And how many of the u. S. Navy crew reunited with the refugees years later. With him is captain paul jacobs, commander of the the ukk kirk during the rescue. From the memorial in washington, d. C. , this is one hour. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Im mark weber, curator of the United StatesNavy Memorial. Today, were pleased to have jan k. Herman here to discuss his new Naval Institute book, lucky few, the fall of saigon and the rescue mission of the uss kirk. Mr. Herman served as historian of the Navy Medicine department and special assistance to the Surgeon General for 33 years. Hes keeping busy in retirements as evidenced by this book. He has written numerous articles and books, including battle station sick bay, medicine and the korean war, and navy history in vietnam. Hes also produced documentary videos on medicine, including an internationallyacclaimed video on the lucky few. Join me in welcoming jan herman to the Navy Memorial. [ applause ] thank you, mark. I appreciate that introduction. At first glance, the story that youre going to hear today about the uss kirk seems like a little story. It seems like an almost insignificant tale, at that. Thats at first glance. For 35 years, it remained unknown and untold. That may be for a simple reason. Its a vietnam story. When our most traumatic and divisive war ended, i should say the most divisive and traumatic since the civil war in the 1860s, when that ended, americans wanted nothing more to do with vietnam. So a lot of stories were lost. As a result, or at least not brought to the forum. The kirk, a little story, insignificant story, on the contrary. This is a vietnam story very much worth telling, and thats why i made a documentary about it. Thats why i wrote the lucky few. In 2009, i completed the final book in a trilogy i had written about Navy Medicine at war. It told a story, at least the last in the trilogy, called Navy Medicine in vietnam, told a story of a war in my generation, vietnam. The last chapter was entitled, full circle. It focused on the humanitarian staff that Navy Medical Personnel played in caring for the thousands of refugees who fled South Vietnam in 1975, when the nation ceased to exist. As the war reached its tragic climax in may of 1975, a task force of u. S. Navy ships, about 45 in number, cruised off South Vietnams coast, anywhere from 30 to 50 miles off the coast. Later, much closer in than that. The mission of the task force was to support the evacuation of americans, who were still in South Vietnam. Embassy personnel, intelligence operatives and military advisors. The task force was also assigned to secure the safety of what were called sensitive South Vietnamese. That is, vietnamese who had helped us through the duration of the war and whose lives were not going to mean much, once the north vietnamese took over. Their lives were in imminent danger. How best to record the stories of those who took care of these peop people, now people without a country . After determining the names of the ships that comprised the sevenfleet task force, 76 that participated in this, i did what most every researcher does nowadays. Now, we think in terms of the old days when you had to huff it around and wear out shoe leather trying to find sources, i went to the inter net. Isnt that what we do now . I checked every ships name to determine what vessels might have reunion organizations. Perhaps not every one of the 40 some odd ships, but at least some of them would have reunion organizations. Theyd have a website, contact person, phone number or email. The next step was emailing these organizations to request information about specifically what i was looking for, and that is medical personnel, from the ships. Within an hour, i believe it was an hour, of hitting send on my mouse, i get a phone call from captain paul jacobs, the gentleman sitting here in the front row. Who says to me on the phone, he said, well, i was the skipper of uss kirk. That was one of the ships i had sent an email to, at least one of the sites, the websites. He informed me his ship, a destroyer escort, 430 some odd feet in length, certainly not large when you consider some of the other ships that were offshore, carriers, amphibs and those ships, he said, we were not only part of the task force, he said, but kirk played a very key role in the rescue of more than 30,000 of those refugees. I couldnt even comprehend what he was talking about. How does a single ship rescue 30,000 people . During the next several weeks, the captain and i communicated frequently. Sometimes more than once a day. We arranged for an oral history interview at his office, at the time, in fairfax. He invited me to the ships reunion, taking place that fall, scheduled to be held in gainesville, virginia, suburban virginia. Then he asked me an interesting question, he said, if i invited the Surgeon General to the reuni reunion, you think hed come . I said, i dont know. I dont know the man very well. Hes brandnew on the job, but send him an invitation. What do you have to lose . Shortly thereafter, vice admiral, the incoming Surgeon General, called me into his office and said, what is this kirk reunion . What is this ship kirk . Ive never heard of it. Why was that ship so special . I told him what i knew. I knew considerably more than he did at that point. As i understood it, this reunion would probably be well worth attending. I think his curiosity got the best of him, and he accepted the invitation. I remember, there was a lot of scurrying around at the bureau at the time, where i worked. Speechwriter was going to write a speech, because he was not only accepting the invitation, but then the captain here invited him to give an afterdinner speech. You know, youve seen them at banquets. I remember the speeman running around, getting information because he had to write a speech for the admiral. The reunion was emotional. Former kirk sailors and officers in once dispossessed vietnamese who came to the reunion were seeing each other for the First Time