resettled in Hawaii. Pierre resumed his career as an architect and now runs a family financial service firm. The family moved to Texas. Another child, Alex, was born.

Bao Le's death at sea was something the family would barely talk about. The children saw how sad it made their parents when they raised the subject or asked questions. But the children grew up knowing the family hoped one day to thank the crew of the Kirk.
And now, in a Pensacola restaurant, they do just that.
As the family walks into the restaurant the sailors of the KIRK come over to greet them. There are hugs and tears. Hugh Doyle introduces himself to Kimmy and then to her father. Pierre.
« Hi. I'm Hugh. I think I met you when you were a little tiny girl. Do you remember getting onto the boat ? ».
Pierre is finally able to say the words he has been holding on to for 35 years.
« Thank you very much for helping my family. For taking care of, good care of my family. »
Then he spots Capt. Paul Jacobs and breaks into a smile.
« Let me say hi to the captain. I remember his face. You're the captain. See I cannot forget you. »
Jacobs clearly remembers Le and gives him a hearty handshake.
« I can't forget you, either. That was a long, long time ago. »
They linger for hours over lunch. The crew members from the KIRK talk about how they'd come home from war, about their careers and family since. The Le family talks about how they became Americans, about their careers and family since.
And they talk about the tragic death that brought them together long ago.

When they finally leave the restaurant it is almost time for a reception and showing of the film at the Pensacola Naval Air Station. Jan Herman, a historian with the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, has put together the documentary to tell the story of the KIRK´s humanitarian mission. For the Le family it is a chance to see and hear the larger story of the journey from South Vietnam to the Philippines.
But just as the film is about to begin, the retired Capt. Jacobs calls Loan and Pierre Le to the front of the theater. They are clearly surprised as they make their way down to where Jacobs stands at a podium. They hold hands as he speaks.

Jacobs says the crew decided to make a proclamation about their son Bao Le and put it on a plaque to honor his death on the USS Kirk.
Jacobs pauses with emotion as he reads the words on the plaque.
« Bao Le is now and forever more an honorary crew member of the good ship USS KIRK. Though on board for just a tragically short time, Bao Le's impact on the entire crew of Kirk was profound. ...
He fought a good fight, struggling in vain to defeat pneumonia. And when he left us during that arduous sea journey to freedom, he left behind hundreds of his shipmates who were deeply saddened and heartbroken by his death. Many years have slipped by since that epic time yet Bao Le's KIRK shipmates still remember him for his valiant struggle to live. But also as a symbol of the struggle of the tens of thousands of his Vietnamese countrymen who accompanied him on that journey to freedom on the South China Sea. »

The family is touched by the plaque and its words. They each speak of how the day's events had closed the circle for them, even perhaps making it easier in the future to talk about Bao Le.
For Kimmy Le, who was the 5-year-old watching a funeral she did not understand, the day has given her the chance to do something she had been thinking about since high school.
« I guess the yearning of finding them was to let them know that what they did made a difference. And I wanted them to see where we are now, you see, how happy we are here living in the U.S. And I wanted to say thank you and I wanted them to see we all grew up. And here we are. »