Last Flight by Kristen Mai Giang

Saigon, Vietnam is a city with busy streets. We were used to the sounds of sandals on the pavement and motorbikes. But the war brought new sounds: heavy boots and booms that felt nearer and nearer. When it was time for Ma to have her baby, Ba drove her holding a lantern on his motorbike. There were now eight in our family.

Then we learned that Saigon was falling. Since Ba worked for Pan Am, an American airline, he told us we would go to America. Pan Am promised to fly their workers out of the country. As the war came closer, the booms became louder and some days we could smell tear gas. Eventually only one flight out of the country remained and we had to be on that flight. 

However, we did not have the papers required by Vietnamese citizens to leave the country. In the hopes of solving this problem, Mr. Topping who was Ba's boss at Pan Am decided to declare his Pan Am Vietnamese staff as his family and signed adoption papers for over three hundred people!  But they also needed a plane and a flight crew.

The last night before the flight, we slept at Ba's office. In the morning buses took us to the airport. But Ma and Ba were worried because people were saying the airport was closed. However, at the airport we saw a Pan Am plane landing. President Gerald Ford had declared the flight an emergency rescue flight and a volunteer crew were on the plane. Hundreds of people clamored aboard the plane. When it was decided the plane was too heavy, we threw out bags to make more room. 

Soon the plane raced down the runway and was in the air. We left Saigon behind and faced the biggest job of all, starting over.

Discussion

Last Flight is the story of Kristen Mai Giang's family's escape from Saigon on April 24, 1975, a mere six days before the city's surrender to the North Vietnamese army. Kristen Mai Giang was only eighteen months old when her family left Vietnam. The story recounted in the picture book is a fictionalized version of what happened, based largely on her older sister Linh's memories as well as those of Allan Topping whom the author interviewed.  For example, her family never knew Allan Topping but his role in saving more than four hundred people just before the fall of Saigon is well documented. In addition to that, he was also responsible for evacuating more than six hundred Vietnamese orphans out of the country in Operation Baby Life, the week prior.

Airways Magazine has an excellent article that describes the situation leading up to the last Pan Am flight, identified as 1965/31. The details of the flight were kept secret so that the airport would not be overrun with people attempting to board. The flight would take not only Pan Am employees but anyone else it could, who wanted to leave the country. 

Giang, in her Author's Note, writes that she "wanted to highlight what seemed to me the real miracle of this story, -- the simple and sometimes stunning ways people choose to help each other." Last Flight does just that, showing how Linh helped her mother pack, how she put one stuffed puppy into a bag so her little sister could be brave, how she helped the little ones stay quiet at Ba's office and how her Ma and Ba gave money to help pay for more people to escape on the last flight.

The artwork for Last Flight was created by retired pediatrician, Dow Phumiruk using pencil and coloured using Photoshop.

Included in the back matter is a photograph of the author's familiy shortly after their arrival in the United States, an Author's Note, Flight Facts about the last Pan Am flight out of Vietnam, and a Bibliography.

Book Details:

Last Flight by Kristen Mai Giang
Montclair: Levine Querido     2023