Since the rescue. The admiral tossed his written text aside, threw it on a table and said, the speech i had prepared to give tonight is totally inappropriate. He went on for 20 minutes, speaking from his heart, about what he had seen. He obviously honored the crew of kirk. Those members of the crew that were there that night. And he talked about what it meant in the navy to save lives and talked about, as i remember, the selfless acts of compassion he said were in the best traditions of providing humanitarian assistance to those in need. A perfect example of what the u. S. Navy does best. Obviously, a war fighting capability. Thats probably the major thing we do in the navy. But this humanitarian assistance aspect of it was equally important. The navy did that and did it in a very forceful and very efficient way. Following the reunion, adam robinson, or admiral robinson, invited Captain Jacobs and me to lunch at his headquarters up on 23rd street. During the salad course, the admiral turned to me and said, quote, jan, you make documentaries. You must make a film about the kirk. People have to know about this incredible story. I nodded my assent, as you might to your boss, and i didnt know whether this was just idle lunchtime chatter or not. During the dessert course, i asked the admiral if he was serious about me producing a film. Looking directly at me, only the way a threestar admiral can, he said firmly and unequivocally, would i have suggested it if i werent serious . [ laughter ]. Aye, aye, sir. More than two years of Challenging Research followed, and we went on to produce a film. I spent countless hours pouring over ships logs, particularly the kirk logs. And other documents in writing and rewriting the script, i cant tell you how many times that happened. My poor wife, who is here, she can attest to how many hours i was absent from her presence, hiding in a room doing all this. And we also had pictures that were loaned to us by the crew, and that was another wonderful thing about this project. There were no combat photographers aboard kirk when all this was going on. There were a number of very gifted amateur photographers who told photographs. I had access to all those photographs. Then we got footage from the national archives, navy collections and new service archives, and finally, we recorded the narration and began putting this together. At the kirk reunion, the next reunion in 2010, with admiral robinson again in attendance, we showed the lucky few, the story of uss kirk. After that, public radio a, npr aired stories of the uss kirk. The lucky few premiered at the smithsonian in 2010. It became obvious to me and other interested parties that a onehour film could scarily do justice to this previously untold story. Why had the incident been overlooked for so many years . As i already indicated, the answer most likely had to do with americas mood in 1975. The National Nightmare of veet maam w vietnam was over and it was best to move on. It was best left forgotten. Moreover, the men of kirk and vi crewmen of the other ships who participated in the rescue didnt think they did anything extraordinary. The heros of any of the wars ive interviewed over the years, you get the same thing. I was just doing my job. They didnt think theyd done anything extraordinary at all. Feeding refugees and diapering babies were not warrelated activities that warriors felt comfortable talking about over a beer at a bfw hall or American Legion hall. The other guys are talking about exploits in combat, and the kirk people, we diapered babies. We took care of people. They didnt want to bring it up. They certainly didnt bring it up with their families. Many families said to me, i never knew my husband or father had anything to do with this. Surprisingly, many of the refugees didnt give their recollections to their children and now grandchildren. More than 30 years has not softened the trauma of their loss of country and loss of friends and relatives. The gatherings, which enabled many of the sailors and officers to mingle with former refugees rescind rekindled memories. A former man rescued by kirk noted that he counted himself at a gathering, quote, among the lucky few. He wanted to express his sense of gratitude to the people who had saved and brought him and his family to freedom. Like other vietnamese who made new lives for themselves and their famithers and mothermil f able to personally thank those who saved them. Seeing the tangible results of their wartime duty, the men of uss kirk could take pride in what they had accomplished. The lucky few experience, and i will call it an experience of phenomen phenomenon, at least it is for me and the captain and many other people who had been involved in this, they finally got to reunite with the people they hatterd rescued. There is a perfect example of the crew acknowledging their contribution. Don cox, former airman who participated in this operation, put the thoughts into perspective. Nobody has put it better. This is a quote. Our feelings abiliout being in vietnam changed significantly. Wed gone with expectations of being in combat. They were prepared for it, trained for it, and that was the action we were looking for. When we got there, we found out that combat wasnt what was needed. It was a heart and hand that was needed. We didnt recognize it at first. We just did our jobs. It was afterward that we realized our vietnam experience was totally different from our brothers who had walked in the field in combat. We recognized that it was going to be a positive experience for the rest of our lives. We were there to save life, not to destroy it. Writing a book based on the lucky few documentary offered many opportunities to tell as much of the story as possible, and also to incorporate what had unfortunately ended up on the p perverbial floor. Most of the times, the book comes before the movie. I would change that, with adding flash to the bones of an already larger than life event. Thats what i did. One of the players in this drama, the lucky