In the process of investigating background for the biography of Father Ray Brennan (1932-2003) we discovered that the remains of a number of the children from that ill-fated flight (C-5 crash of 1975) are buried in a Catholic cemetary in Pattaya, Thailand. Fr. Brennan obviously gave his permission for their burial in a mass gravesite. There may be as many as 70 children buried there. To complete our story we would like to know how they came to be in Thailand after the crash. Perhaps they were sent to the U. S. A. F. base in nearby Utapao, Thailand for indentification. No one seems to know for sure. Can anyone help?

--tomvhaw@yahoo.com

78 children in the care of Rosemary Taylor died in the C-5A Galaxy crash
April 4, 1975, just outside of Saigon. During this night all bodies of those who died in the crash were flown to the USAF base in Utapao, Thailand. Here, US citizens who died in the crash were identified, as well as third country nationals (including nursery staff from Australia, France, Germany and Malasia).

The children were buried in the cemetery behind St. Nickolas Catholic Church in Pattaya. The USAF first marked the grave with a memorial stating: Children Known Only To God.

Those of us who cared for and loved these children and knew their names placed an additional marker which reads:
Out of your smile will bloom a flower
And those who love you will behold you
Across ten thousand worlds of birth and dying.
Thich Nhat Hanh

I am a nurse who assisted Rosemary Taylor from early May 1973 until I left Vietnam April 26, 1975 with 200 infants and children, whose families were unknown. I had boarded 22 children on the Galaxy, and arrived minutes later at Saigon Adventist Hospital when the first vehicles arrived, bringing children and adults, both living and dead, from the crash site.

I cared for some of the injured children who survived until I took them with me on April 26, 1975 on another cargo plane.

Susan Carol McDonald
Sister of Loretto
susanmcdo@aol. com

--Susan Carol McDonald