Present at the Apocalypse (July/August 1991 | Volume: 42, Issue: 4)

Present at the Apocalypse

AH article image

Authors: Larry Engelmann

Historic Era: Era 10: Contemporary United States (1968 to the present)

Historic Theme:

Subject:

July/August 1991 | Volume 42, Issue 4

Early in 1973 a woman named Jan Wollett applied for a job as a flight attendant with World Airways, based in Oakland, California. Her previous job had been as a secretary for the actress Jennifer Jones; she loved to travel and felt that working for an airline would give her a chance to see the world while earning a living.

Wollett had marched in demonstrations against the Vietnam War as a college student in the late 1960s, and, like millions of Americans, she assumed that it was all finally ending as the last American troops were coming home. It was not. The Vietnamese continued to fight and die. America continued to provide arms to the South, and the Soviet Union and China gave weapons to the North and the National Liberation Front (Vietcong). World Airways, owned by Edward J. Daly, happened to be a principal charter airline for the American military forces in Asia, flying routes between Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Okinawa, Thailand, and Vietnam. Wollett completed her training in March and was assigned to World’s Asian route in July.

She paid little attention when, in early March 1975, the North Vietnamese launched a major offensive in the central highlands, broke through the South Vietnamese lines, and began a rush to the coastal cities of Da Nang and Nha Trang. She had six weeks of vacation coming and had invited her father to visit her in Asia. He made the trip, and they went fishing together in Thailand and then returned to her home in Japan, planning to travel to South Korea for more fishing. Before they could depart, Wollett received a call from a World Airways dispatcher.

“Jan, I’ve got a big favor to ask,” he said. “You know we’re under contract to USAID (the State Department’s Agency for International Development), and we have these special flights running in Vietnam to bring refugees from Da Nang down to Saigon. We are short-staffed here, and we really need you.” The dispatcher promised to double her vacation time and fly her father to Korea if she would go. She agreed.

 

She flew to Saigon the next day. Charles Patterson, one of World’s vice presidents, had been on the flights to Da Nang to bring down refugees and government officials, and that night he warned Daly that the situation at the Da Nang airport was getting out of hand. He feared that a flight might be mobbed on the ground and prevented from taking off by panicky civilians and soldiers trying to escape the North Vietnamese army. Daly listened to Patterson’s warning and decided not to fly to Da Nang again. But, Patterson says, “There was part of Mr. Daly that was John Wayne, and there was part of Mr. Daly that was the caring individual,” and those parts apparently won out over caution. Early the next morning, Daly decided to make one last run to collect refugees,