few drama, eric, who was, in 1975, a highranking official of the department of defense, recreent pointed out the storys true significan significance. After the war, president fords task force for the resettlement of indochina refugees resettled more than 130,000 evacuees from cambodia and South Vietnam. Resettled them in communities around the United States. It wasnt long before almost all of them became United States citizens. Since uss kirk and her sister u. S. Navy ships saved more than 30,000 South Vietnamese refugees, that means that 1 in every 4 vietnamese refugee resettled in the u. S. By the task force, can trace their new begins in this nation to the Mission Accomplished by uss kirk. Decades later, the true significance of the rescue comes into perspective in ironic ways. Let me tell you a story to illustrate what im talking about. Just about a year and a half ago, i guess it was, hugh doyle, the ships engineer aboard kirk, he had spent a career in the navy. He retired from the navy. He lives in the newport, rhode island signatuvicinity. Gets his medical care at the naval station in newport. He went for his annual physical and looked for his Navy Physician, who wasnt there. Where is my regular doc . Hes been hes been reassigned to pensacola, florida. Your new physician is a lieutenant commander. Well, hugh doyle thought it was odd but he met his physician. He said, i notice you have a vietnamese name. Can you tell me how your family got here . The doctor said, no, i really cant. He said, i came as a 1yearold boy. My family fled vietnam. All i know is they came on a ship, but i dont know much about it because my parents never talk about it. My father is now disea deceased. My mother only speaks vietnamese and never talks about it. As things turn out, hugh doyle had a copy of the video in his car, the lucky few. He went out and gave it to him. Go home and watch this and see if it means anything to you. The next time he goes back for another examination or appointment at the clinic, he asked the doctor if he saw the film. He said, yes, its a very nice film, but it really doesnt add anything to my story. I dont recognize any of it. He says, but my sister and brotherinlaw are coming east. My niece is going to boston college, and theyre going to be taking her there. Theyre going to be spending time with us. Ill show them the film and see if my sister recognizes it. She was 15 at the time. The next time hugh doyle goes back for his appointment, the doctor is so excited. He said, i showed the family the film, and my sister was blown away. She saw the ship. In the film. She remembered the hall number, hq1. That was the ship. It was the kirk who saved us. It was the kirk who saved our family. So hugh doyle said to me and others, he said, what are the odds, the family would have made it out of vietnam . What are the odds they would have gone on one of the ships . What are the odds they would have made it to california . Safely. What are the odds they would have sent their eldest son to medical school . What are the odds he would become a Navy Physician . What are the odds that he would be assigned to naval clinic newport and become my doctor . He said, the little boy we saved is now taking care of me. That kind of says it. It says it, and there have been many other examples of that. Again, its the question i asked at the beginning. The story of uss kirk, a small story, insignificant one, i hardly think so. Read the lucky few and decide for yourself. What id like to do now is read a few short excerpts from the book, just to give you a feel for whats inside. This is from the introduction. Lieutenant bob was up before dawn and had wandered into uss kirks combat information center. As an aid on the destroyer squadron staff, he was not a regular member of the crew. Therefore, had no business in cic. Combat was always buzzing with activity, and it was not unusual for officers to pop in, both to relieve the boredom and catch up on the ships operations. Amid the many radar scopes was a radar repeated that consolidated information from the other displays. One look at the screen put everything in perspective. Distance to the South Vietnamese coast and the position of nearby vessels and their movements. Each green blip was a ship, making it easy to quickly see the location of every craft on a master grid. But the screen image appeared odd. The shoreline was out of focus. He pointed out the problem and asked a nearby tech if the radar had been tuned recently. Thinking it might have lost some of its fidelity. The tech quickly responded. Yes, sir, it has been. Theres nothing wrong with the radar. He wasnt satisfied. Going topside to the flying bridge, he larged the binoculars, the big eyes, and scanned the brightening horizon. The mystery of the blurry radar screen instantly cleared up. Hundreds of boats were heading to sea in kirks direction. It looked fuzzy because there was so much activity on the water. As the distance the distance cl every type of water craft from small Fishing Vessels to rubber rafts. He was shocked to see a small wooden dug with a man, woman, and children clinging for dear life. On that dugout were all the family positions. These people were simply paddling out to sea hoping to get to the rescue ships he remembered. The magnitude of a nations final collapse suddenly became real and personal. Since march 1975 the South Vietnamese army had been hard pressed. The peoples army of vietnam was fighting a conventional war with tanks and artillery. The enemy was rolling south along route one and taking every coastal city in its path. Names that had etched deep stars in the american psyche after years of war took the headlines, da nang, cameron bay. In the central highlandself north vietnamese divisions sliced eastward. For days prior to the fall of saigon, the byproducts of that relentless conquest were thousands of panicked refugees trying to flee the country in anything that would float. And then just a short little excerpt from Chapter Three entitle dunkirk in reverse.