by Jason Nulton and Eva Nguyen Whitfield

If not for their sons being in the same Boy Scout troop, Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonel Jason Nulton might never have heard his neighbor Eva Nguyen Whitfield’s account of her family’s last minute escape during the Fall of Saigon. Fortunately, one night as they gathered together in Eva’s kitchen, she shared the story with him. Nulton, who’d dabbled in writing before, found it jaw-dropping and said, “We have to write this.” The result of their collaboration, which included deep family research, is the book Uncommon Cargo. It opens with the Nguyen family’s daring escape, planned by Eva’s father, a South Vietnamese Air Force Pilot, and goes on to chronicle their journey to freedom. The opening chapter is excerpted in a condensed version below. Three-years-old at the time, Eva was known as little Truc. You can view Jason and Eva telling the story on our VBC livestream last year here: veteransbreakfastclub.org/the-last-plane-out-of-saigon-1975/

Uncommon Cargo: Sacrifice. Survival. Hope. is available online through most major book sellers.

April 29, 1975  1:45 p.m.
Nguyen Home, Saigon

“It has to be now, Mai.”

Over the phone, Mai Nguyen heard her husband, Chau, take a nervous breath. After the violence of the night before, she knew he’d be chewing his bottom lip.

“The shelling has stopped for now and if we do not move, we will not get out.”

There was a pregnant pause as Mai tried to fully digest Chau’s words. Would it be for real this time?

“We will be ready,” she answered, trying to sound strong. Her heart skipped, and her stomach filled with a queasy sense of dread. Their attempt to escape Vietnam the night before was foiled by the North Vietnamese Army’s relentless shelling attacks on Tan Son Nhut Air Base. Would tonight be any different?

“I will be there in thirty minutes,” her husband said, his voice composed, but intense. “We will not have much time. Be as calm as possible for the children. Things will be bad on the streets.” His tone softened. “Mai,” he continued, “I love you.”

“Chau,” she replied but heard a clicking sound, then silence. She rested the phone on its cradle. Her husband, Lieutenant Colonel Chau Tan Nguyen, a South Vietnamese Air Force C-130 instructor pilot, had hatched a plan to commandeer a broken C-130, pack it with family, extended family, and as many other people as he could, then fly them all out of the country. She knew he was doing what he could to save lives, working without a break to make sure hundreds of their fellow South Vietnamese citizens were able to escape the chaos that had embroiled the country.

Mai exhaled slowly and counted to ten. Fortunately, it wouldn’t take much time to get everything together. Thanks to her mother, father, and younger brothers who lived with them, they were packed and traveling light: powdered baby formula for their eighteen-month old son Trung, ramen noodles and other small food items, some clothing for their three-year old daughter Truc, and the garments on their backs. Mai’s three younger brothers, thirteen-year-old Son, eleven-year-old Dzung, and nine-year-old Tuan had also filled several pillowcases with many of the essentials. Several days before, Chau had stuffed every zipper-pocket of his worn, sage green flight suit with the family’s valuables—small gold bars, American dollars, and the most precious pieces of Mai’s jewelry.

Mai knew there was almost no time left. They had to be fast. Luckily, the Nguyen home, a spacious dwelling which Mai’s father, Hong, had built himself, was only two miles from Tan Son Nhut Air Base.

April 29, 1975  2:05 p.m.
Tan Son Nhut Air Base 

Chau hung up the phone and rubbed his tongue across the shredded inside skin of his lower lip. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth as he looked down at his right hand and noticed a small tremor. Was he really that rattled from the attacks of last night and this morning?

His stomach churned, reminding him he hadn’t eaten in hours. His flak vest, which he’d donned the night before and never removed, caused him to sweat through his flight suit. He could hardly stand the way he smelled.

During last night’s bombardment, he’d hunkered down with his crew and a large contingent of citizens in a small nose dock hangar. The building filled with dust and nobody slept as the air and artillery barrage continued unabated all night.

The hundreds of hopeful passengers resting on the concrete floor were no doubt feeling as nervous as he was. The number of South Vietnamese troops had shrunk significantly in recent days. In the last week, aircraft of every kind flew soldiers and civilians to Thailand and other safe havens. What had started as orderly departures had devolved into a frenzied chaos as the North Vietnamese threat grew. Chau and his cohorts were some of the few military personnel left.

An old US Army jeep he’d used intermittently was parked nearby. He hoped it would be enough to get himself out of the airfield property, into town, and return with his family to try and make a successful flight out. The C-130 he planned to use was stowed away in a small hangar maintaining as low a profile as possible.

Time to go.

Chau emerged into the heat of the day. What he saw stunned him. The air base looked like old photos he’d seen of the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor some thirty-odd years before. Fighter aircraft and small cargo planes were reduced to smoking heaps of twisted metal, their ripped frames and skins turned ashy white as black smoke gushed into the sky. The abandoned American barracks had been reduced to steaming ruins surrounded by splintered palm trees. Would there be enough flat runway to get into the air? he wondered.

