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50 years later: Refugee shares her story of survival as USS Midway crucial in rescuing thousands after Fall of Saigon

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — All week, people across the country and in San Diego are remembering the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War.

The USS Midway took part in one of its most daring missions in history, Operation Frequent Wind, and became the first stop to freedom for more than 3,000 Vietnamese refugees that began April 29, 1975.

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The USS Midway was stationed off the coast of Vietnam during that time.

“My dad said, ‘let’s go, get ready,’” recalled Stephanie Dinh.

Dinh fled South Vietnam on that day with her five siblings and parents. Her father was part of the South Vietnamese Army and when word broke that Saigon was about to fall to the North Communist forces, she and her family were among thousands fleeing their homeland with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.

“I had three very close friends. It’s very hard as kids and you feel you want to tell them, ‘I might never see you again,” said Dinh.

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She and her family escaped on a helicopter and landed on the flight deck of the USS Midway where she and other evacuees were fed and treated with medical care.

“It was complete pandemonium,” said USS Midway Museum Historian, Karl Zingheim, of the pilots that were fleeing with families crammed inside their cabins.

“None of them had been trained on shipboard operations, so how are you going to handle people you probably can’t talk to on the radio. There’s no air traffic control. They’ve got helicopters that are dangerously overloaded,” he said.

The Midway crew stopped at nothing to clear the flight deck and accept as many helicopters as possible, including a pilot who crammed his family of seven into a small Cessna and showed up the following day asking the crew to clear the deck of helicopters so he could land.

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Dinh recalls the crew pushing helicopters into the water with their bare hands so they could create space for him to land his family.

“I saw them pushing them over the flight deck. I saw them floating and they sink really fast. I said wow, what is this, what is going on? And I hear all this screaming and yelling on the flight deck and here comes another one after another one and then here comes a plane coming in,” Dinh said.

That safe landing would become a symbol of courage and hope for so many Vietnamese families as they started a new life.

“Every time I see the ship I kind of relive that day when it was out there waiting for us,” said Dinh. “I don’t look back. This is my country. I move forward, and I repay what they have given me.”

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