Women Who Died in the Viet Nam War
For this Veterans Day it is also important to remember the woman who made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam. All too often folks think of the men who died… Here is a list I came across sometime ago, while I was doing some research on the Vietnam War…
UPDATE:
Operation Babylift – April 1975
Feb 22, 2007 4:17 PM
Subject: [Kevin Dayhoff - Soundtrack Division of Old Silent Movies] New comment on 20061111 1959 1975 Women Who Died in the Viet Nam ....
Lana has left a new comment on your post "20061111 1959 1975 Women Who Died in the Viet Nam ...":
Please visit my website at:
www.Vietnambabylift.org
for information and details re: "Operation Babylift".
Excerpted from www.Vietnambabylift.org:
On April 3, 1975, United States President Gerald R. Ford announced that "Operation Babylift" would fly from Vietnam to safety in America some of the estimated 70,000 Vietnamese babies and children who were left orphaned by the Vietnam War. Thirty flights, combining private and military planes, transported at least 2,000 children to the United States and another 1,300 children to Canada, Europe and Australia. These children, born in a war-torn land, grew up as members of international, adoptive families. These adoptees and their families acknowledge President Ford, himself an adoptee, for the important role he played in ensuring them a new life. Many will be on hand on Saturday to share in a ceremony honoring President Ford and in the presentation of this recently released film about their story.
Read the rest here.
Thank you “Lana.”
####
______
American and Australian Civilian and Military Women Who Died in the Viet Nam War (1959-1975)
http://grunt.space.swri.edu/womenkil.htm
Military
U.S. Army
2nd Lt. Carol Ann Elizabeth Drazba
2nd Lt. Elizabeth Ann Jones
Lt. Drazba and Lt. Jones were assigned to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon. They died in a helicopter crash near Saigon, February 18, 1966. Drazba was from Dunmore, PA, Jones from Allendale, SC. Both were 22 years old.
Capt. Eleanor Grace Alexander
1st Lt. Hedwig Diane Orlowski
Capt. Alexander of Westwood, NJ, and Lt. Orlowski of Detroit, MI, died November 30, 1967. Alexander, stationed at the 85th Evac., and Orlowski, stationed at the 67th Evac. in Qui Nhon, had been sent to a hospital in Pleiku to help out during a push. With them when their plane crashed on the return trip to Qui Nhon were two other nurses, Jerome E. Olmstead of Clintonville, WI, and Kenneth R. Shoemaker, Jr. of Owensboro, KY. Alexander was 27, Orlowski 23. Both were posthumously awarded Bronze Stars.
2nd Lt. Pamela Dorothy Donovan
Lt. Donovan, from Allston, MA, became seriously ill and died on July 8, 1968, in Gia Dinh Province, South Vietnam, at the age of 26. She was assigned to the 85th Evac. in Qui Nhon. Lt. Donovan was born in Wirral, Merseyside (in England), UK, March 25, 1942, to Irish parents. The family returned to Dublin, Ireland; and Pam was raised and educated there before the family came to Brighton, Massachusetts.
1st Lt. Sharon Ann Lane
Lt. Lane died from shrapnel wounds when the 312th Evac. at Chu Lai was hit by rockets on June 8, 1969. From Canton, OH, she was a month short of her 26th birthday. She was posthumously awarded the Vietnamese Gallantry Cross with Palm and the Bronze Star for Heroism. In 1970, the recovery room at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, where Lt. Lane had been assigned before going to Viet Nam, was dedicated in her honor. In 1973, Aultman Hospital in Canton, OH, where Lane had attended nursing school, erected a bronze statue of Lane. The names of 110 local servicemen killed in Vietnam are on the base of the statue.
Lt. Col. Annie Ruth Graham, Chief Nurse at 91st Evac. Hospital, Tuy Hoa
Lt. Col. Graham, Chief Nurse, 91st Evacuation Hospital, 43rd Medical Group, 44th Medical Brigade, Tuy Hoa, from Efland, NC, suffered a stroke and was evacuated to Japan where she died four days later on August 14, 1968. A veteran of both World War II and Korea, she was 52.
U.S. Air Force
Capt. Mary Therese Klinker
Capt. Klinker, a flight nurse with the 10th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, Travis Air Force Base, temporarily assigned to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, was on the C-5A Galaxy which crashed on April 4, 1975, outside Saigon while evacuating Vietnamese orphans. This is known as the Operation Babylift crash. From Lafayette, IN, she was 27. She was posthumously awarded the Airman's Medal for Heroism and the Meritorious Service Medal.
