Remembering Martha Middlebrook

It was crushing news for a widowed mother. An officer from the local Naval Reserve Center came to her Amethyst Street home in Cape Girardeau on Tuesday, April 8, 1975. He relayed heartbreaking news that her only child, 31 year-old Martha, was listed on a manifest for a plane that crashed in Vietnam, but her personal effects had not been found.

The Middlebrook family was well known in town. Father, Dolphus, a World War II Navy veteran, worked at Cape Cut Rate drug store on Broadway until his death in 1969. Mother, Lois, was a familiar face to women shopping at Main Street's Libson Shop for popular, well-made fashions. Their child, Martha, was born and raised in Cape Girardeau, educated at Holy Family School, Notre Dame and Central High schools (Class of 1961), and she studied a year at Southeast Missouri State College, aspiring to be a physical education teacher.

But civil service opened a different path. Martha passed the civil service exam and struck out on her own, as a "civilian secretary" for the Army. She worked two years at Fort Leonard Wood and three years at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana, before she opted, in 1972, to go to South Vietnam. In the war-torn country, her work was through the Defense Attache Office of Saigon.

Martha was home for Christmas in 1973, and she frequently wrote home. Lois's last letter included Martha's plans to travel to Europe for an upcoming leave (in early April) and to return home to Cape Girardeau in June.

Conditions in Saigon deteriorated quickly in the spring of 1975. Fighting that had been hundreds of miles away suddenly became direct attacks on April 3. President Gerald Ford announced Operation Babylift, a month-long series of politically controversial evacuation flights to transport 3,000 displaced Vietnamese children, mostly orphans, to the U.S. Attacks hastened the need for civilian personnel evacuation as well. It seems many were asked to escort the children during these daring flights. Martha was on the first flight, departing on Friday, April 4, 1975.

Three hundred fourteen souls boarded a Lockheed C-5A Galaxy -- a massive plane usually used to transport tanks and large vehicles in the cargo deck and troops in the upper passenger deck. The smallest babies were belted three to a seat with caregivers kneeling on the floor between rows on the upper deck. Older children and adult evacuees sat on benches or sat on the floor of the lower cargo bay. Just moments into the flight, a significant structural failure on the plane caused an explosion, resulting in loss of hydraulic and electrical controls, decompression and a mayday situation for the pilots. They managed to circle the plane back toward Saigon, but crashed short of the air base. There were 176 survivors, but 78 children and 46 adults were killed.

Two days after Lois was told Martha may have been on the fated plane, the Navy confirmed her death. Arrangements were made to return her remains and 17 days later Martha's friends and family mourned her at an April 28 funeral and interment at Fairmount Cemetery.

"Operation Babylift Tragedy: The Untold story of Vietnam War Orphans" -- a documentary available on YouTube -- presents more details of this tragic event.

Striving to make Black History Month local and relevant, Trish Newbern and Linda King brought Martha Middlebrook's story to my awareness. Newspaper archives and memories shared by Steve Edwards and Howard McGee result in a combined effort to show appreciation for Martha's life and sacrifice in the history of our community.

Denise Lincoln values the region's rich, interracial history and writes to restore awareness of individuals who contributed to our common good.