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Captain Dick McKenna: XO of USS KIRK Shares His Experience During The Fall Of Saigon
Manage episode 375561901 series 3339032
National Museum of the Surface Navy에서 제공하는 콘텐츠입니다. 에피소드, 그래픽, 팟캐스트 설명을 포함한 모든 팟캐스트 콘텐츠는 National Museum of the Surface Navy 또는 해당 팟캐스트 플랫폼 파트너가 직접 업로드하고 제공합니다. 누군가가 귀하의 허락 없이 귀하의 저작물을 사용하고 있다고 생각되는 경우 여기에 설명된 절차를 따르실 수 있습니다 https://ko.player.fm/legal.
Picture it: April 1975. Saigon has fallen. Thousands are frantic to get out. They take to the roof of an apartment building and fly off in the largest helicopter evacuation in history. But where do they go?
At least 17 head out to sea and attempt to land aboard USS KIRK, the destroyer-escort where a young Dick McKenna is the executive officer.
In this podcast Dick shares his experience over those harrowing days in late April, and describes what it was like when "Operation Frequent Wind" suddenly transformed his ship into a temporary home for over 150 Vietnamese refugees and part of the rescue of over 30,000 people.
Appendix:
The Knox class destroyer escort USS KIRK was commissioned Sept. 9, 1972.
Following Operation Frequent Wind she continued to serve the US Navy until her decommissioning in 1993.
She was loaned to the Taiwanese Navy in August of that year, stricken from the US Navy in 1995, and purchased by Taiwan in 1999.
She still serves the Taiwanese Navy today.
In the years following the fall of Saigon, the US Navy Bureau of Medicine decided to commission a movie titled, "The Lucky Few" to tell the tale of the medical efforts involved in the rescue.
Because of "The Lucky Few," the KIRK was featured in Rory Kennedy's Academy Award nominated film, "The Last Days of Vietnam."
Operation Frequent Wind remains one of the greatest humanitarian acts in the history of the United States military.
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