He turned the ignition. The jeep coughed to life and Chau drove off. When he approached the gate, he saw several guards inside the perimeter fence with their rifles ready. Outside the gate, crowds congregated. As he slowed, he saw terrified people, young and old, their fingers twisted into the chain-link fence, shaking it as they cried out in desperation.

“I need to go out!” Chau shouted at the guards as he skidded to a stop.

One guard abruptly turned and yelled to his cohorts, then waved his hand to open the chain link.

“I am coming back!” Chau yelled. “When I do you must let me back in.” It was hard to tell if his words had been heard. The young sentry next to the locking mechanism quickly disabled it. While he pushed back crowds fighting to get it, another guard nodded at Chau, then lifted his rifle and fired several shots over the civilians. They fell back and dispersed. Startled at the sound, Chau watched the gate slide open.

Once outside, men, women, and children began to close in on him. Instinctively, he placed his hand on the pistol at his hip. Ahead of him a steady stream of South Vietnamese flooded towards him. It was a chaotic, disorganized mob. Some people were on foot, others on overloaded mopeds, cars, buses, and trucks. One family pushed their small children and overstuffed suitcases in a wheelbarrow. Along the way Chau saw discarded South Vietnamese Army fatigues left by soldiers who’d fled in their undergarments, fearing execution at the hands of the North Vietnamese.

He had to get to Mai and their children. The two miles suddenly seemed like a desperately long distance. He didn’t want to think about what it would be like going back.

April 29, 1975  2:30 p.m.

Nguyen Home, Saigon

“Tuan!” Mai wasn’t one to raise her voice often, but she was near hysterical with her youngest brother. “Put another change of clothes in that pillowcase … and hurry up!” She was holding her son, 18-month old Trung, trying to force him to drink one more bottle. This also kept him from running under her feet as she made final arrangements to depart. Fortunately, Trung was calm and not caught up in the chaos.

“Mai.” Hong Van Nguyen, Mai’s father, emerged from a back room. A quiet and modest man, he was the longtime owner of a rubber plantation near the Cambodian border in Phuoc Long Province, producing raw materials for large foreign companies like Goodyear, Pirelli, and Michelin. He’d raised acres of rubber trees from seedlings—a lengthy and laborious 12-year process before they could produce anything that could be used or sold. It was his baby.  “Mai,” he said again. “I will stay here.”

Stunned, Mai could only pause and stare, unsure how to respond.

“Take your mother.” Hong had been back and forth for a week, painfully mulling whether he’d stay or go. Even as they’d been preparing to leave the evening before, her father was still torn between family, a successful business, and what he felt was desertion of his homeland.

“But Ba,” Mai pleaded, “your business will not survive! You need to –”

“I will not go with you,” he said, calmly but firmly cutting through her words. “I have decided to stay here.”

The frustrating week that Mai, her mother, and Chau had spent trying to convince him, plus years of living under his roof had taught her there was little point in fighting such a proud and stubborn man. She momentarily broke her composure with a loud sob. Her father tenderly put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead.

“I love you,” he said. “It will be alright.” He took the baby from her arms.
“Go get the last of your things together,” he said quietly. “I will take the baby for now.”

Looking past her father, she saw her mother, Dat. A petite and beautiful middle-aged woman, she stood at the ready, dressed in a simple white ao dai and loose-fitting black pants. In her hands was a worn and fading mustard-yellow Samsonite suitcase. “All right,” Mai nodded.

Chau arrived.

“Thank God,” Mai whispered to her husband as she rubbed her hand up his sticky, sweat-covered neck.

“I am OK, Mai,” he said into her ear, “but we need to go quickly.”

She put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him. When she pulled away, she felt a slight sense of shock. Chau was pale as an apparition; there were dark purple circles under his eyes, the whites of his eyeballs bloodshot.

“What is it like on the streets?” Mai’s father asked Chau.

“Bad,” he answered gravely. “Things have fallen apart.”

“But what about the direction for people to stay in their homes?” Mai asked.

“There is no law, Mai,” he answered, just a little coarsely. “The city is collapsing.”

“Go,” Mai’s father said matter-of-factly.

Everyone knew that if there was any breakthrough by North Vietnamese forces, it was a near certainty that Chau would be shot because of his status as an enemy combatant. To make matters worse, it was an unspoken truth that his family would probably be executed as well.

The mid-morning sun beamed as Mai, her mother and brothers climbed in the jeep. Springs and protruding foam rubber poked at the backs of their legs. They struggled to get comfortable as Mai’s father handed baby Trung over to her. Young Truc then clambered in and took a seat on Mai’s lap next to her brother. Chau turned the ignition and the jeep choked and gasped before turning over, shaking the vehicle’s entire frame as the engine fired up. Hong watched numbly. Mai covered her quivering lips with her hand. She didn’t want her children or her brothers to see her cry. Her father leaned in and whispered in his wife’s ear, then kissed both her cheeks, moved to the courtyard gate, and pulled it open.

Chau nodded at Hong as he hit the gas pedal. The jeep lurched forward through the gate. Hong touched his chest with his hands as he stepped backward, nodding as if to say, I will see you again. The squeal of tires echoed in Mai’s ears. They were leaving their life in Vietnam behind forever.