Australian Nurse Corps
Barbara Black
Barbara died at Vung Tau, Vietnam in 1971.
Civilian
American Red Cross
Hannah E. Crews
Died in a jeep accident, Bien Hoa, October 2, 1969.
Virginia E. Kirsch
Murdered by U.S. soldier in Cu Chi, August 16, 1970.
Lucinda J. Richter
Died of Guillain-Barre Syndrome, Cam Ranh Bay, February 9, 1971.
Army Special Services
Rosalyn Muskat
Died in a jeep accident, Long Binh, October 26, 1968.
Dorothy Phillips
Died in a plane crash, Qui Nhon, 1967.
U.S. Department of the Navy OICC (Officer in Charge of Construction)
Regina "Reggie" Williams
Died of a heart attack in Saigon, 1964.
Catholic Relief Services
Gloria Redlin
Shot to death in Pleiku, 1969.
Central Intelligence Agency
Barbara Robbins
Died when a car bomb exploded outside the American Embassy, Saigon, March 30, 1965.
Betty Gebhardt
Died in Saigon, 1971.
United States Agency for International Development
Marilyn L. Allan
Murdered by a U.S. soldier in Nha Trang, August 16, 1967.
Dr. Breen Ratterman (American Medical Association)
Died from injuries suffered in a fall from her apartment balcony in Saigon, October 2, 1969
Journalists
Georgette "Dickey" Chapelle
Killed by a mine on patrol with Marines outside Chu Lai, 1965.
Philippa Schuyler
Killed in a helicopter crash into the ocean near Da Nang, May 9, 1967.
Missionaries
Carolyn Griswald
Killed in raid on leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet 1968.
Janie A. Makil
Shot to death in an ambush, Dalat, March 4, 1963. Janie was five months old.
Ruth Thompson
Killed in raid on leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet, February 1, 1968.
Ruth Wilting
Killed in raid on leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet, February 1, 1968.
POW/MIA
Evelyn Anderson
Captured and burned to death in Kengkok, Laos, 1972. Remains recovered and returned to U.S.
Beatrice Kosin
Captured and burned to death in Kengkok, Laos, 1972. Remains recovered and returned to U.S.
Betty Ann Olsen
Captured during raid on leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet 1968. Died in 1968 and was buried somewhere along Ho Chi Minh Trail by fellow POW, Michael Benge. Remains not recovered.
Eleanor Ardel Vietti
Captured at leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot, May 30, 1962. Still listed as POW.
Operation Babylift
The following women were killed in the crash, outside Saigon, of the C5-A Galaxy transporting Vietnamese children out of the country on April 4, 1975.
All of the women were working for various U.S. government agencies in Saigon at the time of their deaths with the exception of Theresa Drye (a child) and Laurie Stark (a teacher). Sharon Wesley had previously worked for both the American Red Cross and Army Special Services. She chose to stay on in Vietnam after the pullout of U.S. military forces in 1973.
Barbara Adams; Clara Bayot; Nova Bell; Arleta Bertwell; Helen Blackburn; Ann Bottorff; Celeste Brown; Vivienne Clark; Juanita Creel; Mary Ann Crouch; Dorothy Curtiss; Twila Donelson; Helen Drye; Theresa Drye; Mary Lyn Eichen; Elizabeth Fugino; Ruthanne Gasper; Beverly Herbert; Penelope Hindman; Vera Hollibaugh; Dorothy Howard; Barbara Kauvulia; Barbara Maier; Rebecca Martin; Sara Martini; Martha Middlebrook; Katherine Moore; Marta Moschkin; Marion Polgrean; June Poulton; Joan Pray; Sayonna Randall; Anne Reynolds; Marjorie Snow; Laurie Stark; Barbara Stout; Doris Jean Watkins; Sharon Wesley
59 civilians
9 military
--
68 total
Sources
Vietnam Women's Memorial Project (Military) and A Circle of Sisters/A Circle of Friends (Civilian):
Vietnam Women's Memorial Project
2001 S Street NW, Suite 302
Washington, D.C. 20009
Phone: 202-328-7253
A Circle of Sisters/A Circle of Friends
1015 South Gaylord, Suite 190
Denver, CO 80209
Phone: 303-575-1311
